Ask HN: My manager is asking me to violate MS licensing. What should I do?
I had to research licensing in depth when putting together a proposal to replace all the servers. It turns out that we should have External Connector licenses, as well as about 35 CALs for internal users. We can no longer claim ignorance on this issue.
The company has decided to move fully to AWS in the next year, so the requirement has changed to keeping the colo going for 6 to 9 months. I supplied estimates to management of the cost of getting the licensing in order - around £7k. My manager has strongly suggested that his preference would be just to forget about it since it's only a few months and we've got away with is so far.
The management seem to think that MS can only request voluntary audits and that the worst case risk is that we'll be forced to buy what's required to become compliant.
My question is how I should respond to this, and what the law says. Bear in mind we're in the UK and the law may be different here compared the US.
(1) Is MS entitled to forcibly audit us? (2) If we violate the licensing, what is the worst case? Can they enforce fines on the company? (3) Is this a criminal matter, or a contractual/civil matter? (4) What is the personal liability of individuals here? Are IT/Sysadmin people able to be held personally liable in law?
We actually received a voluntary Microsoft audit some time back (maybe 18 months ago), when we had a different IT manager and a dedicated sysadmin. The sysadmin did the audit work, but then he was made redundant. MS came back with a load of queries, but our IT manager at the time just ignored it until it went away. My concern is that this might flag us up for a more aggressive audit at some point.
7 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 34.8 ms ] threadI don't know how the situation is now (US or UK), but in past years the BSA could show up in the US with warrants and a US Marshal or two in tow to force an audit on their terms.
2) Microsoft/BSA can fine the company[0].
3) Civil. It is only criminal if the company was producing pirated materials for profit (e.g. pumping out cracked copies of Windows to sell on eBay). The BSA normally sues companies in civil courts and extracts license fees and fines.
4) You have no personal liability from Microsoft. Between Microsoft and the company it is a contract dispute. However arguably if the company you worked for did get sued and lose a good chunk of change, they could in turn try to sue you, but I've never seen that and it is pretty easy to CYA via documenting the issue for them.
Overall I'd say that as an individual employee you have little to no exposure (other than getting fired). As a contractor "it depends" on what you did and didn't do (since a contractor can be treated like a stand alone entity, and blame can be shifted in part or entirely onto them).
[0] http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/applications/sme-fined-2...
They've given a reason, and this includes a business case for their justification. You're neither responsible nor accountable for their decisions (which you've informed them of).
You have raised your concern.
A bigger question for me, is this a systematic thing in your company? Or just your manager? Or ripping of other things is OK too? If so, at some point there will be negative repercussion, and at that point no order of internal memos will separate you from the brand you worked with.