I reallly do not understand what the issue is.....

[Ben Scott]

On 3/9/07, Jon 'maddog' Hall <maddog at li.org> wrote:
> Is that a per-system $4,000., or a site-wide $4,000.?

  $4000 gets you all of the DST fixes for this issue, for Exchange and
Windows, for your organization.  I haven't read the EULA, but I
presume you cannot give it out to people outside your organization.

  Microsoft honestly seems to think they're doing us all a big favor
by offering the fixes for $4000.  According to them, we should really
be paying $40,000 for an Extended Support Agreement (which gets us all
the fixes for a product during the Extortion -- I mean, Extended --
Support Period).  So $4000 is an incredible bargain.

  MSFT really seems to operating on a different plane of reality.

> And if I somehow get that patch from a friend of mine, does that mean that
> Microsoft's anti-piracy systems will eventually kick in and shut down my system?

  Probably.  How else can Microsoft be sure they're "protecting" you
from un-Genuine software.

> I wonder if FORD will pay that $4,000.?  Or CitiBank? Or Bill's friends
> at Disney that depend on Microsoft's DRM?

  I'm sure big companies like that have either (1) already upgraded to
the latest-and-greatest, as part of their Volume License and Software
Assurance Agreement, or (2) already paid for the Extended Support
Agreement.  That's part of the problem.  Big companies like that are
used to paying through the nose for stuff like this.  They buy support
contracts for everything.  So Microsoft sits pretty, knowing that the
money will keep rolling in.

-- Ben