RE: Open Source menu system

["James H H Lampert" <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>
>> > Hey, I have no problem with an open source menu system.  What I have
>> problems is using the menu system to bypass paying the license for
>> the ERP  package.
>>
>> But as I read it, they're not currently out to bypass paying whatever
>> they may already be paying for the licenses they already have, just to
>> bypass paying for additional licenses just to set up additional menus.
>
> I'm confused about your two examples; can you explain the difference why
> in your mind one is software theft and the other isn't ?

Suppose you have a fleet of fairly old Windoze machines. And you buy a
bunch of new ones, that have newer versions of M$ Office factory-installed
on them. A version that's got compatibility issues with the version on
your old machines, serious enough that once you save a Word document from
the newer machines, it's unreadable on the older ones.

You were never given the choice of putting the old version of M$ Office on
the new boxes. And you don't especially want to pay The Bill to update it
on the old boxes, an update that might even require you to put a newer
version of Windoze on them, or replace them outright (and once again pay
The Bill).

Is it software theft to install Open Office instead?

For that matter, if Microsloth started making you pay The Bill for the
privilege of browsing the web with Imploder, would it be software theft to
switch to Mozilla instead?

Back to the case at hand: We now have it from the proverbial "horse's
mouth" that the point of installing the open-source menuing system isn't
to avoid paying for additional (and expensive) ERP licenses for people who
are actually using ERP (whatever the Hell that is), but to avoid wasting
those licenses on non-ERP users.

--
JHHL