Lars at the OSL

I am a software developer. I’ve had a long and fruitful career both as a corporate employee and an independent consultant. In 1999, I took a left turn with my career and opened a nursery specializing in rose bushes. I took a couple of older computers discarded by my software consulting business and dedicated them to the new business. Using Microsoft Access, Visual Studio C++ and libraries licensed from Rogue Wave Software, I created the software to control the entire business: inventory management, customer management, order fulfillment, web site generation and accounting. Most of my waking hours were dedicated to the evolution of this all encompassing small business software package.

In 2001, as my business was growing rapidly, I got a letter from Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance (BSA). I was told that there was pirated software in use in my business and I was potentially liable for thousands of dollars in damages to Microsoft. Reading on, I was informed that the BSA has the right to audit my business at anytime and if they found illegally copied software the consequences would be dire for my business.

I was dumbfounded. I began an audit of my own operations. I realized I was missing some paperwork. The machine that I used with Microsoft Access was purchased in 1997 by my software consulting business. While I had the original receipt for the machine that showed that I had purchased the Small Business package that included Access, I could not find the Certificate of Authenticity for MS Office.

I went back to the letter from the BSA. According to them, there was some good news: an amnesty program. I could get legitimate licenses for my software at discounted rates directly from Microsoft. It would be so convenient, they provided an 800 number as well as a Web site. They suggested that I take advantage of their offer immediately, because the BSA is auditing thousands of businesses every year.

I considered biting their hook. But some research showed that Access had changed significantly between the 97 and 2000 versions. I would have to re-implement the front end of my software to make it work with Access 2000. The price for the new software coupled with the lost time and expense of re-engineering the front end was too much. In the midst of the nursery’s busy shipping season, I had no time to dedicate anything but order fulfillment, inventory care and keeping the irrigation system running.

I remember sitting at my desk one evening pondering how to resolve this problem. Then I noticed the envelope that the original letter had come in: it was addressed to “Ms. Rose Uncommon”. My business is called “The Uncommon Rose”. There is no one here named Ms. Rose Uncommon. We get junk solicitation mail for this non-existent person all the time. It was suddenly clear that they had purchased a bulk mailing list and carpet bombed everyone on it. Microsoft had adopted a policy of marketing by blackmail: “Buy our products or we’ll sue you!”

My business is my livelihood: it puts food on my table. It was time to swat Microsoft’s hand out of my revenue stream.

I stopped worrying about it until the end of the shipping season that year. I acquired a couple no-name computers and loaded them with Red Hat Linux. I learned about PostgreSQL, the Python language and Open Office. I cobbled together a replacement for all Microsoft products before the beginning of the next shipping season.

It’s now three years later and the business runs entirely on computers running Linux. OSS enables the Uncommon Rose to thrive without the yoke a mega-corporation whose agenda I neither understand nor trust. I’m no longer so intimately involved in the day to day operation of the nursery: I have employees for that. With my position at the OSUOSL, I have a great opportunity to contribute back to the community that helped me so much.