Comments on: Rethinking software licensing

SWsoft CEO Serguei Beloussov says virtualization is creating new issues for buyers and sellers of software.

[MrNougat]

Licensing

Proprietary software licensing has got to be the most convoluted mess in IT. Every vendor does it differently, and many vendors have multiple licensing plans depending on how you intend to use the software, what hardware you're installing on, etc. There should be some limited number of industry standard licensing schemes; I'm sure that many companies are either operating outside of license agreements or paying for more licensing than they need simply because no one can comprehend all the different agreements.

[sarek1024]

Licensing reform

While not directly addressing this issue there are several licensing reform initatives out there. For exampl the Miai Foundation for Sustainable Intellectual Works (http://www.miai-siw.org) is working on a way to combine the best of closed with the best of open source. We have not directly addressed the issue of virtualized servers but we encourage agreements based on the execution of a program instead of the obtaining a copy of it.

[Gerald Quaglia]

Look for M$ to be first to the feeding troth

They are greedy and know that they have business over a barrel when it come to their software.

[Hardrada]

troth?

good remark troll. At least contribute something useful to the discussion - unless, of course, you have some facts or real data to base your 'predictions' on.