Talk:Software Alliance

IP Addresses?

Has anyone audited or checked for the source of this IP address list? Doing an IANA lookup on a randomly selected address from the list, 195.243.162.0, yields AL.systems GmbH. A relationship to the BSA from here is non-obvious. Can anyone clarify? --ChrisRuvolo 00:50, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

BSA REMOVES IP ADDRESS LIST!!!

Holy crap, if I didn't just see this, I wouldn't believe it. According to the history [1] the IP address list was just removed by the host 209.70.21.174. This IP has had no other contributions [2] . Doing a reverse lookup on this address fails, but doing a whois on the IP address gives a Verio netblock with this message:

Comment:    Reassignment information for this block is
Comment:    available at rwhois.verio.net port 4321

When doing a lookup at this verio rwhois server, it gives:

> whois -h rwhois.verio.net 209.70.21.174
Business Software Alliance (NETBLK-BSA-----209-70-21--0E) BSA-----209-70-21--0E
                                                   209.70.21.0 - 209.70.21.255
Verio, Inc. - Mid-Atlantic (NETBLK-VRIO-209-070) VRIO-209-070
                                                   209.70.0.0 - 209.70.255.255

And a lookup of that block address gives:

> whois -h rwhois.verio.net NETBLK-BSA-----209-70-21--0E
Business Software Alliance (NETBLK-BSA-----209-70-21--0E)
   1150 18th Street NW
   Washington, DC 20036

   Netname: BSA-----209-70-21--0E
   Netblock: 209.70.21.0 - 209.70.21.255  
   Maintainer: A009

   Coordinator:
      Lorraine Cox  (LC2857-VRIO)  bsa@clark.net
      (202) 872-5500

So the conclusion is that the BSA itself removed the IP address list!! At least some of those addresses must be correct! This is pretty blantant manipulation. --ChrisRuvolo 21:57, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• I don't think that proves that some of the addresses must be correct, after all, someone could have just deleted this because they thought they might be right, or even they didn't want wikipedia to encourage ipblocking. That's assuming your above analysis of IP addresses is correct.

• I'm not convinced the IP list should be part of the entry at all. The sentence 'Anyone wishing to use IP blocking to stop the Business Software Alliance accessing their website might find these addresses useful:', seems to me to be giving subtle support to IP blocking, and doesn't look very neutral to me. It looks like it's endorsing IP blocking, rather than merely stating that some people use IP blocking. There are many other forms of protest that we don't cater for (nor should we IMO), as well as probably thousands of organisations that people may wish to protest against. IMO the KKK would be a much more worthy target.

• Then there is the question you raise earlier of whether the IP address are verifable. At the moment we don't have a source for the IPs, as far as I am aware, and so I think the IPs should be removed unless, and until we have a reputable source for them, even supposing we agree in principle with including them.

Silverfish 22:56, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would not object to removing them for the above reasons, especially if we could provide a link to the equivalent content. However, having the BSA remove them without comment is unacceptable IMO. --ChrisRuvolo 23:40, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree, having the BSA delete it seems like abuse, particular if they do it without discussing it here first. Anyway, I probably wouldn't object to a link to a website with the IP addresses in, as then we could say 'this is a group who oppose the BSA who encourage IP blocking and provide links to the BSA's IP addresses'. Then the POV would be that of the website, and they would be responsible for the accuracy (or otherwise) or the information. Silverfish 00:18, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

BSA vs. FOSS

It seems that BSA tries to negate meaning of freedom in their leaflets, insisting that FOSS is about development model only, and that all software development models should have equal rights as far as governments are concerned. This could show that RMS constant teaching about freedom does have some importance. --matusz 21:04, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Members

What is the list of members based on? This list seems quite different. --Tgr 18:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

What are the legal grounds for conducting an audit?

From the Overview:

 BSA then sends the companies a note ...

then

 If the BSA finds cases of software piracy,

What happens between these two events? Can the BSA force a company to cooporate with an audit? I would think so, since companies would normally not want to give an outside party that kind of access to their inner workings. But what are the legal grounds for this? Does the BSA actually get a warrant?

BSA's Legal Grounds For Audit

The Business Software Alliance is a private trade organization with absolutely no independent law enforcement authority. The BSA's members include the largest software publishing companies in the world and most notably, Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, Network Associates, Autodesk and Macromedia. These companies provide the Business Software Alliance a power of attorney to act on their behalf to accuse businesses of software piracy. Accordingly, the BSA can enforce only those rights that its member software publishers have. Legally, software companies usually have a contractual relationship with a customer based upon a software license and also have the rights provided under copyright laws that protect the holder of copyright against infringement. These are the rights that the Business Software Alliance's enforcement department is attempting to protect. Additional information regarding BSA Audits is available here www.bsadefense.com or blawg.bsaaudits.com.

POV

I have tagged this article as POV as it currently contains a significant amount of unsourced and POV statements. Also, the general tone of the article is 'this organisation is scum' which even if it is true, it shouldn't be the tone of any article on this site. Finally, the overall amount of negative criticism of the company is not really countered in any way so a complete argument is not presented. -Localzuk^(talk) 09:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I was wondering which sections/paragraphs you had in mind in particular. I ask because I wrote most of 2.1, and I took quite a bit of time to look for reasonable sources, which were all criticism (even though I looked hard for general sources on the topic). Section 2 in general could do with an overall (especially in the sources). The mention of the Free software foundation in the overview seems indeed NPOV to me, but more generally, it is going to be a tough one: almost all the sources I have seen, apart from press releases from software publishers, have been critical... Schutz 09:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)