Evan on Engineering Software

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Yes you have been Evan and along with other issues surrounding software that are outside features and functions - licencing in particular - I also have spent countless hours trying to get customers to give these issues serious consideration, planning and action, with almost a zero result!

Caveat emptor - CAD software buyers beware.

Now, I am going to go waaaay out on a limb here and say, that to say, "neither vendors nor users seem to grasp its importance" is not my experience, indeed the reverse is true.

I'll go one radical step further and say that the sooner something goes dramatically wrong, with data, in some companies the better. I would prefer people listen to advise, like yours, but in the absence of commonsense maybe some lessons need to be learnt the hard way.

My last two years plus, concentrating on licencing issues, has given me some interesting insights. I have not meet a single person or company who, when they have data protection and licencing conditions explained in detail, cannot grasp the importance of what they are told. But what disgusts me is that none are prepared to take any form of concrete long term action. Users - of all sizes and persuasions - belief that software vendors will never do anything to "hurt them" is staggering. They have swallowed software vendors rhetoric hook, line and sinker and hide behind it as if it some type of protective shield.

Even when shown documentary evidence of how software contracts have been altered, on the fly, and vendors denials that it has occurred, and how data is already collected from their systems, users will still not consider there is anything they can do; "what choice do we have" is an all too common response and one I hear with sickening repetition.

User are sitting on their hands while software vendors are using licencing contracts and functionality to steadily build an environment that will put at risk all users data. There are horrific historic parallels that can be drawn in relation to this type of "head in the sand, I can't speak out" behaviour and in relative terms the outcomes will be similar.

Do vendors and users grasp the importance of these issues? Experience says they do; vendors are using the knowledge to their advantage whilst nose leading gullible users with - "trust us" - comments. Vendors trust no user and yet ask their customers to trust them; they don't, but do nothing to protect their businesses either - perverse thinking?

Should you, or I, be concerned about users and companies who fail to heed verifiable warnings; why should we not just let the vendors have their way unchallenged? The answer is, of course, we then have the same conditions imposed on us even tho' we tried to prevent them. Numbers count, and lazy unthinking users who accept vendors unreasonable conditions count as customers thereby, empowering vendors with the confidence to say to the likes of me - "others don't complain so what's your problem?".

Vendors grasp the importance Evan and so do users, when explained. However the actions of one group and the inaction of the others gives the appearance that neither do.

"losing years of critical knowledge" maybe necessary, for some, to acknowledge your "alarm bells" were heard but ignored!


EStTA - "When your one step ahead of the crowd you're a genius; when your two steps ahead you're a crackpot" - Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.