Re: Licensing
- From: Paresh Yadav <yparesh@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "mark.brinsmead@xxxxxxxxx" <mark.brinsmead@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:57:29 -0500
@Mark,
Apologies for delayed response as I am travelling. You have made very good
points. Thanks for sharing!
Paresh
On Friday, January 9, 2015, MARK BRINSMEAD <mark.brinsmead@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> hahah.
>
> Yes. I always encourage people to consult a (qualified) lawyer on
> questions of licensing. When I *do* provide advice, it is always limited
> to comments like "this is what the license agreement says you need to do".
> I would never presume to discuss (nor think that I know) what is or is not
> actually enforceable. I usually do point out, though, that Oracle corp can
> afford to spend a billion dollars on legal fees if they want to, and for
> people like that, I suspect that more things are enforceable than you would
> probably expect.
>
> Even for those who *try* to read and thoroughly understand the (standard)
> license agreements, there is a large body of *law* that can substantially
> affect what the license *really* means (for example, can Oracle *really*
> incorporate their entire documentation set into the license, simply by
> mentioning a URL?) and these laws will vary by region.
>
> Of one thing, though, you can be reasonably certain -- if you step outside
> the bounds of what Oracle lays out in their OLSA, it is highly likely that
> the LMS people are going to come after you with some unwelcome requests
> following your next audit.
>
> Unless you are certain that your lawyers are smarter than Oracle's
> lawyers, you may want to take a conservative approach to licensing.
>
> In the meantime, I would *love* to see some examples of points in
> Oracle's licenses that your lawyers consider contradictory. It should be
> good entertainment, if nothing else.
>
> As for me, I have never noted any overt contradictions (although there
> may be significant differences between licenses, for example, if you have
> negotiated special agreements for development databases). I have, however,
> noticed lots of points where it could be almost impossible to demonstrate
> (let alone *prove*) that you are compliant.
>
> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 8:08 AM, Dave Morgan <oracle@xxxxxxxxxxx
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','oracle@xxxxxxxxxxx');>> wrote:
>
>>
>>> As for how long I have been involved in licensing Oracle's products?
>>> Well, I have never been an employee of Oracle, nor have I actually
>>> *written* one of their license agreements. I have, however, been *using*
>>> Oracle databases for close to 20 years, and reading the license
>>> agreements
>>> and advising customers on how to (correctly) comply with their licenses
>>> for
>>> much of that time. I am not a lawyer, but I am fairly widely perceived
>>> as
>>> "quite knowledgeable" on this subject. (Sadly, though, much of that
>>> perception may be due to the fact that few others actually *read*
>>> Oracle's license agreements, as I do.)
>>>
>>>
>> It blows my mind how many people think they "know" what the Oracle
>> licensing
>> obligations are. Would you ask a lawyer to run an Oracle database? So why
>> would
>> a DBA know anything about licensing?
>>
>> On every site I write up a list of databases with their associated
>> licenses and send it to
>> the corporate lawyer along with the related license agreements,
>>
>> PROD1 DB CSI XXXXXXXXX
>> PROD2 DB CSI YYYYYYYYY
>> Hot BACKUP CSI XXXXXXXXX
>> RMAN DB RMAN license
>> OEM DB OEM License
>> STG DB Oracle Development license
>> DEV_DB Oracle Development Database
>> .....
>>
>> In every case the lawyer (USA, UK and Canada)has come back to me and said
>> the licenses
>> contradict each other.
>>
>> In other words, it was impossible to correctly comply with all the
>> licenses.
>>
>> YMMV
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> --
>> Dave Morgan
>> Senior Consultant, 1001111 Alberta Limited
>> dave.morgan@xxxxxxxxxxx
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','dave.morgan@xxxxxxxxxxx');>
>> 403 399 2442
>> --
>> //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>>
>>
>>
>
--
Thanks
Paresh Yadav
416-688-1003
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