There is some weird shit going on with our Windows licensing. This isn't going to be a rant against Microsoft (besides the occasional jab); mostly against the idiocy of Bulgarian government bureaucracies...
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The outfit I work for (the National Laboratory of Computer Virology) is part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The latter is a government research institution, on government budget. The entity that decides how the budget is spent in the Ministry of Education.
Today, we were told that we have to pay for our Windows licenses. This sounds innocent but it is not. Bear with me for a while.
When you, a private person, buy Windows 10, you get one license key that you can use on your machine. If your machine breaks, you can install Win10 on another machine with the same key. You pay only once - on purchase.
When our Ministry of Education bought a license, it was something like a 60,000-user license. Single key, that all those 60k users use. When a new user uses a key, the number is decremented until the 60k runs out.
How was this 60k number decided? Some bureaucrat decided that this is how many we (the educational and research entities) need. Did anyone ask us how many we actually need? You must be kidding.
So, let's say you work for BAS and you need Win10 on your home machine. You get the key (that's the same for everyone) and install it on your home machine. So far, so good. But then your kid uploads that key to a torrenting site and this 60k number runs out pretty fast.
So, I end up wondering why the fuck I can no longer install my supposedly legal and registered Windows on a new machine after the old one broke.
As if that wasn't bad enough, those apparently aren't buy-once licenses. You are expected to pay for them every year to Microsoft. WTF, Microsoft?
So, now the Ministry of Education is asking *us* to pay for them - and to keep paying every year. For the licenses nobody asked us whether need them and how many.
Also, apparently the old 60k license will be renewed (i.e., paid) only for 10k installs. So how am I (or Microsoft, for that matter) supposed to know whether the license that let me install Windows five years ago is still valid and legal?
It's anyone's guess. One bureaucrat said - if they inspect your machines and it turns out you have more Windows machines than licenses you have paid for, you'll be in violation. How would I know which machines are in violation?
I can't. How are they going to inspect my home machine? They can't. How are they going to check the machines of those who downloaded the license key from a torrent site? They can't. God, what a mess...
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