Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Microsoft middlemen rebel against removal of free software licences
More than 2,500 resellers and integrators have signed a petition opposing Microsoft's intention to remove free software licences granted to members of the channel to run their business.
The changes are described here:
Effective July 1, 2020, we will retire the internal use rights (IUR) association with the product licenses partners receive in the Microsoft Action Pack and included with a competency. Product license use rights will be updated to be used for business development scenarios such as demonstration purposes, solution/services development purposes, and internal training.
Beginning October 1, 2019, the product licenses included with competencies will be specific to the competency you attain. Please review the benefits you will receive with your competency in Partner Center at time of purchase. Additional licenses can be purchased through commercial licensing to run your business.
[...] The barriers to entry are low and companies who sign up can qualify for a range of competencies, starting with an "Action Pack" subscription that comes with a wide range of benefits, such as five Office 365 seats, five Dynamics 365 licences, 2-core SQL Server, ten Windows 10 Enterprise packages, $100 per month Azure credit and so on. The Action Pack costs around £350 per year but represents excellent value if you would otherwise have to purchase the licences. The same is true of the higher levels, Silver and Gold competencies, which command a higher fee but provide a wider range of benefits.
Resellers are not allowed to resell these specific licences, but critically, they do allow use for "internal business purposes". Smaller Microsoft channel firms have been able to operate their businesses, in large part, using these subsidised licences.
That offer is now ending. "We will retire product licenses for internal use purposes on July 1 2020," stated the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) guide.
(Score: 5, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:58PM (8 children)
Pray I do not alter it further. Hissss...
(Score: 5, Informative) by SDRefugee on Tuesday July 09 2019, @10:26PM (5 children)
Holy SHIT!! I used/supported MS crap for twenty years as a sysadmin, but I am SOOOOOOOOOOO damn glad I quit using their garbage when
I retired. Now its 100% Linux.. MS can go fuck itself....
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday July 09 2019, @10:29PM (1 child)
LOL. Ditto!
So glad everything I do is Linux/BSD now. I only have to be worried about MS, as much as I'm worried about Apple, and that's just whether or not the browser support is there. That's the extent of my cross platform concerns.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:13AM
Now if some linux browser would get hardware accelerated video decoding and 4k Netflix support we'd be in like Flynn.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 09 2019, @11:06PM (1 child)
I am very glad for you.
I am not quite old enough, or rich enough to retire yet, so here I am troubleshooting some stupid local profile crap on a Win 10 laptop.
Ah well, it pays the bills I suppose.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @11:11PM
You might think so, until the SBA raids you, and you find all your free licenses have been revoked, and now you are on the hook for $250,000 in
bribes . . . extortionfines.(Score: 5, Interesting) by boltronics on Wednesday July 10 2019, @02:55AM
When I first started at my current company 9+ years ago, one of my assigned tasks was to renew the Action Pack subscription every year. I don't remember the specifics, but I hated it. Microsoft's site wouldn't work properly unless you used IE (but you could get by with Firefox and some page formatting issues - I personally use Debian GNU/Linux), and you would need to take a small exam to explain why you need it, and prove that you were eligible and understood how the licensing worked, etc. Then MS would review and approve it, and you'd pay them a few hundred dollars.
After a couple of years, I came to the conclusion that most people weren't using it. Pretty much everyone here is using either a Mac or Ubuntu or Debian GNU/Linux. LibreOffice works just fine. Some people use Google Docs.
In the past our marketing department has said "we have to have MS Office licenses to ensure 100% guaranteed compatibility with clients" but even that isn't an issue anymore.
So I think when it was time to renew for my 3rd time, I said we wouldn't be renewing, would save the time and money, and life's been better ever since. Nobody has ever requested one of these useless MS Action Pack licenses. Good riddance.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:19AM (1 child)
Indeed. I am beyond getting sick of M$ thinking that they own and can license ALL of the computers--and the entire internet!--throughout all the world. When will somebody finally drive a stake through the heart of this beast? Assuming this beast even has a heart, that is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:31AM
My neighbor used to be in Microsoft sales for many years - doing "7 and 8 figure deals." He made plenty of money, but they eventually dissolved his division and let him go. Now he sells real estate, time will tell if he's got any luck at that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 09 2019, @11:00PM
However, they are scum...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:10AM (1 child)
Just think, maybe some of these MS partners/resellers will start running their own business offices with free software. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:15AM
Just think, maybe some of these MS partners/resellers will start running their own business offices with free software.
Maybe. One can hope so.
However, all the M$ fanbois I've every run across were, and still are, all without exception, warezmeisters. So if my decades long sample is anything to go by, the changing in fees by M$ will not increase the adoption of actual Free Software [gnu.org] much, just increase the amount of warez in circulation.
Another barrier is that the M$ software interfaces are designed for a familiar, soporific effect not efficiency. Free Software, on the other hand, is usually at least tries to be designed for efficiency, and even if that goal is sometimes not reached it often comes a bit farther than the M$ equivalents. But as bad or good as the user interface is, it can never have that familiar, soporific "Microsoft Look And Feel™" That is a good thing in the long run, to be sure, but in the short term will be a barrier for M$ die-hards and fanbois such as you have among the partners/resellers/fifthcolumnists.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by sjames on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:24AM (1 child)
So, once we qualify for all of that, are we OT 3 or do we have to serve with the Sea Org first?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @12:30PM
The one great heir has provided two children to be The Future of the great quest for Money err TruErrrrrr umm sometology!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:10AM (2 children)
Fortunately for me I am blissfully ignorant of Microsoft's licensing models.
So, what does all this really mean?
(Score: 4, Informative) by choose another one on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:29AM
> So, what does all this really mean?
It is just a continuation of a trend they started probably a decade ago, maybe more, of squeezing out the free or low-cost licensing options.
Their dev subscription service MSDN stopped offering "permanent" licences a long time ago, I still have piles of old DVDs with keys printed on them, which will probably still work - but these days you have to generate keys online with a current subscription, and your license to use expires when you stop paying. Most stuff you got with MSDN was supposed to be used for dev/test/demo not for running your business, but people did, and the keys got accidentally leaked. A lot.
Then there was Technet, which was intended for install / support folks rather than devs, was a very cheap (cheaper than MSDN) way of getting licences for practically everything - you were only supposed to use those licenses for testing and demonstration, not for running your business, but people did, and the keys got accidentally leaked. A lot. Technet was effectively pulled in 2013 I think, now you can only get limited time (90 day or so) demo versions, bit of a pain to run your business on those, but then pain is the idea, either of the repeated reinstall kind or of the wallet emptying kind.
Partner licences was the next scheme to crack down on, but they've been restricting that for a while too, this is just the latest turn of the screw. In the "old days" partner DVDs had "magic" keys that were practically unlimited, then they started restricting which products you got access to and how many concurrent use licences or installs you got, now it seems you will not get any "internal use" licences at all. Oh well, it was only a matter of time.
Not sure how good this is for MS - part of the idea of using an MS partner for a project used to be that they used the damned stuff to run their business every day so they would know the pain points etc., but maybe that is no longer the case, I don't know, haven't worked for an MS partner recently.
The whole landscape is changing and everything is moving to cloud and subscription. Maybe this is a deliberate part of that strategy or maybe it is just a last squeeze of the teat on the legacy cow, not sure. MS have got themselves to No.2 in cloud, yet many laughed at Azure when they launched it, I wouldn't underestimate them.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday July 10 2019, @02:56PM
It used to be the case that a company could become a Microsoft 'partner' and get a bunch software licenses for peanuts. e.g. I once worked for an ISP that did this. Now those folks will have to buy software licenses instead. They still have access to licenses for dev/test, but production use will need purchased licenses.
Note that this partner program is separate from the DreamSpark/.edu imagine program and the startup.microsoft.com program.
(This is not a statement on behalf of my employer.)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:25AM
My Judoon is bad, but could it be: "Mo Fo Mo Fo Mo Fo"
Or using a translator I found,
"mo plo to ho flo ro sho fo tro co kno flo ro sho go plo sho to plo sho ho flo lo lo"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:04AM
Free software licenses means something entirely different.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:38PM (1 child)
basically you're telling me that these microsoft shops sell software they're unwilling to pay for
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @02:24PM
yeah...well, they are *entitled* to free sh*t, aren't they?