Fergie's Tech Blog

Why Winternals Sued Best Buy

Mark Russinovich writes over on the SysInternals Blog:

This post I’m taking a break from my standard technical postings to discuss a disturbing discovery regarding a large corporation’s unauthorized software usage. By now many of you have heard via Slashdot, arstechnica, Digg, or your local newspaper that Winternals Software, the company I co-founded with Bryce Cogswell in 1996, filed suit in Federal court against Geek Squad and Best Buy for illegal use of the Administrator’s Pak.

What the press coverage to date might not have made clear is what Geek Squad and Best Buy did prior to approaching Winternals in October 2005 about a license to our software, what they continued to do after terminating licensing discussions in February 2006, and why we felt we had no alternative but to protect our software through the legal system. This is the first lawsuit Winternals has ever initiated, and we did not approach the decision lightly.

posted by Fergie @ 4/21/2006 10:43:00 AM