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Thursday, August 8, 2019

Customer Service?

It's no mystery that the company for which I worked after retiring from police service no longer exists. The former Nevada corporation known as Amped Software, Inc., is no more. My tenure ended as abruptly as the company at the end of February, 2019.

In spite of this, I still get calls daily from customers of that former company - customers who bought software, services, and support from that Nevada corporation - doing a little internet research to track down someone who will answer the phone (benefits of an unpronounceable Scandinavian last name, I guess). I'm happy to take their calls. I'm still able to answer UI / UX questions regarding the whole spectrum of technology used in digital / multimedia forensics. I can still offer training and consulting. What I can't do is sell Amped SRL's products or services. Neither can I comment officially on the inner workings of Amped SRL.

Why bring this up?

It seems with the latest update to FIVE, Amped SRL made yet another change to its EULA. Like the previous modification, it's a rather significant alteration of the agreement between the user and the creator of the software. This is important to an agency which requires the EULA to go through it's attorneys for vetting before software is purchased / installed (as is the case with many US-based agencies).

In essence, this agency's employee reached out to me for help / advice because he's facing discipline over having installed FIVE without first running the changed EULA by his agency's legal team for approval.

What he was hoping to verify was that there was no way he could have known in advance that from version to version, the EULA had changed.

My answer was a bit nuanced.

  • No, to the best of my knowledge, there is no place in the Amped website to find copies of the EULA. 
  • No, to the best of my knowledge, Amped does not publicly announce (press release) a change in licensing terms. 
  • No, to the best of my knowledge, Amped does not contact it's user base to announce that an update contains a new EULA. 
  • Yes, the end user is presented with the EULA when installing the software. One could read it and make decisions to install / not to install based upon what was read.
  • But, to the best of my knowledge, if the end user decides not to install the software, no copy of the EULA is installed on the computer. Thus, you have to install the software in order to have a copy of the EULA to share with others.
It's a kind of no win situation for this particular end user. Yes, he installed the software. Yes, he had to in order to have a copy of the EULA. Yes, according to the terms in the EULA, he agreed to the EULA - binding him / his agency to it's terms upon installation.

Why is this an issue?

The material change in the new EULA changes the venue for grievances, and thus the applicable laws, from Nevada to New York. This particular agency exists within a county that has chosen to boycott New York state and it's business for political reasons. I can certainly sympathize. I remember when I was prohibited from traveling to several training opportunities in states with which California had a beef.

At this customer's agency, there was a contractual relationship between it and Amped Software, Inc., a Nevada corporation, to provide software and support. Now, the end user has agreed (by installing FIVE) to the ending of that relationship and an establishment of a new relationship with Amped Software USA, Inc., a New York corporation. The end user did this without permission of his chain of command.

Yes, this all sounds pedantic. It probably is. But, in civil service, everything's cool until it's not. As a Shop Steward, I've seen this type of activity many times. Someone has it out for you and is no longer willing to overlook trivialities like this. It may seem silly to you and I, but in this jurisdiction, doing business with a company in New York is anything but trivial.

Unfortunately for the end user, it gets worse.

FIVE is not "free software," that is sure. According to the GNU, "“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”. We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis." FIVE, under that definition is not free.

Neither is FIVE "open source software." Here's how the Open Source Initiative defines "open source."

FIVE is commercial software, commercial software that wouldn't be nearly as functional were it not for free / open source software. It's built with wxWidgets and OpenCV, open source development tools. It's web support is enabled by free communication tools like Gmail.
  • That PDF report is made possible by wkhtmltopdf, which is an open source command line tool used to render HTML into PDF using the Qt WebKit rendering engine ... which explains why HTML is the default reporting format.
  • The visual part of playback happens with the assistance of MPlayer and Mencoder, a free movie player / encoder that's been around for almost 20 years and is available under GNU GLP. 
  • Decoding and playback of formats happens with the help of FFmpeg, FFMS2, and libde265 - doesn't everyone's these days?
  • The file information functions are supported by ExifTool and MediaInfo.
Why am I mentioning this? The end user found out, through an Internal Affairs inquiry, that these built-in tools all have their own license agreements that get installed (and thus agreed to) with the installation of FIVE. He submitted none of these license agreements to his purchasing department when requesting the software purchase. As a matter of course, the purchasing process asks the requestor for "all relevant license agreements" when requesting a software license purchase. Thus, in addition to the contracting issues, he's being accused of committing "lies by omission" for failing to disclose all relevant agreements - 11 counts in all, in addition to the issue with FIVE's EULA and his agreeing to it without permission. If you're curious, you can find the licenses FIVE's folder on your hard drive.

The customer allowed me to share this with you under the condition of anonymity. If all of this is news to you, and you see any of this as a problem, please consult your attorney / employee representative for advice. I'm not an attorney and this isn't legal advice. It's just an FYI to inform you of an issue of which you might not be aware.

Be well, my friends.

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