Ryan Triplette and the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing

In this episode our host Craig Guarente welcome Ryan Triplette, Executive Director of the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing. Craig and Ryan discuss the Coalition and it's mission to highlight the importance of fair and transparent software licensing terms for both public and government sectors. They also share their experience with software licensing across industries, the challenges that different companies face while licensing software for critical business functions, and what organizations around the world are doing today to stay in compliance with an ever-changing digital landscape.

Learn more about the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing: https://fairsoftwarelicensing.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello,

SPEAKER_00 0:05

everybody, and welcome to our first Palisade podcast here. Appreciate your time. And Ryan, thank you for joining us as our inaugural guest. So please take it easy on me. I'm not a podcast expert here. But I'd love to introduce you for a second and talk about what you're doing these days. So Ryan and I have known each other for several years now. And Ryan is the executive director of the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing, which was launched in 2022 with the goal of promoting fair and less restrictive software licensing globally. Before that, in 2017, Ryan founded Canary Global Strategic. Before that, you were a principal at Franklin Square Group, bipartisan. And I'd love to talk about that a little bit because we don't really hear that word mentioned much these days. Boutique firm based in D.C. Before that, you were director of government relations with Intel. And before that, you worked with Senators Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter, member of the Virginia Bar. And thank you for joining us. That is some bio.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Oh, well, thank you. And first and foremost, Craig, I have to say, yes, we have known each other for several years and you were one of our first and more vocal supporters and advocates for the work that the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing has been doing. And so we're very appreciative of that and the expertise you have lended to us and really understanding the state of the software world, so to speak, the software licensing world. And I'm proud to be here as one of your inaugural participants in your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Not one of, you are the inaugural.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

The, the, yeah, sorry, verification there. So, well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Well, I remember... I believe that, actually, I don't remember whether or not you reached out to me or I reached out to you, but I saw that the coalition was founded. And I'm like, you know, we see that every day. We see unfair software licensing. So this is someone that I definitely want to get to know and meet and see what they're doing. So obviously, you don't grow up one day hoping that you can enter the world of software licensing. So how did you end up leading that organization.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Well, it was a very strange journey indeed. But so the coalition has been around for about four years and we're actually the, and this is important for how I ended up here. It was actually an outgrowth of a series of discussions that customer CIOs and technology CIOs were having regarding the impacts of their software licensing practices? How could you kind of create some greater clarity and predictability? What were the issues that they were experiencing? And after a number of different years, because as you can imagine, as I know you're well aware, these are sometimes relationships that can be very tense at times. They can be very friendly at times. They can be very tense. And so really sitting down and how do you come up with these high-level principles And it's something that actually originated over in Europe. And then when a number of American customers and technology providers were seeing what was developing over in the EU, they really wanted to have a similar initiative pick up in the US and really pick it up globally. I got brought in when there was that interest because I actually straddle my life between, well, I'm currently over in Paris, France, right now, but I spend my time between France and Washington, D.C. and bouncing around the U.S. on these different issues and both having kind of the connectivity to both different worlds, the U.S. and the EU, sometimes a little tense these days. We're hoping that it becomes less tense than it's been in the past couple of weeks. But between that, but also quite frankly, going back to my history, working with as a chief IP counsel for the in a judiciary committee. I've long worked on a number of these different issues, really looking at the intersection of how intellectual property policy is shaping the future of businesses, what's happening on not just... I originally just focused on technology companies, but as we all know, every company is a tech company these days. And so given that, and I've really worked on this for over 20 years, and so I got... hold into this world. Never did I think it was going to be one that I would be looking down the barrel at five years at. But here we go, continuing to fight the fight and really work hand in hand with individuals such as yourself who really are doing the frontline battles on the market. We're looking at helping shape the policy, both of the market-based policy and looking at those contractual terms, but really then talking to legislators and regulators and seeing what What can be done to help accelerate those issues?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

I would think that fair software licensing is not only something that's bipartisan, but who would disagree with fair software licensing? I think it was Churchill who said, you have enemies, great. That means you fought for something in your life. Who's against fair software licensing? Well,

SPEAKER_02 5:51

there's two different points that you brought up there. One, fair software licensing is actually bipartisan when you talk about legislation. And I can turn to that in a second in terms of legislative proposals we've been advocating for and supporting is one of the few things that you see a really good and robust bipartisan group of support for. But who is opposing it? Well, It's really like you have entrenched legacy software providers. These have been the Microsofts, the Oracles, the SAPs, unfortunately, the Broadcom VMWares of the world that have gone in and have used their historical legacy position dominant and legacy position to really seek to entrench themselves and further permeate kind of the rest of the market using those customer dependencies. And really, when you look at the bottom of the stack, you have the role that software licensing, contractual terms is playing is becoming more and more important as it's really impacting decisions up the cloud stack. It's becoming integral to basically a range of different IT decisions that customers are making these days. I

SPEAKER_00 7:14

remember when I started my company back in 2011, so 14 years ago, people were telling me, that I probably had about two years. Two years before software licensing was dead and everything would be in the cloud. So why are you doing this thing? Because that's just going away. Everything's going to be easy and open in the cloud and things will be flexible. I kind of found the opposite to be happening. Like you just mentioned, right? So, hey, we're this large, and my world is mostly Oracle, although we're beyond that now, but that's what we see. And we see this all the time where we have this database and we have these applications and we want you to move to the cloud, but it has to be our cloud and not the other cloud. And the other one's going to be more expensive. And it's amazing to me that a vendor can not only impose terms on their software, but they can even say, if you use somebody else's, it's going to be twice as expensive. So they didn't have to change, like Oracle and Microsoft, I guess they're sort of friends now, but not really. But Oracle will say, if you want to move to the cloud, that's great, but just that one is more expensive than ours. And they just do that with just changing websites and terms and conditions and things that you might not ever see as a user of their products.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Well, this is something that we fundamentally agree with you on in terms of not only believing that it's unfair, but also believing that it's fundamentally anti-competitive. And we have been focused over the past several years on the impacts that Microsoft's 2019 changes to the bring your own licensing policies have had on the overall market and creating the self-preferential terms that said, okay, and honestly kind of changing the way that the software system had worked previously to date, where once you had licensed the software, you could really fundamentally use it wherever you want. You could use it on the cloud of your choice, what was going to best address your needs, whether that was going to be a DigitalOcean to an AWS to Azure, regardless of where it was, you could run that software where it best met your needs or your overall IT strategy and where it would interoperate best with everything else. And then you've begun seeing these terms change to accomplish just this point that you're making where it's like, okay, fine, you can do that, but you're only going to get the best prices if you're staying within our own ecosystem. If you want to go to somebody else, you're going to pay sometimes five or more times more to be able to run it over there. When fundamentally the question is why. We had talked to customers and I started working on this over in 2021 and customers that had, at least in the case of Microsoft, it had signed deals that they had understood and let's say, July of 2019, we're going to operate one way only to be informed in November of 2019, they were going to be facing exponentially increased costs because they were running on another third party cloud. And this was something that had caught them unawares. And what's funny is that we're looking at an issue many years on and people are still struggling to understand. They're still struggling to understand Where can they use their BYOL rights? What do they need SPLAWs for? What is going to be the real cost impact? Not just with their software and understanding their software costs, but what impact that's going to have on their cloud costs. And what are going to be the terms and conditions that they have to ensure compliance? I mean, it really has become that much more complex. So it makes business booming for you, which in some ways, I hate to say it, as much as I love everything you're doing, I wish business wasn't as good.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, well, I don't think business is slowing down with what the vendors... You brought up Broadcom and VMware, and it's interesting that there's what Oracle did with Java and You know, so it's just, it's the same thing. It's just the different software or the different vendor. I think one of the, you know, All right, so I spent 16 years on the other side, you know, before I got out. And I was supporting all those policies and I was writing those contracts and we were writing those policies and implementing them. And, you know, being able to wear both hats, I think for me, professionally has been really effective. It helps our clients because I could put myself in the shoes of the vendor and not just the consumer of the products. And one of the things that, really gets me on this side in understanding why vendors do it is simply because it works, because they can, right? Why does Oracle audit so much? Why does Broadcom change the rules? Well, because they can, and it generates billions of dollars, right? Our clients come to me really frustrated with these big tech vendors. And in my head, sometimes I'm like, If I could do that, I would do it. If I could change a term and condition and have you

SPEAKER_02 12:59

give me more money. Better hyperlink and be able to just, you know, change it at will. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Sorry, your consulting agreement just auto-renewed and it's 12% more than it was last year. One of the things that really frustrates consumers of these products obviously is pricing, right? So now we're in the cloud and, you know, we have a little company and we're locked into certain vendors, certain CRMs vendors, they give us the renewal. And what am I going to say? I'm not going to pay the 12% increase. Of course you're going to pay it because the cost of switching is so high. But I think one of the biggest complaints I hear all the time is, We want to use less of your stuff and the price still goes up. So I bought 10, but now this year I want to use six and they say it's the same price. What are you guys doing about that? I mean, for me, that is one of the most unfair things is that it doesn't matter what your consumption is. It doesn't matter what you're using. You have to pay the same or more.

UNKNOWN 14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Well, I mean, there's a number of different things that we're seeking to do. One is because it's been kind of going back to a couple of different points that you're making in terms of the lack of negotiating leverage that customers have here. And A big part of that is what we're trying to change and really highlighting for policymakers of the impact that this is having. But to get to these different points, what has been fascinating is because there's such a concern by customers and consumers to speak up. And, you know, consumers, it's hard because you can you go into the ice, spend a lot of time on these forums and you see, you know, one person, two person, three people kind of speak up about this. But they also think, well, my individual voice isn't going to matter to a policymaker or and certainly they don't have the negotiating leverage against a giant corporation in that in that instance. But you end up having a similar dynamic when you're talking about enterprises. And that is where it becomes really disconcerting because you do have these other customers that are Fortune 50, and obviously the ones that are significantly smaller, we're all very concerned in this current environment with our SMBs. But you have these corporations that are being significantly adversely impacted, having huge drains on the resources that they're having to divert over to their software spend as opposed to putting it over either in other parts of IT transformation to deliver better services to their own consumers. But they have their own concerns about retaliation. They don't have the ability to push back. And so we've begun to see some of these customers being willing to talk to policymakers and share their experiences. We have strongly advocated for the Federal Trade Commission over in the U.S. to actively take this position. Once again, this has been something we filed a number of comments with the FTC with regard to Microsoft software licensing practices, but we know that they have been very interested in hearing about the impacts that customers are having from all the different vendors and looking at it from a number of different angles. But what's also been interesting is when you begin talking about the bottom line that the US government is experiencing. Because you have to remember, the US government is not just a customer itself. It is the largest customer in the world of software across all of these vendors. And when you look at the impact that these practices are having, whether it's your point of, you know, we want to use less, but we're still paying the same amount, or we want to be able to access and interoperate with the different technologies that are best in breed to address security concerns. We want to be able to access these different services. And they're seeing that bottom line budgetary spend going up, even if they're getting less or they're not getting what they exactly need, that becomes a change of dynamic. And we've seen it even recently with the House Veterans Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee having a hearing on the Department of Veterans Affairs, software licensing issues. This is something that unfortunately has been an issue for the past several years. It's something that the US Government Accountability Office has continually raised, not just with the VA, but really across departments and agencies, but really truly honing in on the impact that this is having over in the VA and their budgetary spend. But you're beginning to see policymakers really paying attention. And that's when I think they're beginning to notice like, okay, if this is something that is impacting as powerful of an entity as the VA or the DOJ or the DOD, what is the impact across other customers in the commercial sector?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah, what you said earlier about even large vendors are trapped almost, large consumers. So we've had... Fortune 10, Fortune 20 clients who are battling a particular tech vendor. And after a while, they'll be like, well, we can't push this anymore. It's like, why not? Well, they buy a lot of our stuff too. They buy a lot of computers from us, so we're going to buy some software from them. And not that they're doing the same thing in the government space, but one of the things that was really disheartening for me, and this probably goes back 10 years ago, when we were calling up states. This wasn't even federal. And I got a hold of someone in the state of New Jersey. And I was like, hey, I'm living in New Jersey. You're in New Jersey. Maybe we could talk about your Oracle spend. And I started talking to them about different practices and how Oracle does audits. And he stopped me. And he's like, I can't even talk to you about this? I was like, why? Because if I find out about this problem, I have an obligation to fix it. And he literally hung up the phone on me and said, I do not want to. Now, it's very unusual for New Jersey government not to take things. But I just thought that was like I was not even expecting that, that sometimes you might look the other way because if you see a problem, you might have to fix that problem. And I think that happens a lot with software licensing. Right. You know what? I know we're out of compliance. They'll get me later, and then we'll end up. We had one federal agency that we were helping through an audit, and it didn't end up being a billion-dollar check to Oracle, but the noncompliance finding had a B. It wasn't an M. It wasn't in the millions. It was in the billions. And that's one of the things that a company like that will do is just throw a huge number of on the wall. You owe me a billion and then you give them 50 million and everybody thinks they did a great job, but now you're locked in for another$50 million a year and it increases exponentially every year.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

This is something that You do see on both sides, both in the public sector and in the commercial sector, where, I mean, I think it's one of the biggest questions that's out there. It's like, well, why don't you hear, this is such a big issue. Why don't you hear more customers and consumers speaking out about it? But it's exactly these issues that you're talking about. It's the looming threat of an audit. And, you know, when you're talking about retaliation, it's not just audits, although audits is a very big cudgel that can be used against because they can throw very big numbers. But also, relatedly, you're looking at the increase kind of overall licensing costs. You can look at other punitive costs. You can look at other limitations and kind of access to APIs and other things. And sometimes we're not just talking about, I would say this is also another interesting dynamic. I think it's more similar to the one that you're talking about, like Fortune 10 or Fortune 20, is when you're talking about customer-consumers, sometimes it's not you know, the financial services company or the healthcare company, but you're talking about other technology providers throughout the cloud stack that they're equally impacted because they depend on these different partnerships. They also use the same software and the goods they need to kind of servicing their own needs. And it's created, I think also this contributes to a lot of this complexity in the space in that you have the, those customer relations, but they're very much frenemies where they're dependent on each other. I would say some, the others more dependent on the legacy and dominant players out there for these to ensure that they're able to kind of continue going forward, could be able to provide their own services in a predictable manner. But at the same time, it takes away from their own negotiating leverage. So there's this whole range of concerns of retaliation that if you're in that stronger position and you're looking at kind of permeating and kind of growing your footprint in the cloud space, you're able to use all sorts of different negative business tactics against others, against your own customers.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

So we've established that there's some unfair practices out there, and there's organizations or groups who are trying to fight that, but the You know, the level of the leverage is clearly on the technology vendors, you know, on their side. So legislatively, I know that there is the Samosa Act and you guys are highly involved in that. So can you just, you know, give us an overview of exactly what that is and where that is and how that's trying to level the playing field?

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Of course. So the Strengthening HC Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act. It's amazing. I can now roll that one right off the top. I've said it so many times over so many years. I didn't even say it. I just went right for the acronym. Yeah. So this is actually the third Congress in which it's been introduced. So I would argue the time is ripe. I mean, I actually think the time was ripe when it was first introduced in the end of the 117th Congress, but it does a couple of different things. One, it is calling for all departments and agencies to do a comprehensive assessment and analysis not just of their software state, but to the extent that they are subject to restrictive licensing terms throughout their different licenses. And when we talk about restrictive licensing terms, it's kind of this range of different practices that you and I have discussed. And then once they have that to... put into kind of two different things. One, put into place to the extent that they can do so under their existing authorities, mitigation practices to address the impacts of these restrictive software licensing practices. Then to submit over to the Office of Management and Budget a series of recommendations for whether it's additional legislation or kind of government-wide recommendations for mitigating the impact of these practices. Those recommendations will be amalgamated by the OMB, who will then send those referrals back to Congress for any additional next steps. Now, We have like from really from once it was first introduced by Senator Peters and Mr. Cassidy back in the 117th, we have been actively supporting it. We saw in the 118th, it began to really grow some steam and momentum being picked up by former Congressman Cartwright and supported by Mrs. Mace. And we're really seeing a great set of dynamics in this Congress where it was supported by a very strong kind of grouping around the House side. Very rarely do you see Mr. Connolly, Fallon, Mace, and a freshman member, Delaney, introduce something together and really see growing support. and that it was supported by a range of different organizations. And why is this? Why are you seeing this growing support? Well, also, you know, partly you're seeing the support for this is because this legislation is reflecting a series of recommendations that the GAO has issued repeatedly over the past several years. There are no less than now five to six reports, if you include two reports that GAO issued over the past six months, calling for the departments and agencies to be doing just this. But unfortunately, despite these recommendations that are being issued, it's not happening. And we're beginning to see this when the federal CIO earlier this year really required for all the departments and agencies to do an assessment of their software state for the top five software vendors. But that's just the beginning because it doesn't get to restrictive software licensing practices.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

So when I first heard about it, I was like, this is a no-brainer. This thing, it's going to be a law next week. Come on, who's going to stand in the way of this? But I know that there's momentum.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Not pretty far last Congress. It did get through the House floor last Congress.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

And then it stopped in the Senate.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Unfortunately, yes. Are you more hopeful now? I am definitely more hopeful this year. Unfortunately, last year, there were some issues that we were having to navigate last year with regard to how do you address the software licenses of the intelligence community, the NSA, the DOD, and who should be receiving the reports. We do think that those are both reasonable and certainly not insurmountable. issues, we do also believe it's important that you have the IC and these different departments and sectors that are actually conducting the same assessments and recommendations. Because frankly, this is where some of the most rampant abuses can occur because they're darker budgets. There's not as much transparency in there. And so you can have a range of different practices that are happening that not only result in significant taxpayer spend, but also result in security vulnerabilities. If you're looking at having some of the most significant security issues occur with the exact same software vendor that you're also on the cloud, You need to address these. You need to address these concerns. So we do think that these are ones. We know that the House and House leadership with Mr. Comer's office has prioritized getting this through over there. Mr. Peters is working with Mr. Cassidy and Senator Ernst and having a reintroduction. We expect that to be in the coming weeks over the Senate. We're hearing of more additional co-sponsors than we have before. So I do think it looks very good for this year. But some of the resistance is a couple of different reasons. As you can imagine, legacy software providers have not been thrilled to see the legislation. And it's something that, you know, there are many ways trying to circle the wagons. But when you're trying to explain why you're going to oppose legislation that fundamentally is good governance and can result in taxpayer savings becomes a very difficult effort to push against. also fundamentally there's been some interesting dynamics because of the human power that is going to be required in these departments and agencies and this is getting to why these GAO recommendations have gone unaddressed for so long is that you have to commit bodies to address this isn't something that you can just you know purchase a new program you know install it and then all your issues are going to go away. You really have to put in efforts to understand it. Frankly, there are parts of the Samosa Act that are just restatements of the Megabyte Act, which was passed over a decade ago. And if it were operating as it should be, it shouldn't be necessary, but it's almost kind of a restatement laying down more in the restrictive software licensing practices. And related to that, one provision I think is really important in the bill is actually having education of government workers that are engaging in the negotiating of these licenses, of these contracts. How do you identify restrictive licensing terms? How do you address them? How is that in kind of making sure that they have all the tools that are necessary to be on a strong footing going

SPEAKER_00 32:04

forward? I mean, the people part of it and the education piece is critical. We have a client who was implementing a SaaS solution that was going to help them stay in compliance. with their software and hardware assets. And they went live in February this year. And in March, they got a letter from the SaaS provider that they were a million dollars out of compliance with the- I knew this was coming. I knew this was coming. With the tool that is helping you stay in compliance, which was amazing. I had to read it three times. I was like, is this a joke? Like, no, no, this is... You would think a SaaS solution would help you stay in compliance. Like, even SaaS solutions, you can go out of compliance with. So, you know, the people aspect is really important. And obviously, being a consulting firm, you know, that's where we, you know, try to push... You want tools, you want systems in place to help you manage this, obviously, but you do need a well-trained, well-versed organization, whether that's internal or external advisors coming in, to help you. Because these vendors, they engineer their technology and their contracts and their processes themselves. to extract the most revenue from you. That's how businesses work. And I think people are overmatched sometimes. When I first started this, my first reaction was, this is too easy. I know this stuff. People aren't going to give me money help them through this. And I was like, wow, they have day jobs, right? They don't know the licensing of a vendor for the last 20 years and what's in and what's not in those agreements and what the vendor is going to do to them. But I think that is really where I'm worried is maybe people leave the government, more experienced people. You might not have the right people there to do this, even if the law is in effect. That's for me, the challenge is finding the people who know their thing on on this subject.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Well, and I think that's part of why I've always viewed those provisions of the SMOSA Act as vital as others in kind of actually identifying the risk of software licensing terms individually. But I mean, frankly, there's some of this that the GAO has already begun to do for the departments and agencies as they've gone in. But it's really making sure that there are these educational programs that, you know, those people who are engaged in those licenses, that as you have a departure, you have something that is there to help support the new person that comes in. And frankly, this is an issue that you have with enterprises in the commercial sector as well. And as you were speaking, it made me think, you know, it's a really interesting thing because it actually doesn't matter that whether you're a Fortune 10 company or you're a small 25-person company that's looking at this. Because in this instance, if you're the smaller company, then maybe you have your CIO or procurement manager, somebody who is doing this, but they're handling all of the licenses across all of the vendors. So they're going to be enormously overwhelmed. Okay. Conversely, if you're a Fortune 10 company, well, the CIO has a manager that's handling the Microsoft licenses, a manager that's handling the Oracle licenses, somebody who's handling Broadcom VMware, like somebody who's handling kind of the specialists and all of those. But what's also like, A, the scale at which each of those managers are having to deal with those licenses, kind of, it's not like it's a one and done thing that are kind of continually flowing across. But also, frankly, they're not always talking to each other. So you don't necessarily know what intersection is having with their other licenses that are out there, which is, on the converse side results in bloat. So it's interesting problems that it almost doesn't matter how big or how small you're looking at. It's going to be the same problem. And frankly, it's one that when we have talked to regulators Because similar to you, we've kind of heard from a number of different counties and their problems are like when you're looking at the numbers involved. They're smaller numbers, but the impact is the same. Like we were talking to one county from out west that was looking at an unexpected cost of$80,000. And to them, when I was first talking to them, they were like, well, it might as well be$80 million to us in terms of like what we have allocated and what the impact this is going to have. Like very small rural area and they just, you know, everything. They were kind of caught unawares on a range of different issues. And this is something, and this is might you have an expert in the space who had been working around these procurement issues for decades. And he had the expertise. He knew what was going on and was still kind of caught surprised by all of this. So it's something that we think the Somoza Act is a good step, but it is just a step.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

And I think what you said is absolutely right. It doesn't matter how large or small the organization is, whether it's private or public entity or geography. You could be in Australia, you could be in Brazil, you could be in the UK. The policies that the big tech has traditionally have global policies. Now, there may be some differences in regions in the EU versus the US, but again, I've seen it and the way you put it is right. We have small clients who people have been there for 20 years and they have the history and we have huge enterprises who we are the continuity, right? We've been helping them with their Oracle for 10 years and they have a question like, oh, seven years ago, this thing happened and that's why you did that. So it's really interesting because the issues, maybe it's extra zeros at the end, but like you said, 80,000 to a rural county is funding for a doctor in a hospital versus a sales rep making quota. They have to make those distinctions. So just, I do have one more question is, Is anyone doing it right? Are there any software providers out there who say, you know, it's fair and open? And boy, I think everyone should do it like that.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Well, that's not really a fair question for that I can ask for me is because I do nothing but like field complaints, I guess. And I'm in the same boat. hadn't heard before. I don't kind of immediately jump on the wagon. I'm like, here we go. They're doing the same thing all over again. I generally hold off until I've heard the same kind of thing or a similar story from about 10 or more customers. And when I begin to think, okay, it's like, maybe this is something that is emerging kind of case in point, I will say some of the issues around like VMware Broadcom. So So last year we were talking to some European customers and they were saying, you know, well, we're really facing some issues here. Like the, you know, since the acquisition, we're looking at different things in our contracts that are being changed. We're having kind of prices. We're having to, like historically, we were already on this VMware paper. We're now being told that we have to move everything on to Broadcom paper, even though it's like that, you know, they have the acquisition and this is looking at different price increases and da, da, da. And we noted it, but these were also organizations that weren't actually our members and we're like, okay, well, and we also hadn't heard anything from U.S. companies. But about three months later, issues began bumping, and it was a really interesting dynamic, because then I started hearing kind of a slew of different issues that customers from the U.S. were experiencing, and I was like, okay, well, maybe this could be a one-off, but it was really once I had heard from about 10, I was like, okay, this is something that is really beginning to have an impact and beginning to pay attention to. The issues that we've heard from Customers with VMware.com have been a little harder for us to pin down and figuring out how to address because, frankly, they seem to continually be evolving. Their policies have changed a significant amount for what you would imagine when happening in a year. But so it's a new one doing it right. I am positive there's lots of software vendors out there that are doing it right. I just do nothing but hear about who's doing it wrong these days.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

When I meet with a client, I try not to... lead with Oracle bad, Oracle bad, Oracle bad. And I'll always give them the benefit of the doubt. And they're not being misleading you here. They'd probably think this. And I'm sure there are happy Oracle customers out there. And the client is usually the one who laughs at that and says, but I'm just trying to not have that filter on. But I will just sort of... We had a client when I was at Oracle, just to talk about how restrictive policies impact the public. Oracle bought Sun. And I think the issue was we we, I put my Oracle hat on, we decided we were going to stop supporting people running Solaris on HP machines. I think that was the issue. And we had a meeting with a client and they were getting angry. Like it was a face-to-face meeting. And finally the client got up because we were explaining to them we are not supporting that. And he opens the curtain and he goes, look at that. It was a nuclear power plant. That runs on Solaris on HP. You will support that. And he walked out of the roof. And that's like the importance, right? We're not talking sort of, you know, making a product or something. This is like life and death sometimes for people to maintain access to this. And especially with government agencies, right? They're doing important things. And when the price goes up, It's just more to keep the lights on versus investing in those newer technologies. So I love what you guys are doing. And I remember when we first talked and I heard about the coalition and I was all in on it. And it's not just Oracle, but it's all these vendors. I think when you look at the restrictions and they've got an interest in maximizing revenue and you've got an interest in maintaining your freedom and the public sector does as well. So I wish you... nothing but success and i can't wait to toast the passage of the samosa act

SPEAKER_02 43:56

thank you i appreciate that i appreciate that we're we're have a lot of different other organizations that we're working with. It takes an army to show the support, but I do think it's something that will get done. I would be remiss to say, for those that are listening, if you have concerns and you're experiencing issues and there's something that you do want to talk to regulators about, feel free to reach out to us and we're happy to share resources to either talk to you up on Congress, there's a number of different offices that are really looking very seriously at this, but also for the Federal Trade Commission. They are looking seriously at the impacts of Microsoft practices on competition and customer access. So we are here to be a resource and want to make sure that customers have a voice as they go about the process. always making sure to protect them from retaliatory efforts as much as possible.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

So Ryan, ending on that note, what is the best way to reach out to you guys and to get more information on the coalition?

SPEAKER_02 45:10

So you can find all the information on the coalition at fairsoftwarelicensing.com. And my contact information can be found through there. It's just, you know, my first initial and my last name at fairsoftwarelicensing.com and would love to hear from folks.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Awesome. And I encourage everyone to take a look at the website, look at what these guys are doing. Again, it's global. It's not just U.S. And, you know, stay engaged because I think that's when change happens. So thank you, Ryan. And thanks for being our first

SPEAKER_02 45:44

guest. No, thank you. Thank you. And as always, it is a pleasure. Bye, everybody.

UNKNOWN 45:53

Bye.