In many cities we are out of parking spaces. We could restrict cars, but that would be un-American. So we find ways to cram more and more cars into the same space. That's what a new breed of robotic parking garage does. Cars are stored on top of each other on automated lifts that can move the cars along three independent directions, shuffling them up, down and sideways. It can even learn the usual times of drop off and pck up and shuffle the cars dynamically so they are closer to an easy pick up level. Twice as many cars can be accommodated in the same space and pickups take on average 30 seconds. The key is the robotic software. Proprietary robotic software.
It seems that when the City of Hoboken, NJ, entered into a contract with the software vendor for its robotic parking lot it didn't read the fine print (story in Wired). When they got into a contract dispute with Robotic Parking of Clearwater, Florida and had police escort their employees out of the Garden Street Parking Garage a few days prior to the end of the contract, they didn't realize the City's software license expired with the contract. The result was trapping all the parked cars in the garage. Lots of very pissed off drivers.
This should be (but probably won't be) a lesson to those running public facilities. Whenever possible don't be held hostage to a software license that can shut you down. Use Open Source and public licenses wherever possible or insist on shielding yourself and your customers from harm if the license expires. At least don't buy software with built-in expirations that stop functionality after a fixed time period.
Hospitals, health departments, public safety agencies take note.
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Linux Weekly News ran a story about the parking garage (article is currently subscription-only; will become free in two weeks) and also linked to a similar case involving medical records.
An excerpt: "Dr. Meghan McGovern, of Savannah, Ga., said she couldn't access her patients' records or use the program to document patient visits for a week in March. Her tech support contract with Boca Raton-based Dr. Notes was originally for $1,200 a year but the company wanted her to pay $5,000 a year. When McGovern refused, the company didn't give her an updated monthly password needed to access the program and view records, she said." Read the whole article if you want to get even angrier.
As for Hoboken, I thought that's the sort of thing that cities retained attorneys for - to read contracts before they are signed?
City attorneys probably love restrictive and complicated licensing terms that expire in a year, because it ensures them employment for another year.
OK, that wasn't fair.
Still, I have heard anecdotal evidence about "intellectual property" and similar attorneys who are horrified by the concept of open source or free software/content, and don't understand why anyone would want to have any truck with it.
-Rob
Closer to home, I use Gideon. It used to be that you bought the program, and subscribed to the updates. If you didn't re-up, you didn't get the updates, but the basic program still worked. It isn't like the symptoms that point to hepatitis A change very much from quarter to quarter.
Now (after which update, I don't know) when the subscription expires, the program won't run.
Okay, wild conspiracy-theory, tin-foil hat stuff, but...
Clearwater, FL? Is this another Scientology(tm) company? It wouldn't be the FIRST Scientology(tm) software company, I know.