Dear physics computing reps, The saga of the Mathematica continues (see below). I had a pretty low response to my emails about this in November so please take the time to respond this as I need these figures when college reopens. What I need to know is: 1. How many mathematica licenses your group needs 2. How many (shared and individual) mathematica licenses you believe that your group already has access to. All the best and Happy Christmas to all, david -------- Original Message -------- Subject: FW: Imperial College and Wolfram Research - Mathematica Piracy Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:19:05 +0000 From: Spirling, Arthur G <a.spirling@imperial.ac.uk> To: Haigh, Joanna D <j.haigh@imperial.ac.uk>, Laptev, Ari <a.laptev@imperial.ac.uk> CC: Colling, David J <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk>, Moore, Dan R <dan.moore@imperial.ac.uk>, Cummins, Bob D <r.cummins@imperial.ac.uk>, Allatt, Paul <p.allatt@imperial.ac.uk> Dear All, Despite asking several times, Wolfram have not provided details of PCs allegedly holding unauthorised copies of Mathematica but have instead sent the e-mail below. I have responded as you can see and will be taking legal advice in the new year. In the meantime ICT is doing a proactive search to see if we can find where these copies might be. This is not easy, and for those MS and Linux PCs/Macs , particularly those owned by research groups, that never access the IC domain, impossible. It may be necessary to visit each machine and check them out by hand. In the new year it is essential that we determine how many licensed copies are needed in Physics and Mathematics and if the license renewal we have undertaken is not adequate adjust it. Regards Arthur *From:* Spirling, Arthur G *Sent:* 23 December 2009 15:37 *To:* 'Eric Schacht' *Cc:* Rector; Neil Thomas; Hancock, Jon B; Allatt, Paul *Subject:* RE: Imperial College and Wolfram Research - Mathematica Piracy Dear Mr Schacht, I am in receipt of your e-mail dated 22^nd December and have passed it to our legal advisors for comment. I am disappointed that I have had no formal response to the four e-mails (dated 15^th October, 28^th October, 5^th November, 13^th November 2009), that I have sent to your organisation requesting details of the computers alleged to be holding unauthorised copies of Wolfram software. Your failure to provide this information has hindered me in carrying out my College’s instructions which , based on a long standing College IT policy, are to delete all unauthorised copies of software. As soon as you provide the information I will take immediate steps to delete the copies. The College is now closed until 4^th January 2010 so I regret you will not hear further from us until after that date. Best wishes for a very happy Christmas. Regards Arthur Spirling * Arthur Spirling * Director of ICT * Information and Communication Technologies, * Room 441, Sherfield Building, * Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, London SW7 2BX, * Int 46930 Dial 020 7594 6930 E-mail a.spirling@imperial.ac.uk <mailto:a.spirling@imperial.ac.uk> *From:* Eric Schacht [mailto:erics@wolfram.com] *Sent:* 22 December 2009 16:17 *To:* Spirling, Arthur G *Cc:* Rector; Neil Thomas *Subject:* Imperial College and Wolfram Research - Mathematica Piracy December 22, 2009 *SENT BY POST AND EMAIL* Arthur Spirling, Director of ICT (a.spirling@imperial.ac.uk <mailto:a.spirling@imperial.ac.uk>) Imperial College London This letter is in follow-up to the many discussions concerning the pervasive software piracy Wolfram Research has identified at Imperial College. It is sent in the spirit of our mutual desire to rectify the situation. We have previously identified a sampling of the pirated licenses, and your internal review revealed those, in fact, to be pirated licenses. Furthermore, it is significant that we were first alerted to this (possibly longstanding) piracy by a whistleblower, a senior employee internal to Imperial. Our demand of Imperial is that Imperial take immediate action to address the other 280+ illegal copies of /Mathematica/ we have identified to be in use at Imperial. We are not able to provide specific information on these users based on the strict UK and EU protocols and regulations concerning data protection and privacy. However if the Imperial investigation is not able to provide answers and to remedy the situation, we will have no choice but to turn over the information we have to the appropriate law enforcement agency(s). It would seem as though that course would be one of last resort for both of our organizations. We would like an update as to the progress of the internal Imperial investigation into the piracy issues we’ve made you aware of, and to have an affirmative statement from you that no staff members have been advertizing or in any way promoting this or similar software piracy. Additionally, we will require an authoritative statement as to the other software piracy investigations ongoing at Imperial. We are concerned that some of the hostility we have experienced from various factions of Imperial over the course of our relationship has spawned or nurtured this rampant activity with the Mathematica software. The clear alternative to either initiating a billing against Imperial for the illegal use, or to turning the matter over to the authorities, is to construct a licensing scheme between our organizations which would enable the obviously widespread /Mathematica/ use at Imperial to be properly licensed under the umbrella of an unlimited seat Site License. Wolfram Research stands ready to offer a pricing package on same terms as to other similar institutions and strongly urges Imperial to consider this action to mitigate against the illegal use that is prevalent at the College. Eric L. Schacht General Counsel Wolfram Research cc. Sir Roy Anderson (rector@imperial.ac.uk <mailto:rector@imperial.ac.uk>)