As it turns out, my client has a piece of software running on a server called "Freeloader" ... it's written in VB, has very bad resolution for some reason, but they're quite proud of it... picture of the guy responsible and listing of all the folks that helped in the About box.
Freeloader is a list of all sorts of free software that's been vetted by the IT department for use inside the company. You select what you want, and it downloads the software to your system so you can install it. It will optionally "send you a license via email" ... I tried that on a few and never got the email, so I guess that part is broken.
The other thing is... they've taken all the packages and re-zipped them with password protection. And probably 60% of the software is IT-related stuff.
Fortunately there are a couple good things on there such as PrimoPDF and FireFox.
I worked my way up the IT chain-of-command to try to get "Toad Free" accepted and there were a couple deal-breakers:
- Quest's license of only 5 devs at a company running it... how do you control that?
- The re-download every 60 days. They didn't say it, but I looked and it takes a 6-page document to get the approval process started, and it probably takes more than 60 days to approve something, so you'd NEVER get caught up.
I was told that it would be easier to buy the software than to go through the process... go figure!
So yesterday I finally sent email requesting that they purchase me a license for the product used other places in the building. I figured since it's used in the building already, it would be easier to get it approved. So today I get a phone call wanting to go back through all the information again... what it is, how it's used, why I need it. I ask what's going on, and they tell me that the paperwork got bounced because I'm a contractor and my company should be buying this... great... like that would happen even if it would work!
I asked them how that would fit in with the IT regulations of the software having to be owned by the company. Hmmm.
Actually I'm about at the point that I don't care... I just won't be able to make add/change a table, index, stored procedure, view, function, trigger, or sequence... that's all.
We're talking $180 for a key... I'd buy the damn thing myself, but oh... I can't run personal software either, so I guess they're going to have to figure this one out.
NOW I remember one of the reasons I've always worked for small companies!
Anybody looking for a somewhat old, beaten-down .NET developer with a penchant for Silverlight?
-Dave
posted @ Tuesday, September 09, 2008 2:31 PM