Federation prepares kitemark
Organisation aiming to simplify software licence compliance
The Federation Against Software Theft is hoping to launch a 'kitemark' for software licensing to make it easier for VARs to help end-users become compliant.
The organisation hopes that simplifying the issue of licensing agreements from various vendors will lower the number of users, especially SMEs, who receive fines for being under-licensed.
"We want to recognise a set of common clauses in our vendor members' licensing agreements. Then isolate the uncommon clauses and help the resellers and end-users to understand these," said John Lovelock, director general of the Federation.
Current Federation members include Computer Associates, McAfee and Oracle.
Richard Hales, general manager of software at Computer 2000, said anything that helps resellers to understand licensing is a positive step.
"If VARs understand licensing and compliance they can help users to manage their entire licensing policy and either save them money by realising they are over-licensed or help them become compliant," he said.
The Federation will enlist the help of its Certified Reseller Group, and include education on the kitemark as a module of its VAR training and certification.