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CCS 4 License agreement - has anyone REALLY read this? If not, you'd better!

Bob D.
Expert 2430 points

I went to register my copy of CCS 4 and got the pop up with the license agreement and check box to agree or disagree. Being the owner of my company, I always skim these looking for anything out of the ordinary. Section 4 really caught my eye:

 

4. Audit Right and Taxes. 

 a. Audit Right.  At TI's request, and within thirty (30) days after receiving written notice, you shall permit an independent auditor selected by TI to have access, no more than once each calendar year (unless the immediately preceding audit revealed a breach of this Agreement) and during your regular business hours, to all of your equipment, records, and documents as may contain information bearing upon the use and distribution of the Licensed Materials.  You shall keep full, complete, clear and accurate records with respect to product sales and distributions for a period beginning with the then-current calendar year and going back three (3) years.

 

Are you serious? You are asking me to give you the right to come into my company and have access to ALL my equipment, records and documents as they may contain information...

 

Has anyone really signed up for this?

You would have to be a fool to agree to this. In my opinion this is completely unacceptable and I am in no way going to sign up for this. Looks like I'll have to start using DSP's from another source if this is what Ti is going to make it's "customers" sign up for just to use their development tools.

Ti please respond.

 

  • Prodigy 180 points

    It interesting...

    Ti please respond.

  • in reply to Max Lashk
    TI__Guru**** 163145 points

    We have been discussing this with our legal team over the past couple of weeks and plan on revising the license agreement to remove this clause.

     

    Regards,

    John

  • in reply to JohnS
    Expert 2430 points

    Hi John,

     Thanks for this information. Please keep me informed as to the status of the license revision as I am still waiting to use my copy of CCS4.

    Thanks,

    Bob

  • in reply to Bob D.
    Prodigy 110 points

    Wow - thanks Bob D. for bringing attention to this, and thanks to John for following up.  I'm impressed with TI's response (and hope it gets resolved soon).

  • Intellectual 990 points

    This looks to be a typical license agreement.

    Most of the license agreements have similar statement.

    See one such from another vendor of a different product..

     

    http://support.mpcdata.com/a/files/license_agreements/20_license.pdf

  • in reply to Bhaskar Reddy
    Expert 2430 points

    Typical? I have not agreed to any other license for software where the company has the right to come into my business and have access to ALL of my records! In this country (USA) the only  "company" that would have such "right" would be a law enforcement agency with a warrant from a judge.

    To quote from the license agreement you referred to:

    "you shall permit an independent auditor selected by MPC to have access, no more than twice each calendar year (unless the immediately preceding audit revealed a discrepancy) and during your regular business hours, to all of your equipment, records, and documents as may contain information bearing upon the use of the
    Licensed Materials."

    Are you the owner of your business and are you willing to let a 3rd party come in and have access to ALL of your records and documents as they may pertain...?

    Not that I'm trying to hide anything, but we have some very valuable IP that will be developed with these tools and allowing access to that information, in my opinion, is not in the best interests of my company. Where do you draw the line? The IRS would not even have those rights unless it's handed down from a court of law.

     

     

  • in reply to Bob D.
    TI__Guru**** 163145 points

    I have updated license agreements with the clause removed they should be deployed with 4.2.4 and 5.1 M5.

     

    John

  • in reply to JohnS
    Expert 2430 points

    Excellent! Thank you John.

    Do you know when those versions will be available for download?

    Thanks.

  • in reply to Bob D.
    TI__Guru**** 163145 points

    Bob,

    CCSV5.1 M5 (milestone 5) would be posted early June.  4.2.4 is looking like the end of June.  Later this month we should have the agreements displayed when you activate online updated to the ones without the clause.

    Regards,

    John

  • Genius 3450 points

    TI CCS Licensing agreement said:

    4. Audit Right and Taxes. 

     a. Audit Right.  At TI's request, and within thirty (30) days after receiving written notice, you shall permit an independent auditor selected by TI to have access, no more than once each calendar year (unless the immediately preceding audit revealed a breach of this Agreement) and during your regular business hours, to all of your equipment, records, and documents as may contain information bearing upon the use and distribution of the Licensed Materials.  You shall keep full, complete, clear and accurate records with respect to product sales and distributions for a period beginning with the then-current calendar year and going back three (3) years.

    Yes, that sounds really onerous to me.  Over-reaching?  Standard Industry scare tactics? 

    But I'm just a lab geek, not a law jock.  I work for a Fortune 500 company that has a humongous black pit filled with their legal department.  And they scrutinize everything.  It could take them months to hammer this out.  Meanwhile, I gotta get work done. 

    I don't have the authority around here to sign an agreement of that magnitude.  (Have you seen the approvals I have to get just to order spare parts?....)  If a suitable answer doesn't show up here, I'll have to pass the matter off to the legal-eagles and let them figure it out. 

     

  • in reply to Walter Snafu
    TI__Guru**** 163145 points

    When you buy CCS you have to activate it online and agree to a license that is specific to what you purchased.  Those licenses have been updated and will not have the audit clause in them by mid next week.

    The free 30day and code size limited licenses are built into the installer and won't be updated until the next service release.  However if you agree to the free license and then buy CCS the license you agree to when you buy CCS overrides the previous one.

     

    John

  • Intellectual 520 points

    If you had kept reading further than you have underlined you would see a constraint on the clause

    as may contain information bearing upon the use and distribution of the Licensed Materials.

    Doesn't that mean you are free to protect/conceal whatever on anything NOT bearing upon the licensed materials and that it does not give TI privileges to just look at everything you've got.

     

  • in reply to JohnS
    Expert 2430 points

    Hi John,

     What's the status of this license? I just tried to activate on line I get the same license (with the same clause that I took exception to) that was in effect when I first wrote this. Nothing appears to have changed.

    Thanks,

    Bob

  • in reply to Bob D.
    Intellectual 520 points

    Hi Bob,

       The clause I quoted in my previous reply still applies, right?  So I don't understand how you can interpret TI's statements to mean they can pry into all your private information.  I understand it to mean they can investigate any misuse of their software, i.e. illegal distribution, unauthorized resale, etc.

       John

  • in reply to jamp
    Expert 2430 points

    HI John, 

     My prior message was directed to John from Ti that wrote that they would be changing the license agreement. They must have realized how bad that clause was or they wouldn't have offered to change it.

     As for your comment, ALL of our products have Ti DSP's in them so that would grant them access to all of our equipment, documents, and records, including IP that is secret to our company. We do not have a non-disclosure agreement in place with Ti so it would not be inappropriate for Ti or any 3rd party that they assign to have access to this information. It's taken us 10 years to come up with some of our algorithms and we're just not willing to grant anyone access to that information.

    Bob