This is just a guess, but maybe -- just maybe -- the people who have been living and breathing this business for years understand it better than someone who learned about it 5 minutes ago on a web board.

I never claimed to know that anonymous business, but it doesn't take a genius to understand that good customer service doesn't include handing out a fine for 30K CHF, especially to world renowned, well respected research facility.

Part of running a good business is looking for opportunity wherever it exists. The company can see the opportunity to squeeze 30K from a client, but when that license expires, the chance the customer goes a different direction is higher. Instead if you accept that it was a mistake, use it as an opportunity to expand the license, not only have you increased the revenue from that company, but you've also shown you are easy to work with, forgiving and therefore the customer is more likely to renew.

I'll provide a very anecdotal story that happened to me. I once worked in a bar/kitchen and was paid under the table in cash each week. The owner would give me the cash in an envelope with the number of hours I worked. On a few occasions he would overpay me by $20 or so. Some may this as an opportunity to get an extra $20. Instead, I would go to my boss and say "Hey, you accidentally over paid me by $20" and hand him a $20. I can tell you that the respect and admiration I received for being honest, was worth way more than the $60 or so extra I would have received if I had just shut up and took the money. Moral of the story - look for the real opportunity, not the immediate payout (as the software vendor did with CERN).

Let me tell you an anecdote, too. I worked at a startup where we were selling software and that money was what I was using to pay my rent so I wouldn't be homeless and buy food to put in my food hole so my body would not die.

Various people tried to steal our stuff. Every once in a while someone would call us up and tell us what we should give them a free copy because, in a lot more words, "it would generate goodwill." I'm sure they might have even believed what they were saying. But it wasn't their rent money on the line. It was ours.

(Other people would call us and tell us, literally, that they had mailed us a check, so please ship out the software now. The most obvious "we are lying to your face and fuck you if you need money to live" was a military branch that said they couldn't buy a license until we removed our copy protection. After a bunch of negotiation, we finally said "sorry, take it or leave it" and they bought three licenses. Huh.)

I'm not saying that the company is right. But I am saying that that software company is the one with their butts on the line. If you are wrong, absolutely nothing goes wrong for you. But if they listen to your advice and it turns out to be wrong, they lose money, or maybe go out of business. They can't use "goodwill of 'giarc" to pay their lease.

People who have been in the business of selling software learn quickly that people who complain online about proprietary software are not their customers and will never under any circumstances end up as their customers.

You are inappropriately extending my argument to new customers and non existent customers. My argument was that if they saw someone at CERN was using their unlicensed software, the best path might not be to impose a hefty fine on CERN (an existing customer). I never said anything about how to treat a one off person that has stolen your software.