Reply to post: Re: Even in the 1980's

A floppy filled with software worth thousands of francs: Techie can't take it, customs won't keep it. What to do?

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Re: Even in the 1980's

It may not be a legal requirement but if its an organisational requirement its often simpler to provide a tape cartridge full of hex dumps to give the Accounts payable team something physical to raise a goods receipt note against even if all the delivery was virtual. I've also had similar issues with vendors who needed to send install media for software which had already been installed remotely. Ironically because they couldn't produce the install files on a cartridge which would fit into a slot on any of our (new then) unix servers. Oh those were jolly times. For those old farts like me you can probably remember being told by the Microsoft licencing team that you had to keep the install sets for every copy of DOS and Windows installed. I literally had to organise a skip for large PC deployments so we could get the install media securely stored (transported to landfill and buried). I did have the landfill cell location and would have happily provided a shovel for Microsoft's software licencing team. As I was managing a County Council IT team I actually had an agreement with the waste site manager that our secure waste (tapes, old HDDs etc would be buried at the bottom of a new cell. Shortly afterwards we purchased our first secure shredder which could eat a hard disk or cartridge in a few seconds. Secure recycling service have taken a lot of fun out of equipment decommissioning.

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