ASMSU decided Thursday to update its software programs after discovering there was no tangible proof the group owned older versions currently being used.

According to ASMSU, MSU's undergraduate student government, the 3-year-old Gateway computers were taken in early this year for maintenance and reformatting, but when the organization got the computers back, Microsoft Office - the programs ASMSU had been using since it purchased the computers - had not been reinstalled.

"I was informed that the software and licenses for our Gateways could not be found and that without them, it would be difficult to prove ownership and therefore have the software reinstalled," ASMSU Interim Association Director James Perra said in a written statement Monday.

Perra, who has been the interim association director since mid-October, said he has unsuccessfully attempted to reach former ASMSU technology directors to ask them where - if they existed - the licenses were.

"We're pretty darn sure we have licenses some place," Perra said.

In the ASMSU Student Assembly's biweekly meeting, a bill was passed to spend $794 on the program Microsoft Office XP and 10 licenses; Microsoft Windows XP and two licenses; and Microsoft Publisher 2002 and two licenses. The money will come from the assembly's special projects account.

The decision was made after a half-hour-long closed meeting, for sensitivity reasons.

A director of technology and Web site affairs was recently hired and has been working to fix the computer problems in the organization.

"There's a lot going on there that needs to be changed," said David Wilson, the director of technology and Web site affairs. "They didn't have a director of technology for a while and the technology was pretty crippled."

Although Perra said Wilson informed him that the licenses for the programs were unaccounted for, Wilson told The State News on Sunday that all of ASMSU's programs had licenses.

Wilson declined comment Monday night.

Patricia Mell, a professor of law at the MSU-Detroit College of Law, said the owners of the programs could potentially sue ASMSU if they discovered they were using programs without licenses.

"They haven't paid for the right to use it," she said. "Which is essentially what the licenses does, it's to give them the right to use this."

But Mell said if ASMSU representatives simply misplaced the papers, they're not in any legal trouble because the companies will have records of who purchased their programs.

"Playing loose around the edges with these kinds of licenses could ruin their reputation as well as the school's," she said.

Perra said he chose to avoid such problems by helping to present the bill to the Student Assembly that would purchase new programs and licenses altogether, instead of searching through old records to find the receipts or the licenses.

"If I had a village of gnomes that could go find if these things existed - that would be great," he said. "But I don't."