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Long-term support and backport riskLong-term support and backport riskPosted Jun 21, 2007 23:01 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)In reply to: Long-term support and backport risk by drag Parent article: Long-term support and backport risk
some high-end users are starting to reconsider their use of Linux in some situationsAnd what would the alternative be? It's not like there is some other magical OS out thereEffectively (in a negative light) what you're saying is: "The users are stuck with Linux. They've been suckered into using something that is costing them money. It would cost them more money to get away from it. So they have no choice but to eat it." Gee, I don't get that at all from HenrikH's comment. I read, "The users can't do any better than Linux. It may suck, but no worse than any alternative, because the problems are fundamental to operating systems, not special to Linux." But here's why I think HenrikH is wrong: I think the proprietary alternatives do have stability and new features to a degree Linux doesn't and can't have, and here's why: per-copy licensing. Per-copy licensing gives Sun the money it takes to pay people (testers) to use the code and shake out the bugs. The economics of Linux make that impossible; with freedom of redistribution, how is the company that does that testing going to get paid for it?
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Long-term support and backport risk Posted Jun 22, 2007 0:43 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] > Gee, I don't get that at all from HenrikH's comment. I read, "The users can't do any better than Linux. It may suck, but no worse than any alternative, because the problems are fundamental to operating systems, not special to Linux."
It's effectively the same thing. I don't think that he _ment_ it like I re-stated it, but more-or-less it's the same thing.
How, in the eyes of end users, is it realy different? Except for any sort of emotional content, not much.
It's compatency. It's assuming that things can't get better, that they will always be this way.
> But here's why I think HenrikH is wrong: I think the proprietary alternatives do have stability and new features to a degree Linux doesn't and can't have, and here's why: per-copy licensing. Per-copy licensing gives Sun the money it takes to pay people (testers) to use the code and shake out the bugs. The economics of Linux make that impossible; with freedom of redistribution, how is the company that does that testing going to get paid for it?
Weither or not people have access to the source code is less and less relevent to weither or not people pay for per-seat licensing.
If your a big enough company (or country) you _can_ get access to the Windows source code.
With Solaris they've effectively openned it up. Sure it still sucks compared to Linux in a lot of ways, but it's now open. People still are paying licenses.
Weither or not people choose to pay for Windows vs Solaris vs Linux comes down to more-or-less this one thing:
Forcing people to pay licenses because they can't use anything cheaper is a losing stratigy. Same thing as figuring people don't have any choice to put up with your BS because there are no other effective alternatives.
It works for a little while, but you don't want customer's resentments. You want customers to save money by paying you money. It's possible to have a net win for everybody.
And the nice thing about Linux and open source is that it's not only makes it cheaper for the end users to use, it makes it cheaper for companies to develop and, more importantly, to support.
But if the development style of Linux... which is currently not only breaking proprietary drivers (which is immaterial, realy), but also breaking out-of-tree drivers (which is very serious), AND breaking in-tree drivers (aka regressions.. ultra serious), AND breaking userspace API (mega ultra serious).... is costing more money then it is saving by being open source then you have a serious serious problem.
It's a knife edge. Very difficult. I have no good idea on how to solve the problem.
Long-term support and backport risk Posted Jun 22, 2007 2:24 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] How, in the eyes of end users, is it really different? No difference. The situation to which you responded, and the one that HenrikH described have the same effect on a user. I brought it up only because your comment was not responsive to the comment to which you attached it, indicating you probably misread it.
Whether or not people have access to the source code is less and less relevant to whether or not people pay for per-seat licensing I don't think access to source code is relevant at all to this thread; you'll notice I didn't mention it. What is relevant is that all sellers of Linux kernels permit their customers (because they have to) to make as many copies as they want and pass them on to as many people as they want, for the same price as one copy. Microsoft does not do that. Neither does Sun. And that's why Microsoft and Sun can spend millions of dollars testing and Red Hat cannot.
Long-term support and backport risk Posted Jun 23, 2007 15:05 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] >And that's why Microsoft and Sun can spend millions of dollars testing and Red Hat cannot.
Err... I'm not an expert on this here enterprise-y stuff, but it sure looks to me like Red Hat, you know, charges a per-seat license fee just like Microsoft and Sun?
(Obviously you can use it without paying that licensing fee, but in practice you can use Windows or Solaris without paying that fee too; big businesses tend not to in both cases.)
Long-term support and backport risk Posted Jun 23, 2007 17:14 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] it sure looks to me like Red Hat, you know, charges a per-seat license fee just like Microsoft and Sun? Red Hat does not charge for a copyright license for the Linux kernel. Its license, GPL, is free as required as a condition of the copyright license to Red Hat by various authors of the Linux kernel (also GPL). The per-seat charge you're thinking of is for maintenance service, and it is way less than Sun or Microsoft charge for their copyright licenses. That's why many people believe that Linux is much cheaper to use than Solaris or Windows.
Obviously you can use it without paying that licensing fee, but in practice you can use Windows or Solaris without paying that fee too; big businesses tend not to in both cases I think if Red Hat asked a maintenance fee large enough to cover a Microsoft-sized test department, lots of customers would decline, and hire someone else to do the maintenance. Or get SUSE, because Novell would, legally, just take the fruits of Red Hat's testing without paying anything and continue selling SUSE at Linux prices.
Long-term support and backport risk Posted Jun 23, 2007 17:20 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link] have you looked at the redhat prices?
I'll admit that I haven't looked at them recently, but the last time I did they were chaging ~$1500/machine, which is about the same price that sun and others charge for the propriatary Unix, and above many of the microsoft license costs.
if you use the 'enterprise' pricing from linux vendors then it's fairly easy to cook the books to show that linux has a higher TCO then windows (you need to choose hardware and models that minimize the fact that linux is more efficant and find manpower costs that show that windows admins get paid less then unix admins, but you are close enough to make it work)
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