Another use is this: Imagine your company does not use Linux at all. A vendor of proprietry software you use is offering a Linux version of their software, and allowing you to trial it against their Windows version. However, they *only* support RHEL. To fairly test this software you either have to buy RHEL to test it on, or use a distribution that is very similar.
(I will probably be in this situation in a few months, so it's useful to know that such a distribution exists) > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stuart Brorson > Sent: 28 January 2005 01:27 > To: geda-user@seul.org > Subject: Re: gEDA-user: More footprint stuff > > > Well there is another angle... Assume you want to deploy 50 > machines > > running Synopsys VCS for example, you have now spent a lot > of money on > > VCS licenses from Synopsys and they might only support you > if you run > > a specific Linux distribution. That happens to be RHEL AS in some > > cases that I'm aware of. > > > > You will now have spent quite a bit of money on copies of > RHEL for all > > these machines, just to be on the platform "supported" by your tool > > vendor. In this case a free copy of RHEL might come in > handy for some > > of those machines since it will look exactly like the supported > > version of RHEL. You could now just buy one copy of RHEL > and have 49 > > machines running an identical "free" copy of RHEL. > > I understand that's a common trick, even using RHEL. You > have 50 identical machines. The sysadmin owns one. You buy > 1 copy of RHEL, and tie its support contract to the sysadmin > machine. You install it on all 50 machines. If you have a > problem somewhere, you just reproduce the problem on the > sysadmin machine and then call Red Hat. > > You don't need to download an off-brand version of RHEL to do this. > > The basic problem with software is explained by Capitalist Economics > 101: Software's marginal cost of reproduction is basically > nil, so in a ideally competitive market its price will tend > over time to zero. Ways to get around this iron law of economics are: > > * Disrupt perfect competition, e.g. somehow become a monopoly, or > prevent customers from having a real choice in the market place. > * Keep the market in flux via research and/or constant introduction > of new features/products, so that prices can never asymptote all > the way to zero. > * Don't sell software. Give it away as a loss-leader for some other > product which doesn't have zero cost of reproduction. > > You can see all three methods at play in the real world all the time. > > Stuart > > >
