On Tue, 23 Sep 2003, Buck wrote:
> What really has my attention is the contract associated with Red Hat.
>
> The contract requires a user to buy on server package for each computer
> its on. Even though GNU/open source says it can be freely distributed,
> Red Hat is negating that. In many cases, one copy of the software might
> be used on several machines and never need support, other than up2dates
> occasionally, but here we are with per-machine "licenses" again. (Yes,
> I am aware it isn't a license but the effect is the same).
Annual support contracts are like insurance: you have to pay for them
whether you use them or not. You are permitted to get the source for RHEL
and roll your own distro and put it on as many machines as you want. But
each support contract is tied to a particular machine. Your support
contract includes the convenient packaging of the RHES ISOs with installer
(and manuals).
You can quarrel with the prices, but the business model is not
unreasonable or even unusual (except for source availability).
RH could offer per-incident support for homemade RHES installs, or they
could sell a no-support RHES and charge per incident, if they chose to.
That would be a different business model. It might even live nicely
alongside the current one.
--
Matthew Saltzman
Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs
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