Re: Microsoft .NET Licensing
If Microsoft wants .Net to succeed, it should make developer access free. How many Windows applications would there be today if every developer of such an application had to pay Microsoft $10,000 per year? - Original Message - From: "Kyle Lussier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 23:02 Subject: Microsoft .NET Licensing > > This should be of interest to some of the developers in this group. > > Developers: What .Net will cost you > http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7629784.html?tag=mn_hd > > >From the article: >"For standard use, which Microsoft expects will involve the majority of > users, > Microsoft will charge $10,000 per year for using .Net My Services and > $1,500 > per application." > > Kyle Lussier > www.AutoNOC.com > >
RE: Microsoft .NET Licensing
> If Microsoft wants .Net to succeed, it should make developer access free. How > many Windows applications would there be today if every developer of such an > application had to pay Microsoft $10,000 per year? I agree. I'm not even sure why they are doing this. While it is certainly possible I don't understand what they mean by charging $10,000/year and $1,500/year per .NET app, the problem I have is, if I can't understand how much it's going to cost me just to write an app on .NET, how the heck can I build a business app on it? I was speaking with one Microsoft rep in e-mail, and I made the comment that I was going to have to hire someone just to figure out all these licensing issues, handle product activiation, and compliance things, and the person responded: > ROFLMAO! She didn't realize I wasn't making a joke. Kyle Lussier www.AutoNOC.com
RE: Microsoft .NET Licensing
Someone inside Microsoft gives me a clear info about this: to be clear, developers will get .NET My Services bits as part of SDK for free if they subscribe MSDN. 1.5K/per app is for partner who wants to test/to be certified against a live testing environment hosted by Microsoft. The 10K fee is for the ASP/ISP partners who host web applications that consume the .NET My Services hosted by Microsoft. peter -Original Message- From: Anthony Atkielski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 3:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Microsoft .NET Licensing If Microsoft wants .Net to succeed, it should make developer access free. How many Windows applications would there be today if every developer of such an application had to pay Microsoft $10,000 per year? - Original Message - From: "Kyle Lussier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 23:02 Subject: Microsoft .NET Licensing > > This should be of interest to some of the developers in this group. > > Developers: What .Net will cost you > http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7629784.html?tag=mn_hd > > >From the article: >"For standard use, which Microsoft expects will involve the majority of > users, > Microsoft will charge $10,000 per year for using .Net My Services and > $1,500 > per application." > > Kyle Lussier > www.AutoNOC.com > >
Re: Microsoft .NET Licensing
On Wed, 24 Oct 2001 00:56:05 +0200, Anthony Atkielski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > If Microsoft wants .Net to succeed, it should make developer access free. How > many Windows applications would there be today if every developer of such an > application had to pay Microsoft $10,000 per year? Unfortunately, we're mostly technology freaks over here. Probably a lot of CTO and CIO on this list. However, probably a bit weak on the CEO/CFO side of the fence. Remember 2 things: 1) Microsoft's marketing and business planning has on occasion pulled some bonehead plays, but they have an enviable long-term track record for being very good at what they do. 2) Good business and marketing plans take into account the relative positions of the vendor, the customer, and the barrel Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech
Re: Microsoft .NET Licensing
> While it is certainly possible I don't understand > what they mean by charging $10,000/year and $1,500/year > per .NET app ... They mean to make money, I presume. Microsoft has finally figured out what every software company is eventually going to have to figure out: It's almost impossible to maintain impressive growth rates by selling software with one-time license fees. Microsoft wants to find a way to get paid _each month_, again and again, for as long as you use their software. This arrangement has existed in the mainframe world since time immemorial, but the PC world is only just now catching on. The problem is, this set-up offers virtually no advantage to consumers, and they are used to paying just once, so I don't know how well it will go over. Business customers have less choice and can be coerced more reasily. Unfortunately, I can't offer an easy alternative. Software has already bloated into a monster that requires supercomputer horsepower just to boot and is never more than 10% used by anyone, and this because it is necessary to endlessly build "upgrades" in order to maintain a revenue stream, which in turn implies adding features and functions that occupy more space and resources and serve practically no purpose. .NET-style initiatives will eliminate this to a large extent, but paying forever to use a software product isn't very appealing, either. The problem is that software never wears out, so a person who buys a product with a one-time license can use it forever. Unlike a car or washing machine, there is never any replacement business. Of course, if you can convince people to buy new and fancier software, you can continue to make money; but in recent years consumers have finally started to see the light, and they are realizing that you really don't have to upgrade every six months, or ever at all, for that matter. I haven't upgraded anything in years, and I save a bundle that way. > ... the problem I have is, if I can't understand how > much it's going to cost me just to write an app on .NET, > how the heck can I build a business app on it? You can't. Even if you understand how much it's going to cost, it may be too much for the project to be cost-effective for you. The alternative is to write applications that are not .NET-enabled. Or course, if too many people do that, .NET goes nowhere. I don't know how aware Microsoft is of this. If you want everyone to put .NET features in software, it's best to offer the tools to do it for free. Even then, some developers might find it more trouble than it is worth. > She didn't realize I wasn't making a joke. She will, eventually.
RE: Microsoft .NET Licensing
> Someone inside Microsoft gives me a clear info about this: > to be clear, developers will get .NET My Services bits as part of SDK > for free if they subscribe MSDN. > 1.5K/per app is for partner who wants to test/to be certified against a > live testing environment hosted by Microsoft. > The 10K fee is for the ASP/ISP partners who host web applications that > consume the .NET My Services hosted by Microsoft. Thanks for taking time to look into this Peter. I'm still not clear on this. Can you develop a .NET application, ship it, and sell it commercially without paying any fees? Or is "registration/testing" required? Kyle Lussier
RE: Microsoft .NET Licensing
> If you want everyone to put .NET features in software, it's best > to offer the tools to do it for free. Even then, some developers might find > it more trouble than it is worth. Well, I am certainly very impressed by the work Red Hat, IBM, Linus, Alan Cox, and the many other contributors to Linux have offered. What really got my attention was the shipping of a journaling file system (I believe with Red Hat 7.2?) so that you can back out hard drive changes. Is that even on a whiteboard anywhere at Microsoft? The kernel level IP Chains stuff is really impressive as well. My hat goes off to all the Linux contributors. We will actually be shipping our first Linux app next year, as well as supporting Windows. Whether good or bad, it really looks like the new reality is that the "all-windows-all-the-time" shop is becoming a minority, whereas the mixed Linux/Windows shop is the majority customer profile to be supported, love it or hate it. And that makes life interesting, because if you were to apply a "platform goal" to both Windows and Linux, it would seem Linux is the software designed to support the mixed environment, whereas, I'm not entirely sure what Microsoft wants to do with regards to Linux. I read an article about there being 2 camps at Microsoft, an Alchin camp and the Silverburg camp. Alchin wanted to proprietorize everything and Silverburg wanted to support standards. Apparently Gates sided with Alchin and Silverburg went on sabatical. :( I know I am certainly on the side of the pro-Silverburg people inside Microsoft, it's really a shame they didn't win the internal battle. This new .NET business model, however, makes things very interesting, because it certainly isn't going to attract non-Windows developers. And so it seems, the people that will pay those fees by and large are the people that are most dependent on Microsoft. I.e., those fees seem to be targeted to milk the "all-windows-all-the-time" shops dry. And those shops are supposed to be the best Microsoft customers! And so I find it all very interesting. Love it or hate it, the new "majority market" is the mixed Windows/Linux shop. Kyle Lussier www.AutoNOC.com
Re: Microsoft .NET Licensing
On Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:19:46 EDT, Kyle Lussier said: > and the many other contributors to Linux have offered. What really got my > attention was the shipping of a journaling file system (I believe with > Red Hat 7.2?) so that you can back out hard drive changes. Is that even Actually, ReiserFS and ext3 have been available for quite some time, as have both IBM's JFS and SGI's XFS, all of which do journalling, but *NOT* in the "back out file changes" sense (at least not currently). What all 4 of these file systems do is maintain a journal of disk block allocation and structure, so that if the directory/file/free structure is known good at time X, and the system then crashes at time X+Y, to restore the disk to a "known good" state only requires replaying the journal. So for instance, if you checkpoint the known good state to disk, and then remove a file, and then the system crashes, the 'fsck' (the moral equivalent of the Windows 'chkdsk') doesn't have to walk across the *entire* free list, and *all* the files, and figure out that 23 blocks are not on the free list even though they should be. It can just replay the journal, which only has "unlink this file" "put the 23 blocks on the free list" - and the disk is once again in a consistent state. Having said that, I'll note that the ReiserFS guys *have* specifically designed their code to allow the plug-in of commit/rollback features, and I'm sure that the IBM and SGI crew are both thinking about the issues for their high-end boxes... ;) -- Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech PGP signature
Re: Microsoft .NET Licensing
> Love it or hate it, the new "majority market" is > the mixed Windows/Linux shop. Linux isn't even a blip on the radar in the vast majority of shops. Having one in the building isn't the same as having a mixed shop. Until and unless the same variety and number of applications are available on Linux as on Windows, with the same or better user interface, Linux and all other flavors of UNIX will remain marginal outside the realm of servers. I've never understood the attraction of Linux specifically, anyway. Why not just run FreeBSD or something?
RE: Microsoft .NET Licensing
> Linux isn't even a blip on the radar in the vast majority of > shops. Having one in the building isn't the same as having a mixed shop. Well, I definitely don't agree with that. I'm not sure what types of shops you are talking about, but I would say the minority of our customers don't have Linux in one critical role or another. I don't remember the last time I was off site and didn't see at least one Linux box up running somewhere. But these are all back room applications. I agree with your assertion that Linux is but a blip on the desktop. But in the back end, for the majority of our customers it is a core platform, and increasingly so. Kyle Lussier
Re: Microsoft .NET Licensing
Hello folks, Could we drop this subject? I don't see how it relates to IETF, and there are people who care neither about Microsoft nor .NET. -- Pekka Savola "Tell me of difficulties surmounted, Netcore Oy not those you stumble over and fall" Systems. Networks. Security. -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords
