[ale] Fedora and RHN?

[Stuffed Crust]

On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 08:49:30AM -0500, Michael D. Hirsch wrote:
> I will grant you that you get more with RH, but the Linux proce used to be 
> such an easy sell and Windows supporters were left looking for second order 
> costs. 

That's what always amused me -- I find it disgusting when people are 
using the fact that linux is "cheap" as a selling point.

Linux is only cheaper in that it enables you to take care of everything 
yourself, instead of being forced to pay someone else to do it and 
having nothing at the end of the day to show for it.

Linux is cheaper in that it lets you do exactly what you want to do, 
customize it precisely to your needs.  That customization is not and 
never will be "cheap".  

If you want "support", it wil lcost money.  Period.  It doesn't matter 
who provides it, but it will cost money.   That's where the real money 
is to be made, FWIW -- support contracts.  consulting deals.  
customizing and building solutions, and providing ongoing support.

But!  At the end of the day, you own your changes.  

> Linux Advocate: Linux is really cheap!

Yes, it is.  The total upfront cost consists of bandwidth of downloading
a few ISOs and a few blank CDs.  That's it.  And you know what?  Once
you fork over those few bucks, you don't ever have to pay anyone another
dime again for what you have.  ever.

But that means you ahve to support yourself.  Support is ongoing work.  
Support costs time, which costs money.

You can go out and pay RH $180 or whatever for RHE.   And then you don't 
have to pay 'em another dime,  you can shove the whole kit'n'kaboodle on 
a public FTP site.  You can use it on as many computers as you want.  No 
difference.  Because the software is under the GPL.  They cannot keep 
you from redistributing it.  

The only T&C RH can impose is on the support side.. but even that isn't
much -- You pay one support package for one PC.  you download the
updates.  and then you can redistribute , copy, mangle, whatever those
packages onto as many machines as you want.  Again, the GPL.

That is why Linux is Better(tm). 

You don't have someone else telling what you can and can't do with the
software you obtained. 

(All that said, I need to have a good look at the RHE stuff to see 
 exactly what you're getting for your extra money.  The SLA stuff is
 good, but I fail to see why anyone would ever buy more than one 
 "license" for the reasons I touched on above)

 - Pizza
-- 
Solomon Peachy                                   pizza at f*cktheusers.org
                                                           ICQ #1318444
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur                 Melbourne, FL
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