Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on December 17, 2003 12:41 AM
If you think charging a per-seat license is a minor issue, then you haven't been paying attention. It is THE issue. Many IT departments at schools, and other cost conscious businesses are saying forget it to Red Hat over this very issue.
IMHO Red Hat has seriously shot themselves in the foot over this issue, and opened up a huge opportunity for other distros. If you can't support entry of new people trying out the system with a stable, and relatively cheap product, then they're not going to use your product when they become more proficient. SuSE and others should be licking their chops right now.
MS understands this idea very well, let me promise you (I used to work there). They give away tons of software to universities and others. It's not altuism either. MS gets new developers used to using Visual Studio (or Office), and then you don't want to use anything else. In fact the IDE is a big issue for me. VS.Net is a VERY nice environment with TONS of functionality. And yes, I and many others are willing to pay for that functionality now that we're comfortable with it. Which locks you in nicely to Windows. But if that wasn't what I got used to in school, I would have a much easier time making the move to Linux.
I'm making the effort to break the cycle now, because I am sick and tired of the constant updates breaking my network. But many others may not.
(If anyone is listening, creating a really great, integrated set of development tools ***not the CLI*** would be a great thing for UL).
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Re:Still asking "Why?"
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 17, 2003 12:41 AMIMHO Red Hat has seriously shot themselves in the foot over this issue, and opened up a huge opportunity for other distros. If you can't support entry of new people trying out the system with a stable, and relatively cheap product, then they're not going to use your product when they become more proficient. SuSE and others should be licking their chops right now.
MS understands this idea very well, let me promise you (I used to work there). They give away tons of software to universities and others. It's not altuism either. MS gets new developers used to using Visual Studio (or Office), and then you don't want to use anything else. In fact the IDE is a big issue for me. VS.Net is a VERY nice environment with TONS of functionality. And yes, I and many others are willing to pay for that functionality now that we're comfortable with it. Which locks you in nicely to Windows. But if that wasn't what I got used to in school, I would have a much easier time making the move to Linux.
I'm making the effort to break the cycle now, because I am sick and tired of the constant updates breaking my network. But many others may not.
(If anyone is listening, creating a really great, integrated set of development tools ***not the CLI*** would be a great thing for UL).
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