Re: Redhat licensing

[Alvin Wong <alvin wong b2b com my>]

Hi Ed,

The OS from redmond that i'm basing my argument on is Windows 2K 
advanced server versus RHEL 3.0.  Basically i need to convince my boss 
that it's cost effective to transition from Win2K to RHEL but showing 
him the cost per year for support, updates per PC, it is definitely more 
expensive than buying another license for Win2K AS.
For windows, we are just paying a one time cost and get free updates 
while for RHEL, we need to pay subscription and cost of updates on a per 
year basis. The reason for RHEL3 instead of desktop version is taking 
advantage of the SMP features with 2 processors. I'm not too sure though 
if the Professional version is capable of utilising the SMP kernel.

The principal need is for us to move on to a linux platform running 
oracle database and RHEL 3.0 is officially supported by Oracle. 
Personally i'm a great fan of fedora/redhat distributions as well as the 
greater performance from linux versus windows platforms.
Is there any official redhat vs windows cost comparisons of this nature 
for the enterprise platform that anyone can provide or know of the link?

Regards,
Alvin

Ed Wilts wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 02:41:48PM +0800, Alvin Wong wrote:
>  
>
> > Heck if microsoft can give free updates with windows updates, i 
> > don't see why redhat can't either. 
> >    
>
> Perhaps because a copy of Microsoft Windows costs several hundred
> dollars?  A full version of Windows XP Pro sells for $299 from
> Microsoft's web site.  
>
>  
>
> > Maybe there should be a seperation between paying for updates and
> > paying for support.
> >    
>
> You can purchase Red Hat Professional Workstation for about $85.  It is
> identical to Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS but comes without support but
> includes a full year of updates.
>
> So Microsoft can sell you the OS for $300 but give you free updates.
> Assume you replace the OS every 3 years.  Red Hat would have charged you
> $255.  Red Hat will have included things like an office suite,
> compilers, web server, etc. whereas Microsoft would have charged you
> extra for all of that.
>
> Although RH Pro Workstation didn't include things like DNS and DHCP
> servers when it first came out, those packages are in the channel now.
>
>