(I'm still playing with my GPG signature, so I hope this all comes out ok)
I gotta say that M$ and RedHat and Caldera are, believe it or not, on the
right track with their software licensing, though I'm sure I'm distinctly in
the minority on this. AT&T gets to charge you a monthly fee for service. So
does the electric company. I realize that M$ and so forth are selling
software as if it were furniture, and this would continue to be a reasonable
model if people bought furniture every few years. But they don't. They buy
every 10 years (except the wealthy, of course, who are buying furniture for
several homes) or more. I think we've been spoiled by the software companies
because they used to be able to count on a new rev of their software to show
up every six months to two years to continue financing their software
development and pay their employess. But as Operating Systems and other
software has matured, people don't need to update their software so often.
How many businesses are still using Windows 95? Lots, probably. So, now, in
order to stay in business, software companies have come to realize that they
are really selling a service. (I guess this is where I put on my asbestos
flame retardent firesuit, even though I might get cancer from the asbestos --
I have a more immediate danger of flames! :-)
M$ is right when they say they should be allowed to make improvements to the
OS. (It just ain't right that they already own the market and force others
out of business or competition with them.) Bug fixes should be paid for out
of the budget of the already sold software. But "improvements" (which may be
some kinds of bug fixes -- it is left to the reader to determine what bug
fixes are required, vs those that are optional) do merit a charge of some
kind. Clearly, forcing people to change from a buying furniture model of
software purchases to a buying a magazine subscription (for example, "Brain
Research" a rather obscure journal, goes for roughly $1000 a copy, and can be
found at a few research libraries around the country) can be a bit of a
shock. But I think that perhaps Linux's strength here is that the endless
upgrades can come at no cost, or at a significantly reduced one, since we are
talking about Free software here. I think someone should still get paid for
doing work for businesses (if that's what they do for a living), I agree that
holding a company hostage is not the way to go.
Boy, another long reply.
Russell
On Saturday 07 July 2001 00:37, you wrote: > On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at
11:45:05PM -0400, Robert Haeckl wrote: > > Whoops! > > > >
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/07/06/ms.extends.deadline.idg/index.ht >
>ml > > This licensing stuff _may_ be great for high volume accounts, but I >
just wonder how many dentists, auto shops, and other small businesses > will
sign on for such a scheme. I realize this kind of licensing isn't > meant for
them at this point. But eventually, Microsoft wants you to > rent your apps
on this basis. And once small businesses realize this is > the Microsoft
scheme, I think they're going to be mad as hell. Can you > say "platform
defection"? And a perfect opportunity for Linux. Go > Microsoft, go! ;-} > >
(We should do a marketing campaign on a basis of something like: > "Linux:
The End of Endless Upgrades".) > > Paul
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