Okay, I did not say we were going away from Red Hat. I personally like
it very much. However, licensing RHEL from Red Hat costs $1500.00 a
server, every year.
We have one RHEL server. We started when the pricing was $750 or so. Last time our renewal was up I talked to them and they agreed to do the same price without phone support (which is what I had before). Their support didn't impress me anyway (long story).
I too am considering other options and I lean towards SUSE. I haven't done any other research other than "just thinking about it."
What I find interesting is that Linux started out touting price / free / low / whatever. Now, the costs are the same as Microsoft. Linux still touts price but that really isn't a strong argument anymore. Shouldn't linux start touting stability and security as its pricing becomes more commercialized?
Andrew's comments, while legitimate, sound very much like arguments Microsoft would use in favor of MS products. :) At least linux has the stability to back it up.
Anyway, I just get this weird something-isn't-quite-right feeling when I see Microsoft style prices and old-school Unix style licensing (per processor, etc) while I am hearing the Linux "free" argument all the time. I guess I should be happy that it is only $1500 a year instead of the $650 a month it was under Data General Unix. But, I am still forced to ask myself at what point is RH going to stop raising the price and do I really want to be on that boat?
I've already been installing SUSE on new servers.
Chris Wood
____________________
BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________
List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
