Subject: Microsoft .NET Licensing

From: "Kyle Lussier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 17:02:29 -0400

This should be of interest to some of the developers in this group.

Developers: What .Net will cost you
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7629784.html?tag=mn_hd

From the article:
   "For standard use, which Microsoft expects will involve the majority of
users,
    Microsoft will charge $10,000 per year for using .Net My Services and
$1,500
    per application."

Kyle Lussier
www.AutoNOC.com

---

From: "Anthony Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 00:56:05 +0200

If Microsoft wants .Net to succeed, it should make developer access free.  How
many Windows applications would there be today if every developer of such an
application had to pay Microsoft $10,000 per year?

---

From: "Kyle Lussier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 20:37:30 -0400

> application had to pay Microsoft $10,000 per year?

I agree.  I'm not even sure why they are doing this.

While it is certainly possible I don't understand what they mean by charging
$10,000/year and $1,500/year per .NET app, the problem I have is, if I can't
understand how much it's going to cost me just to write an app on .NET,
how the heck can I build a business app on it?

I was speaking with one Microsoft rep in e-mail, and I made the comment
that I was going to have to hire someone just to figure out all these
licensing issues, handle product activiation, and compliance things,
and the person responded:

 > ROFLMAO!

She didn't realize I wasn't making a joke.

Kyle Lussier
www.AutoNOC.com

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 22:35:20 -0400

> application had to pay Microsoft $10,000 per year?

Unfortunately, we're mostly technology freaks over here.  Probably a lot
of CTO and CIO on this list.  However, probably a bit weak on the CEO/CFO
side of the fence.

Remember 2 things:

1) Microsoft's marketing and business planning has on occasion pulled some
bonehead plays, but they have an enviable long-term track record for being
very good at what they do.

2) Good business and marketing plans take into account the relative
positions of the vendor, the customer, and the barrel....

				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

---

From: "Anthony Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:59:48 +0200

> While it is certainly possible I don't understand
> what they mean by charging $10,000/year and $1,500/year
> per .NET app ...

They mean to make money, I presume.

Microsoft has finally figured out what every software company is eventually
going to have to figure out:  It's almost impossible to maintain impressive
growth rates by selling software with one-time license fees.  Microsoft wants to
find a way to get paid _each month_, again and again, for as long as you use
their software.  This arrangement has existed in the mainframe world since time
immemorial, but the PC world is only just now catching on.  The problem is, this
set-up offers virtually no advantage to consumers, and they are used to paying
just once, so I don't know how well it will go over.  Business customers have
less choice and can be coerced more reasily.

Unfortunately, I can't offer an easy alternative.  Software has already bloated
into a monster that requires supercomputer horsepower just to boot and is never
more than 10% used by anyone, and this because it is necessary to endlessly
build "upgrades" in order to maintain a revenue stream, which in turn implies
adding features and functions that occupy more space and resources and serve
practically no purpose.  .NET-style initiatives will eliminate this to a large
extent, but paying forever to use a software product isn't very appealing,
either.

The problem is that software never wears out, so a person who buys a product
with a one-time license can use it forever.  Unlike a car or washing machine,
there is never any replacement business.  Of course, if you can convince people
to buy new and fancier software, you can continue to make money; but in recent
years consumers have finally started to see the light, and they are realizing
that you really don't have to upgrade every six months, or ever at all, for that
matter.  I haven't upgraded anything in years, and I save a bundle that way.

> ... the problem I have is, if I can't understand how
> much it's going to cost me just to write an app on .NET,

You can't.  Even if you understand how much it's going to cost, it may be too
much for the project to be cost-effective for you.  The alternative is to write
applications that are not .NET-enabled.  Or course, if too many people do that,
.NET goes nowhere.  I don't know how aware Microsoft is of this.

If you want everyone to put .NET features in software, it's best to offer the
tools to do it for free.  Even then, some developers might find it more trouble
than it is worth.

> She didn't realize I wasn't making a joke.

She will, eventually.

---

From: "Kyle Lussier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:19:46 -0400

> If you want everyone to put .NET features in software, it's best
> to offer the tools to do it for free.  Even then, some developers might
find
> it more trouble than it is worth.

Well, I am certainly very impressed by the work Red Hat, IBM, Linus, Alan
Cox,
and the many other contributors to Linux have offered.  What really got my
attention was the shipping of a journaling file system (I believe with
Red Hat 7.2?) so that you can back out hard drive changes.  Is that even
on a whiteboard anywhere at Microsoft?  The kernel level IP Chains stuff is
really impressive as well.

My hat goes off to all the Linux contributors.  We will actually be shipping
our first Linux app next year, as well as supporting Windows.

Whether good or bad, it really looks like the new reality is that the
"all-windows-all-the-time" shop is becoming a minority, whereas the mixed
Linux/Windows shop is the majority customer profile to be supported,
love it or hate it.

And that makes life interesting, because if you were to apply a "platform
goal"
to both Windows and Linux, it would seem Linux is the software designed to
support the mixed environment, whereas, I'm not entirely sure what Microsoft
wants to do with regards to Linux.  I read an article about there being 2
camps
at Microsoft, an Alchin camp and the Silverburg camp.  Alchin wanted to
proprietorize
everything and Silverburg wanted to support standards.  Apparently Gates
sided
with Alchin and Silverburg went on sabatical.  :(  I know I am certainly
on the side of the pro-Silverburg people inside Microsoft, it's really a
shame they didn't win the internal battle.

This new .NET business model, however, makes things very interesting,
because it certainly isn't going to attract non-Windows developers. And so
it seems, the people that will pay those fees by and large are the people
that
are most dependent on Microsoft.  I.e., those fees seem to be targeted to
milk
the "all-windows-all-the-time" shops dry.  And those shops are supposed to
be the best Microsoft customers!  And so I find it all very interesting.

Love it or hate it, the new "majority market" is the mixed Windows/Linux
shop.

Kyle Lussier
www.AutoNOC.com

---

From: "Jim Fleming" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:38:34 -0500

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kyle Lussier" <[email-masked]>
> Love it or hate it, the new "majority market" is the mixed Windows/Linux

Tomorrow, you might want to take the IPv6 Challenge....
...gather 12 of your friends across the net.....
...have 6 buy Windows XP and 6 buy Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris etc....

See who are the first to ping each other....
....measure the time from start of installation to First Ping...

Jim Fleming
http://www.dot-arizona.com/IPv8/IPv4/
http://www.DOT-BIZ.com
http://www.in-addr.info
3:219 INFO

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:53:04 -0400

> Red Hat 7.2?) so that you can back out hard drive changes.  Is that even

Actually, ReiserFS and ext3 have been available for quite some time, as have
both IBM's JFS and SGI's XFS, all of which do journalling, but *NOT* in
the "back out file changes" sense (at least not currently).

What all 4 of these file systems do is maintain a journal of disk block
allocation and structure, so that if the directory/file/free structure is
known good at time X, and the system then crashes at time X+Y, to restore
the disk to a "known good" state only requires replaying the journal.

So for instance, if you checkpoint the known good state to disk, and then
remove a file, and then the system crashes, the 'fsck' (the moral equivalent
of the Windows 'chkdsk') doesn't have to walk across the *entire* free list,
and *all* the files, and figure out that 23 blocks are not on the free list
even though they should be.  It can just replay the journal, which only has
"unlink this file" "put the 23 blocks on the free list" - and the disk is
once again in a consistent state.

Having said that, I'll note that the ReiserFS guys *have* specifically designed
their code to allow the plug-in of commit/rollback features, and I'm sure
that the IBM and SGI crew are both thinking about the issues for their
high-end boxes... ;)
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

---

From: "Anthony Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 23:34:29 +0200

> Love it or hate it, the new "majority market" is
> the mixed Windows/Linux shop.

Linux isn't even a blip on the radar in the vast majority of shops.  Having one
in the building isn't the same as having a mixed shop.

Until and unless the same variety and number of applications are available on
Linux as on Windows, with the same or better user interface, Linux and all other
flavors of UNIX will remain marginal outside the realm of servers.

I've never understood the attraction of Linux specifically, anyway.  Why not
just run FreeBSD or something?

---

From: "Kyle Lussier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 18:30:00 -0400

> Linux isn't even a blip on the radar in the vast majority of 
> shops.  Having one in the building isn't the same as having a mixed shop.

Well, I definitely don't agree with that.  

I'm not sure what types of shops you are talking about, but I would 
say the minority of our customers don't have Linux in one critical 
role or another.  I don't remember the last time I was off site and 
didn't see at least one Linux box up running somewhere.  

But these are all back room applications.  I agree with your
assertion that Linux is but a blip on the desktop.  But in
the back end, for the majority of our customers it is a core 
platform, and increasingly so.

Kyle Lussier

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 01:26:00 +0300 (EEST)

Hello folks,

Could we drop this subject?  I don't see how it relates to IETF, and there
are people who care neither about Microsoft nor .NET.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "Tell me of difficulties surmounted,
Netcore Oy                   not those you stumble over and fall"
Systems. Networks. Security.  -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords