Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Revamps Licensing Plans
prostoalex writes "Microsoft is introducing significant changes into its licensing program, faced with competition from Linux, as Reuters article suggests. First, Microsoft starts giving away free server licenses to its Software Assurance Program customers, if the PC is not actually used in production and is not present on the network. Such licensing would be convenient for disaster recoveries, where it's important to replace a failed server as soon as possible without calling Microsoft support or licensing partner. Support lifecycle is also extended to 10 years for a variety of products, including Windows 2000, Windows XP and SQL Server 2000."
Will people actually be running copies of Windows 2000, XP, etc. in 10 years?
-- n
And this is why Linux is good for you, even if you don't care about the actual software and are a Windows-only user.
IMO this is a sign that other OSs are legitimate competition. I suspect this was the reason for also extending Win98's lifecycle.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Given the bad acceptance of Microsoft's licencing scheme in the IT, it was time Microsoft did something about it. It's not enough IMHO, but still.
What I like about current situation is that the appearance of solid competitors (around Linux) and the scrutinity of judiciary entities (namely EU), we might have a real free market again in the OS field. That would be great, no matter who the winner is. Free market is always better than a vorace monopoly, and I'd like to see real progress in the field, which can only occur in a competitive market.
I think the next few years will be very interesting, indeed. Imagine if we had as much offering in the OS field as in say the gaming field.
If so, is that because they can't make enough new products (Longhorn >= 2007 ? ) or can't get people to migrate.
Yes. As software improves it gets harder and harder to improve it. As software improves people see less and less reason to upgrade.
It's called "maturation," which, for some reason, most propriatary software makers never saw coming.
KFG
Sasser & Co would eat you alive before you could even say "Hell, where's the Windows Update Button ?" or "Why is this crashing ? We installed the fix for the application 6 months ago!".
Hopefully MS will allow network connections for updates. It would probably be cheaper to have a license ready instead of burning the "Update DVDs Du Jour" just in case you need it.
Just my 5 €-Cents
This article seems to remind me of the same thing M$ has been doing for years. They drop prices, work out licensing deals with organizations (ala University of Maryland), give away stuff, etc just to get their product in your hands, on your network, and essential to your computing life. M$ is not dumb. They have alot of smart people all working towards the same goal.
Also I don't think linux pressure has anything to do with it. I'm just sick of their licensing practices period and I think that attitude is what is changing things. Who wants to pay extra money to have a server sitting around doing nothing? Not me. That being said I would rather use linux for core systems whenever possible.
Anyway I think alot of the posts so far are good especially the one pertaining to the updates on an offline server.
My well being does not depend on my slashdot score.
No, I really don't think the bugs are there to drive the upgrade cycle. I think the bugs are they because they really don't give a shit. Shoddy workmanship. Not the fault, for the most part, of the programmers either, but of the entire aura of the software industry, reaching even into the training the programers get in college. A lot of OSS programers fall prey to this too I'm afraid and the majority of selftaught off the internet programers don't even know enough to know what they don't know, but defend their ignorance vehemently.
.
It all makes for a lot of crappy programing on all sorts of levels and there are certainly still all sorts of improvements to be made in all sorts of places.
But even given all that software is still maturing. A word processor is a word processor and MS word processors and their spawn hit their peak with 97. emacs and vi just keep working, and working, and working. .
No, I really think most of the propriatary companies really believed that by following their policy of only releasing upgrades in slow cycles well below the rate they were actually developing product they could extend the process for decades, relying on technology to outpace their own release cycle.
Yes, this has certainly played a role in letting OSS catch up and even pass their product in some cases.
I think some of the companies just didn't think about it at all. They were young and just got caught up in the whole fervor of the thing, ploughed ahead blindly and got surprised when software turned out to be just another technology business prey to all the laws of the real world.
Microsoft is a special case though. It's a company founded on a cult of personality more than anything else. I've never seen a company, except maybe early IBM, simply exude the personality of its founder more than Microsoft.
And Bill is one of these people who simply does not acknowledge other people as valid other people. He has a "right to innovate." He has a right to conduct business however he likes, because his like is what's right. We get to do what he says, when he says it because we don't share his rights.
So Microsoft simply thought they could make us upgrade forever without ever even considering that we might simply refuse. It wasn't in their world view that that was possible.
And OSS catching up and even surpassing their product in some cases (well, virtually all really. The best Windows programs don't come from Microsoft) is certainly playing a role in disquieting them. It rattles their whole view of cosmology.
Like the Protestant Reformation rattled the Pope.
OSS has its own problem with maturation though. It likes to press ever onward at increasing speed and yesterday's project becomes uninteresting.
Somebody has to do the last two percent of finishing up a project and tying a bow on it. In OSS this only seems to happen with the console programs.
KFG
Licenses are the olden day version of DRM. They're restrictive (if followed) and take away our right to do stuff with software we supposedly own (which we really don't. We just rent it).
How the hell did such licenses become so popular? Because there was no competition. Everyone was doing it so you had a choice. Use software with a restrictive license or don't use software. But we have alternatives now, so why does everyone still use software with restrictive licenses? Because the software became the standard (i.e. Microsoft).
People are shit-scared this will happen with DRM. But this article shows alternatives slowly starting to alter restrictive licenses. This is a Good Thing (TM) because if they can do it after such licenses have become the norm, they should be able to affect DRM and hurt it a lot.