Microsoft Adopts Virtual Licenses

* * Beatles-Beatles is one of many to let us know that Microsoft has changed how they handle licensing for Windows Server and related products with regards to virtual machine environments. The new regiment will allow per-processor licensing to be handled based on the number of virtual processors rather than the number of physical processors in the computer.

Comments

My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[donnacha]

Great, I guess this means I'll continue to depend upon my own virtual licensing scheme, based on the amount of warez I can download.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[Altephfour]

Good man.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[psyon1]

Why not just use free alternatives?

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[pallmall1]

I've got a life. I just can't remember what directory it's in.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[Yocto Yotta]

Warez is a free alternative. Consider yourself corrected.

Legal disclaimer: I do not condone warez.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[whizack]

because there is no free alternative to exchange email?
because there is no free alternative to Active Directory?

pop3/openLDAP does not count as a proper alternative.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[qqtortqq]

Forgive me if there is something I am missing, because I don't claim to be a M$ guru, but what benefit do you derive from using activedirectory? You need a third party program to implement proper share and printer mounting based on users and groups. And exchange? You get an addressbook.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[HermanAB]

There are about 7 possible alternatives to Exchange and I am just counting the ones that are actually working better than Exchange. They are not all free though, but still cheaper and better.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[hakr89]

$ find life
find: life: No such file or directory

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[trezor]

You know... I'm no Microsoft-guru either (but I do know how to spell it correctly), but you know... There are cases where a network consists of more than your three networked Linux-machines. You know, big corporate networks which require central management.

I'm not saying it can't be done otherwise, and if you do happen to know other viable means, feel free to tell me, but for jobs like this Active Directory actually kicks ass. A simple update on your group policies and it's implemented network wide. Again, I'm not saying it can't be done in any otherway, but for tasks like this AFAIK OpenLDAP simply doesn't cut it.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[jocknerd]

Ok, so you run eDirectory on a Linux box. Still way less than the cost of Windows 2003 Server.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[krack]

What are they?

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[HermanAB]

Samsung (previously HP) Openmail Novell Groupwise Novel Open Exchange Open-Xchange Kollab OpenGroupware Citadel etc.

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[sumdumass]

Your right there are other ways. But the question i have is why would someone pirate MS products for exchange and active directory? Thats what the GP was replying about when he questioned the neccesity of AD and Exchange.

I can see were you might want to use it in a large enterprise situation but then most large companies shell out the $ for any software they need. For a small operation, there are plenty of opensource alternatives that could replace MS offerings for the most part.

Well...

[justsomebody]

Either is that greed talking or they feel that people cheat with terminal servers to avoid buying OS licenses.

Re:Well...

[James_Aguilar]

RTFA? It will reduce costs for most companies.

Re:Well...

[Jugalator]

RTFA.

Instead of before, when their software running in VM's had to use a license for your physical processors (and these could be many), they can now use another (cheaper) license for the virtual processor. For people using their software in VM's this should usually be a good thing, although there are exceptions given.

Here's a quote: (bolding mine since it's vital; it's not like you could just skip licensing before, you had to go for a more expensive model of licensing for all your processors... now you only need for the VM "processor")

One change will let users who buy SQL Server, BizTalk Server and other Microsoft server software under a per-processor model license the products according to the number of virtualized processors they actually use, instead of the number of physical processors in their boxes.

And here's the case when it'll end up more expensive:

But there are cases where companies could wind up paying more money under the new model, Park said. For example, if a user runs six virtual instances of a product such as BizTalk Server on a four-processor box, it would have to pay for six BizTalk licenses

And what's this about terminal servers? A terminal server isn't even a VM.

Re:Well...

[imr]

On slashdot we only virtually read the articles, that's our policy.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I RTFA, and here's my take on it:

If I have a 4 way box running 3 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 3 single CPU licenses (before I owed them for one 4 way license, more expensive).

If I have a 4 way box running 6 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 6 single CPU licenses (a 4 way license is cheaper than 6 singles)

According to TFA, you would never run more servers than CPUs in protection. That is utter bullcrap. ESX scales to 10 servers on a 2 way box according to VMware. I have a GSX box running on a 2 way box, and I have 6 production boxes using 25% of the CPU at any given time. That means I could scale to 15 with little trouble. In other words, this new scheme costs me more, a LOT more, than it did before.

So yeah, MS is screwing us. They're just either misinformed or hoping the readers are.

Re:Well...

[perdurabo0]

I see their claim, but most of my experience (corporate and not) is that you use VM's to allow you to run _many_ instances of operating systems on a single machine. Unless I misunderstood the article and this isn't also about OS's then I have great example (from work) that would not be a winning situation. We run several instances (~20) of Windows XP on a VM server for developers to use. Would this now require 20 XP licenses plus host OS instead of 1 XP license and the host OS license?

Re:Well...

[James_Aguilar]

You are right, that would be a loss, but it's a loss that makes sense. I think that the wins will easily balance out the hit you take on this one instance . . . perhaps not for your company, if you have other boxes that virtualize less than the number of physical procs, but for most companies running SQL Server and other such products, it will be a big win.

Re:Well...

[adtifyj]

I find that very difficult to believe that MS is trying to reduce costs for anyone.

I am sure that if Microsoft went to the trouble of conducting an analysis, which is highly likely, no division manager would approve the licensing scheme if it was known to reduce revenue.

The example given in the article is pure speculation of how this licensing model could be benefiticial to someone, ..

Armstrong said the new provision won't necessarily lead him to run SQL Server on [virtualised] machines ...

... and then goes on to mention that this would only benefit him in a parallel universe.

My guess is that most people who virtualise end up running more virtual processors than they have physical processors. Looks like even Microsoft agrees that is one of the main benefits of virtualisation.

This will definately increase licensing of Server 2003, and the net effect may even increase licensing of applications.

Re:Well...

[Khan]

How does ANY loss benefit a company that's trying to cut costs and save money?? This is purely MS sitcking the screws to VMware for winning in the virtual server arena. Let's fuck the customer via licensing since we got 0wneD by VMware. This is pure bullshit on Microsoft's side. Guess I'll just have to "modify" the number of CPU's that my VM's use when it's time to renew my licenses.

Re:Well...

[Thundersnatch]

According to TFA, you would never run more servers than CPUs in protection. That is utter bullcrap. ESX scales to 10 servers on a 2 way box according to VMware. I have a GSX box running on a 2 way box, and I have 6 production boxes using 25% of the CPU at any given time. That means I could scale to 15 with little trouble. In other words, this new scheme costs me more, a LOT more, than it did before.

Umm... it's not very smart to run SQL Server in a virtual machine environment. RDBMS are far to memory and I/O intensive for such an application. It would be much faster (and far cheaper from a licensing standpoint) to run multiple segregated instances of SQL Server on the same host OS.

Just because you can do something with VMware, doesn't mean you should...

Re:Well...

[io-waiter]

You should pay for 20 xp licenses and for one vm license, it has always been so and this has not changed .

The license change is about software which is licensed on physical cpu, this have been changed to being licensed on a virtual cpu basis.
E.g.
If you run msql in a one cpu virtual machine which is running in a 16CPU vmhost you only pay for 1 cpu not 16 as the old license was. Microsoft probably feels that they can compete with vmware on larger machines now and therefore they make it more profitable for large scale consolidation, it will cost you more in some specific cases but for most people its a good move.

Re:Well...

[po8crg]

We run several instances (~20) of Windows XP on a VM server for developers to use. Would this now require 20 XP licenses plus host OS instead of 1 XP license and the host OS license?

It already did!

1. This only affects products that are priced per-processor. Unless you're fairly unusual, that means SQL Server.

2. The other change is about Windows 2003 Server R2 Enterprise Edition. You can now have four VMs running 2K3 for the price of one Enterprise Edition licence.

How will this work for Windows?

[mike.newton]

So if I have a server with a dual-core processor, I have to pay twice the price for Windows? With SQL Server or something else, you can limit it to only run on one processor, but not Windows.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[TheSHAD0W]

Actually, all the base versions of XP (AFAIK) are licensed for 1-2 processors. You can see it on the XP stick-on label. A 4-core machine might cost you more though.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[Joe5678]

Just a side note that although you can set SQL Server to run on only one processor, if the machine has two processors you are required to buy two processor licenses. At least under the old system. I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not. I don't think any of our SQL Server boxes have dual processors, but I certainly wouldn't pay for two licenses unless I was running it on both processors.

I somehow doubt this licensing applies to "virtual" processors in a standard server (not a virtual machine), at least that was the stance they had taken previously.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[kebes]

Previously, if you had two physical processors, you had to pay for a double license. That has not changed and probably never will. However, what this change is about is how many virtual processors something is running on. So if you have a four-processor machine, and you are running virtualizing software and running a windows instance that sees (for example) two virtual processors, then your license for that windows will only be for the two virtual processors, not the four physical processors your machine actually has. So in a case like that, you would actually be saving money.

In other situations, as TFA points out, you could have to pay more. If you're prototyping something, and are using a four-processor machine to generate a virtual environment where windows sees 6 processors, then you're supposed to pay a license for 6 processors.

To be honest (and I'm no expert), I don't understand what this will change. How many people are really running microsoft applictions or OSes on virtual processors? Most people will just be using them on physical processors, and so this "change" changes nothing...

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[BrynM]

I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not.

Exactly. Licensing gets easier under the new system, which most people postig seem to have missed (RTFA people).

As you said, under the old system, you were charged for each processor. Thus, a server with two physical processors was charged for two processor licenses for SQL Server even though you were only running it on one. The situation now lets you simply purchase a single license for each CPU you are _actually running it on_. Despite everyone shouting greed, this is a rare occasion of MS doing what the customers (Corp Customers) have been asking for for a long time.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[The Bungi]

I don't think any of our SQL Server boxes have dual processors

Most of our SQL boxes are *quad* Xeon rigs. We don't turn on hyperthreading (that would probably be dumb), but I wonder what would happen to our licenses if we did. If we paid for a 4-CPU license and I hop over to the BIOS to turn HT on... does that mean I'm violating the EULA because I'm running the thing on eight processors? What about the Server 2003 license?

Weird. I mean, if you're running a single physical Xeon or P4 box and you buy a single CPU license of whatever server product and then you turn on HT, are you in violation of the licensing agreement?

Tweak the BIOS, go to jail!

*head explodes*

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[merreborn]

Actually, all the base versions of XP (AFAIK) are licensed for 1-2 processors. You can see it on the XP stick-on label. A 4-core machine might cost you more though.

Last I heard, the break-down goes something like this:

Home: 1 CPU Pro: 2 CPUs Windows 2k Server: 4 CPUs 2k Advanced server: 16 CPUs 2k Datacenter: 32 CPUs

I don't know the numbers for 2k3 server. And I might be off by about a factor of two.

I stumbled across an interesting article that indicated that windows 2k may, in some cases, count hyperthreaded processors as more than one processor for licensing purposes. Of course, hyperthreading isn't that useful for most applications anyway.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[pcsmith811]

Pro will see 2 dual core's as 4 proc's and work just fine. In case anyone was wondering!

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[Trepalium]

Microsoft says things are licensed on a physical CPU basis. You could put four quad-core chips in there and still be properly licensed. See this story or this document for more details.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[kcb93x]

I've had the chance to play with a dual-core HT'd desktop processor from Intel. It has XP Pro on it, and runs fine, showing 4 processors.

As I responded to the grandparent:

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/mult icore.mspx

"On October 19, 2004, Microsoft announced that its server software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed on a per-processor, and not on a per-core, model."

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they listened to their customers they would create 1 flavor of windows (non of this pro/server/enterprise crap). That 1 flavor would come with all the things you would need to make a server/desktop/etc and make that an installation question like most Linux distros do. Charge one flat fee for Windows(like $59) regardless of what you plan to use it for or how many processors you have. Make licensing simple and make it cheap and then people wouldn't have a need to pirate anything. By default you do not get any support beyond regular updates. If the customer needs extra support then charge them extra for it. Nice and simple. I would even buy a copy then.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[CastrTroy]

It would be much nicer of them if they just sold one product, and allowed you to run it on as many processors as you happened to own. The whole idea of charging more for people just to utilize the hardware they bought is outrageous. It's like charging someone more for gas, just because they are driving a Porsche. SQL server should cost the same whether your running it on 1,2,4, or 128 processors. Unless there is some real reason as to why it should cost more, like extra program modules needed to handle the multi-processor aspects, it should be the same price no matter how strong your computer is. With SQL server, i'm pretty sure there's no differences between the copy you get for 1 processor, and the copy you get for 8,16, or 32 processors.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[BrynM]

If they listened to their customers they would create 1 flavor of windows (non of this pro/server/enterprise crap). That 1 flavor would come with all the things you would need to make a server/desktop/etc and make that an installation question like most Linux distros do. Charge one flat fee for Windows(like $59) regardless of what you plan to use it for or how many processors you have. Make licensing simple and make it cheap and then people wouldn't have a need to pirate anything. By default you do not get any support beyond regular updates. If the customer needs extra support then charge them extra for it. Nice and simple. I would even buy a copy then.

Yes, I also would love a utopia, a personal under the desk redhead and a private jet. Until miracles happen, just think of this as the first of many million steps for MS in a pure customer service direction.

Half glass of water?

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[quantum bit]

...and don't even think about trying to run it on a Cell processor!

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[adtifyj]

Most people will just be using them on physical processors, and so this "change" changes nothing...

It is a change; and it will affect real people and businesses. Here is an example that isnt about mega-bucks, just a small firm that builds a custom application for the finance sector.

A friend of mine uses virtualisation to speed up QA, simultaneously running through the installation of the application on a number of different installations of Windows / SQL Server. I doubt his firm can afford the virtual licenses for him to continue that practise, so he will need to spend a few more days doing mundane testing all of the various combinations that the application needs to support.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[name773]

she needs premium!

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[CastrTroy]

If you get premium gas, you are supposedly getting a better product. You don't have to buy premium gas for that car, although it will run better with it.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[bushidocoder]

If your friend is using virtualization for Q&A on a product written for Windows, I suspect your friend's firm has a MSDN subscription. Although it varies by subscription type, liscensing for development and testing purposes is handled much differently, and quite possibly is covered completely by the subscription.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[man_of_mr_e]

No. Premium gas is not higher quality. It's higher octane. A car that needs higher octane will not run properly on lower octane. It's how the engine is designed.

Read up on what octane actually is about:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question90.htm

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[WillerZ]

Well, it probably doesn't have much octane in it, but it has an equivalent knock-resistance to a high-octane mix.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[Aenema]

A dual-core processor may have 2 cores, but its still one processor.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[Maimonides]

Didn't Microsoft buy up a VM software company with intent to use the virtualization to remain backward compatible (Virtual PC)?
Under the new license you would need to have an extra license to run Win3.11 apps on the latest (not-in-and-of-itself backward compatible (sic)) Windows version.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[po8crg]

Why shouldn't they charge per-processor instead of per-computer?

Oh, and i'm pretty sure there's no differences between the copy you get for 1 processor, and the copy you get for 8,16, or 32 processors.

Single processor: you should probably be running MSDE, which is "free"

Two processors: SQL Workgroup Edition

Four processors: SQL Standard Edition

Eight+ processors: SQL Enterprise Edition.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[CastrTroy]

They give them different names, so that you can order a specific product, and feel like you are getting more when you are paying for the more expensive version. If there's no real difference in the coding from one version to the next, they shouldn't be charging so much more, just for slapping an "Enterprise Edition" stick on the front.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[BrynM]

Under the new license you would need to have an extra license to run Win3.11 apps on the latest (not-in-and-of-itself backward compatible (sic)) Windows version.

Win 3.11 and it's apps weren't licensed by CPU, they were licensed by machine. The old license still applies to old software anyway.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[linuxfanatic1024]

but I certainly wouldn't pay for two licenses unless I was running it on both processors.

I don't blame you.

That is one very important reason I disagree with per-processor licenses. Those boxes are very expensive. Why should we need to pay extra for the same software just because our workstations, servers, etc. happen to have multiple processors? No matter how you cut it, it's really still one box. I don't think this scam should be allowed to continue; especially since there are open-source OSes out there that take advantage of multiprocessor machines without charging for it...

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[Joe5678]

I didn't say I disagree with processor licensing on a whole, just one part of Microsoft's wording.

Per Processor licensing is a valid way of charging more from people who are going to be using the product in situation where the product is likely worth more to them.

It would be far more unfair if they charged one base price for the software and you could run it on as many processors as you want because then the base price would have to be higher to make up that revenue. This would hurt small businesses that may need some of the more advanced features, but are not going to be using the product in a high volume environment.

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[Joe5678]

The whole idea of charging more for people just to utilize the hardware they bought is outrageous. It's like charging someone more for gas, just because they are driving a Porsche.

Those situations are actually very dissimilar. Analogies should be used to take a complicated situation and make it understandable, not to take an understandable situation and make it a slightly different situation.

With a gas purchase you are buying a tangible product, it makes sense to charge what it costs to produce it.

With a processor license, it's easy to determine the cost to produce it. But you're not selling just one, so you've got to guess how many people are going to buy it and what its worth to different groups of people. Obviously the same piece of software is worth more to somebody using it in a large cluster environment than it is to somebody with a single processor.

So the best way to make back your costs is to charge each group what its worth to them.

wow.

[Spy der Mann]

They DID find a way to get even more money from their customers. And when we thought they were over, they finally did something innovative.

Re:wow.

[justsomebody]

Well, at least they show some inovation on their side. Even though it comes from from greed department:)

Re:wow.

[Vampo]

I have to admit, when it comes to the

1) ....
2) ....
3) ....
4) Profit.

model, M$ are the market leader by a long way.

Re:Hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

No (you fanatical moron) this is to prevent people from virtualizing a server and running 18 copies of Windows on it while paying for one.

I don't get it.

[Poromenos1]

Is this supposed to be cheaper? Unless people were running one virtual machine per dual-processor box, they will now be paying more. Isn't the purpose of virtualization to run multiple servers on one box, so one user can't access the other? Am I very confused?

Re:I don't get it.

[VertigoAce]

Before, if you ran two virtual machines on a dual-processor box you would have to pay for two 2-processor licenses. Now if each virtual machine runs on a single processor of the dual-processor box, you only have to pay for two 1-processor licenses. So this would save you money. Even if those two virtual machines were running on both processes, it would cost you the same amount, not more. The only way this costs you more money is if you create more virtual processors than physical processors.

Re:I don't get it.

[msevior]

But isn't the point of virtualization to run more than one process per CPU?

/me shrugs at silly corps who actually pay money for this. Oh well, there is a sucker born every minute.

Re:I don't get it.

[timeOday]

I suspect that heavy-duty virtualization like IBM's partitioning works well. (I haven't used it, but since they engineer their mainframes for it, maybe it works.)

VMWare on x86, on the other hand, is really trying my patience. I've used it for some time to meet my Microsoft needs on my Linux laptop, but it just doesn't run well. Most annoying is the fact that it nice's itself to -5 automatically, then runs everything (Windows OS and Windows Apps) in Linux kernel mode, so far as I can tell. The result is everything else on the host side runs like crap. On the guest side, things aren't too bad until you try to do significant IO - then it gets slowwwwww.

I'm not just ranting here, what I'm wondering is whether others' experience is as poor as mine? I haven't tried v5 yet, is it any better? The main thing I long for is simply fair multitasking with other apps on the host side. I've taken to launching VMWare from the console so I can background it with ^Z when I want to use my Linux side.

Re:I don't get it.

[Dwonis]

Isn't the niceness a configuration option?

Re:I don't get it.

[Poromenos1]

You can make the VM high/normal/idle when captured/uncaptured in the configuration.

Re:I don't get it.

[po8crg]

But isn't the point of virtualization to run more than one process per CPU?

Yes.

1. Most Microsoft things aren't licensed per-processor. Most people only use SQL Server of the ones that are.

2. This means you can have a dual-processor box, with four VMs on, each one running Windows and one running SQL, and pay for one Windows Enterprise licence and one SQL processor licence. Previously you needed five Windows licences and two SQL processors.

Re:I don't get it.

[timeOday]

I don't think it will help much because of what *really* bugs me, which is that VMWare runs in kernel mode all the time. But thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it.

fill free to count

[big.iron.wiz]

Other possible ways to count:
- MB per instalation;
- Number of temp files created and not deleted;
- Number of blue screen of death;
- Number of Bluetooth devices you won't use after upgrading service pack;
- Number of Linux Admin that will nag you for using Bill Gates OS; ...

The way this works for windows...

[electrosoccertux]

This means that if you decide you want to run VMWare and have 5 different, completely secluded servers (for security purposes...if one of the virtual servers goes down, the others will still run), then you will have to buy one license for every installation, as opposed to being able to install the same copy 5 different times under VMWare.

Yet another way to leach more money out of us.

Re:The way this works for windows...

[Joe5678]

This is true, but so is the opposite situation (which is probably more likely a situation).

If you have a four CPU server running 6 virtual OS's, if you only want SQL Server on one of those OS's you only need one copy, where as before if you wanted it on 1 you had to buy four copies.

Re:The way this works for windows...

[malfunct]

More to the point you had to buy a 4 cpu licence for that single virtual server even though most virtual servers only virtualize a single processor and so you were paying the 4 cpu price for a 1cpu equivalent server.

To address the comment about dual core processors I am pretty darn sure I read in the past that Microsoft had adopted a policy of treating a single dual core processor as 1 cpu and not 2.

Re:The way this works for windows...

[addaon]

So the thing to do, then, is virtualize your 8-processor box into a single-(8 core)-processor box!

Re:The way this works for windows...

[fastgood]

First off I am not an anonymous coward!
Everybody knows I am a coward!

And if you keep yelling like that, you are gonna owe Microsoft for a double volume license agreement...

This, of course, means war

[oGMo]

I guess the answer for this is to start paying for virtual licenses with virtual money.

Re:This, of course, means war

[joe90]

Cool - a new use for Monopoly money!

Great!

[Cytlid]

This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?

Re:Great!

[isotope23]

"This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?"

Yeah, they're called federal reserve notes....

Re:Great!

[rubycodez]

But real money is worth a stated quantity of a physical thing, while a FIAT currency such as a federal reserve note has no set intrinsic value. The value of the dollar is falling because of "out of control" federal spending (Greenspan' words), less production of goods, and countries going to other currencies such as euro. Some economists talk of the advantages of a weak dollar (increased demand for U.S. goods), but unless you're a big-corp owner with a global market or a factory worker looking for a job, it's mostly a we-get-screwed deal.

It's the number of INSTANCES you run

[the_skywise]

So if you're only running one instance of Windows (but sharing processors among threads) you're still only need one license. It's when you try to run 2 distinct copies of windows simultaneously on the same PC that you have to pay twice.

Although this is loosely equivalent to having to pay for your TV twice if you use it once for primary viewing and again for picture in picture...

Re:It's the number of INSTANCES you run

[Sancho]

Funny you mention the TV analogy...with most non-free TV services, you WOULD have to pay extra to use PIP. Any signal which requires a decoder box (digital cable, satellite, etc) generally gives you a certain number of outputs per box. If that output is 1, then to use PIP on your TV (at least, to use it usefully) you'd have to buy another box and pay the subscription for it.

Hyperthreading != vmware

[tepples]

So if I have a server with a dual-core processor, I have to pay twice the price for Windows?

Only if you're running vmware, virtual pc, or the like.

Virus Maker Ware?

[tepples]

So if *someone* were to *accidentally* release a virus that doubled the number of virtual processors (I don't know how that's done, I'm assuming it's in software)

A "virtual processor" is created inside a copy of vmware, virtual pc, or other PC emulation[1] software. Good luck fitting a copy of a PC emulator into a worm's payload.

[1] Pedants: Virtualization involves emulating most of a PC, even if it does use JIT recompilation from x86 to x86. This is necessary in part because of design flaws in some kernel-mode instructions in x86.

Re:Virus Maker Ware?

[HermanAB]

DOSBox: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/

Put one of those in a worm and run a few hundred copies of it on a Linux machine, then send MS the money... ;-)

Re:Virus Maker Ware?

[ozmanjusri]

Good luck fitting a copy of a PC emulator into a worm's payload.

Well, since PCTask for the Amiga was only 300k, and that was emulating an 80486 on a M68000 cpu, I'd say it is eminently possible. Highly unlikely anyone would be motivated to do something like that just to bump up Microsoft's revenue, but still possible.

Re:Virus Maker Ware?

[KiloByte]

You're talking about the worm's payload, not the parts it needs to spread. It doesn't have to be even included within the worm itself -- you can download any needed things after you gained control over the target box.

Re:Virus Maker Ware?

[petermgreen]

afaict virtualisation (vmware style) involves emulating most of a pc indeed BUT the one bit they don't have to emulate (user mode) is the one bit where most code runs. This is why tools like vmware can achive pretty good performance.

MS Virtual PC blogger talks about it here:

[MelloDawg]

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/ 10/10/479186.aspx

Also check out his great series on running old games under Virtual PC.

Re:MS Virtual PC blogger talks about it here:

[BushCheney08]

You gotta love this comment from his post about running Starcraft under VPC:

It turns out that they had just assumed that this program wouldn't run and failed it without actually testing it.

Yes folks, this is how thorough the team that does application compatibility testing at Microsoft is. (If you don't feel like clicking the link, Starcraft runs just fine, but the testing team failed it without even trying it.)

Obviously a tough decision...

[kaschei]

From TFA:

Under Microsoft's existing licensing policy, the maximum number of licenses that a customer has to buy for one application is equivalent to the total number of processors in the box, Park said.

Microsoft struggled with that fact, said Zane Adam, a director of marketing in the company's Windows Server group.

Translation: "It was a tough call, but we decided not to limit the amount of money we can charge to run the same code. It wasn't an easy decision, but we'll take your money after all."

Re:Obviously a tough decision...

[James_Aguilar]

I'm amazed that you missed THE ENTIRE REST OF THE ARTICLE where it said that the average company will save money because of this move.

Re:Obviously a tough decision...

[kaschei]

I was pointing out something I thought was funny; the marketing director made it sound like acting in Microsoft's self-interest was a tough call. They could have easily said "one license per virtual OR real cpu, whichever is fewer" in order to eliminate the supposedly few customers who will need to pay more for virtual licenses. They didn't and tried to phrase their decision as though that's what they really wanted, even though if they wanted it they could've done so easily.

Now Microsoft will really be able to compete!

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

As a Microsoft customer I feel this should really simplify things for me. Now my TCO between Linux and Windows will be much better and favor Microsoft! I can easily understand paying hundreds of dollars for a virtual process (which means, of course, a process that would be like a virtual machine, you know, a bunch of threads -- which I'm running now, but they're not actually a bunch of machine-like threads, well, they are, since they're on my machine, but they're not, like separate machines. If I were to say, run an emulator on my machine then I should pay Microsoft... wait... okay, now I'm getting confused.

Maybe I'd better start with the Linus Torvald's "per-seat cheek" licencing plan. Okay, I've got my spreadsheet out and I'm adding up the column marked "Zero." Now keep in mind that is PER PROCESSOR! Not per thread. No wait... that's per cheek. Dang formula!

Can someone please clarify for me how this will help Microsoft be more competitive, especially on the server side where they've taken a hit from Linux? I know everybody likes complicated and expensive licencing schemes, but still!

Right!

[gst]

64bit systems were invented because you can emulate 2 32bit processors on them. And so instead of just 4 I can now run 8 C64 emulator instances on them.

Re:Right!

[Khyber]

Actually, you can emulate more than 2 32-bit processors on it. We're running 4 virtual processors in Linux right now.

and apparently, nobody noted that an emulated processor is a virtual processor. So why I'm modded troll is beyond me. The moderators apparently HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE. Go buy yourself a box and learn what EMULATION is, tools.

For those that didn't read the article.

[Deathlizard]

1) This change affects only virtual processors, not physical ones. If your running VMWare or MS Virtual Server than this is for you. Otherwise move along.
2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's
3) Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition is now licenced for 4 instances of itself per Machine. So you could run 4 Windows 2K3 Servers VM's on one server and MS says "go for it"

The Details from the Horse at MS

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[LexNaturalis]

Thank you! You basically saved me from having to write the same thing. I read the article in ~15 seconds and realized that ~99% of the posters had failed to even give the article a cursory scan. Microsoft does something to -save- people money and yet people still complain. Amazing!

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[jd]

It also affects anyone who has hacked Xen to run with Windows, or anyone who has found a way to run Windows inside of Windows. It also affects anyone running an 80x86 simulator to run Windows. It is unclear to me how you'd count virtual processors if you are running Windows under Wine or Dosemu, though, as there you don't emulate processors, you translate environment. As such, the number of virtual/physical processors visible to the translator MAY differ from the number visible directly to Windows.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[RomulusNR]

If you are running multiple installations under VMWare Workstation, where you are not running all instances at the same time, you may very well likely have installed more than N instances of an OS under an N processor box.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[pla]

2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's

True, and thank you for the clarification - But you've overlooked one particular group of users that might earn the sympathy of a Slashdotter or two - Developers.

In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.


So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...

Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.

If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[KillShill]

they've been ripping people off for ages now and that they've reverted to something slightly less vomit-inducing, we're supposed to applaud them?

companies who charge per cpu are downright STEALING from their customers. yes, real dollars that cannot be replicated due to the secret service busting their counterfeiting asses.

"it's their software".... after they SOLD it too?

pardon me while i go do something productive, like skin a shill alive.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[bill_mcgonigle]

2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's

Well, that's one very rare scenario. A more common one is I have 4 VMWare instances running Windows on 1 CPU. I'm working on consolidating 12 lightly-used servers onto 12 VMWare sessions on a 4-CPU machine.

Server consolidation through virtualization is a popular trend and Microsoft is capitalizing on it. We were buying 1 license per VM anyway, so no change here.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[nachoboy]

True, and thank you for the clarification - But you've overlooked one particular group of users that might earn the sympathy of a Slashdotter or two - Developers.

In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.

So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...

Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.

If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...

These licensing changes are for companies who are using virtualization in production environments. If you are even a small-time developer, it makes sense for you to purchase an MSDN subscription (prices range from about $500 to $2500 for a year, depending on the products you need). MSDN recently included Virtual Server amongst its offerings. A few points about MSDN subscriptions:

- You subscribe for one year, which gives you a starter set of all software on CD/DVD, plus 12 months of updates mailed to you and access to the download site.
- MSDN licenses are *perpetual*. Even after your subscription lapses, all the software you have is still fully licensed and legal. It can even be resold (must go as an entire unit though).
- Retail subscriptions come with retail keys, which generally means 10 activations. If you ever run out, though, I've found you can just give them a ring and they'll give you another key to use. Subscriptions purchased under volume licenses come with volume license keys and no activation.
- The license is a free-for-all for development and test purposes. From the EULA: "For purposes of designing, developing, testing, and demonstrating your software product(s) ... Microsoft grants you a limited, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to make, use, and install the Server Software for any individual Server Software on any number of Servers."

None of these licensing changes affect developers who are running software for development and testing purposes. Accuse Microsoft of gouging real customers if you must, but developers get a pretty sweet deal with MSDN.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[CXI]

They do seem to go out of there way to make good deals for bulk purchasers and those that use the enterprise grade products. For example in my place of employment Office is $53, 2003 Enterprise server is $338, etc. Basically 10 times lower than retail. In fact the licensing people bend over backwards to make deals and often seem to talk about other divisions of Microsoft as if they were mysterious separate companies, which perhaps they almost are.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[publicworker]

Microsoft does something to -save- people money and yet people still complain. Amazing!

Welcome to slashdot. I come here for the MS bashing, but I have to wonder what you're doing here.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[semenzato]

But a common use of virtual machines is for server consolidation, where several lightly loaded virtual machines run on the same CPU. This is useful when the services run on different OS versions, or use different DLLs, or cannot run under the same OS for some other weird incompatibility reason. In this case, Microsoft will be able to charge more money. I don't know which case is more common, but this is certainly a blow to server consolidation.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[deaddrunk]

Unless they happen to be running something that is a threat to the MS monopoly, i.e. VMWare, and then they get seriously stung. This is another power play from MS dressed up as doing customers a favour.

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[humina]

The purpose of this article was not so people could complain. The purpose of the article was to give the "Now we can pay with virtual Money" jokes a place to go.

Limiting an app to one processor?

[phallstrom]

Don't know much about it, but how would they handle the situation where I'd limit say Windows to VCPU 1 and Office to VCPU 2.

Seems like I should only have to pay the single VCPU price, but I imagine that won't be the case will it...

Re: Limiting an app to one processor?

[usurper_ii]

So how do they go about knowing how many virtual processors, or real ones, a person has, anyway? I would bet those surprise jack-booted thug raids would be fun, when they go to counting virtual servers. I can see it now..."Well, it looks like you are in compliance, but what exactly is this 'kill_vserver.bat' file I found here?"

Not my area here, so please excuse stupid comments, but I'm going to take it that a corp. edition of, say 2003 Server, is used that doesn't take product activation. So does it know it is being used on a virtual processor? Does it report the number of virtual processors or real processors back to MS? Or does MS just have to take your word for it?

Usurper_ii

Explain this to me.

[Solkre]

Can someone please explain why any software vendor should even had the slightest idead what hardware you're running the software on? Maybe for support reasons, but they have no right in *$#@ to charge me more because of my better hardware! I don't get the logic AT ALL.

Re:Explain this to me.

[ScentCone]

It's based on the perceived value of the purchase. Let's say a company needs to do a lot of SQL stuff. They could just set up a bunch of single or dual processor boxes, pay X to license separete instances of SQL for each, for a total of X*Bunch. Or, they could buy a big bad killer 16-way machine and outperform the lot of them (er, depending on what you're doing), and thus not need to buy so much of the server software. Lost revenue for the publisher... although, depending on the product, it's exactly that hyper-serious big-dollar enterprise corporate user that they spent the majority of the R&D fine tuning for. Sure, the average department throws up a SQL server to do some simple storage/queries... but by the time someone's putting a $50,000 machine to work in what's obviously a seriously mission critical role for a very large operation, well, it can't screw up. And more to the point, MS is on the hook for a certain amount of support under such circumstances (those very large purchases rarely happen without direct MS sales/tech involvement before, during, and after the transaction). Your average cube-jockey support person is not equipped to deal with the network, the storage, the business environment, or the pressure that usually goes hand in hand with the use of, say, a 16-processor enterprise db box (and the cluster it's probably in). That is an example of why it costs more money.

And you know what? Microsoft is not stupid. If Oracle or DB2 wasn't priced the same way, they wouldn't do it. But there's a reason that super-duper heavy duty products/implementations are expensive - it's not just "because they can."

Re:Explain this to me.

[KillShill]

it's called capitalism.

either help introduce honest commerce into the world of business or lie down and take it.

Re:Explain this to me.

[drsmithy]

Maybe for support reasons, but they have no right in *$#@ to charge me more because of my better hardware!

Sure they do. Indeed, quite the opposite, it is you that have no right to demand the price they sell to you at.

I don't get the logic AT ALL.

That's because you're not trying to sell software. Typically, more expensive hardware means the user has more money to spend. If they have more money to spend, you can charge them more.

It's just simple price-discrimination, one of the fundamental principles of capitalism.

Was I the only one to misread the title...

[Tavor]

Was I the only one to misread the title as "Microsoft adopts Viral licenses"?

Re:Was I the only one to misread the title...

[hendersj]

Oh, no, I read it that way as well.

This is obviously to increase revenue from customers running VMware 5.5 when it releases - 5.5 will support mulitple virtual processors on a uniprocessor system....

Good for them

[nacs]

This kind of thing only benefits opensource so I approve. The more ridiculous their licensing gets, the more businesses will look to open source solutions ( Linux + Xen or Linux + UML, etc).

I love this quote from the article:

The shift will benefit customers, Microsoft says.

Higher prices 'benefit' consumers. I'll have to remember that one. </sarcasm>

Re:Good for them

[neural cooker]

In a way, it really does benefit their customers. As a publicly traded company their primary customers are their stock-holders.

Re:Good for them

[mjm1231]

So, by this logic, the primary customer of a mom and pop store would be mom and pop?

Re:Good for them

[acvh]

it's time to put this fallacy to rest. corporations are granted benefits in return for them acting in a way that is conducive to good the good of society as a whole. if they don't act in such a fashion they should have those benefits revoked.

Re:Good for them

[StikyPad]

Except you're thinking of it bass ackwards..

Bob Armstrong, managing director of IT at Delaware North Cos. in Buffalo, N.Y., said he hasn't even evaluated running SQL Server in a virtual environment because of the license fees that would be required. Armstrong noted that with a virtualized quad-processor system, Delaware North would have to pay for four instances of the databases under Microsoft's previous policy, even if it used only two processors for SQL Server. "We were waiting for the change," he said.

They're not talking about virtual processors, they're talking about the number of actual processors used to run the virtual OS.

Re:Good for them

[fastgood]

The shift will benefit customers, Microsoft says.

"Product activation is a technology that protects users from pirated software ... by limiting use of a product"
(according to Norton Internet Security 2005 dialog box, when it craps out 15 days after installation)

--
We totally stop working after 365 days and cannot
be removed from your system ( without upgrading )
to protect you from the Y2K6 bug that we made up.

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Once more for Mr. Leap-to-conclusion mat:

- This is a pay for what you use deal under virtualization, e.g. customers now buy fewer licenses in most scenarios

- Microsoft supports 1 license per physical CPU. The story is still somewhat inconsistent with Oracle, IBM, etc (try getting a straight answer from Oracle)

Re:Good for them

[pgnas]

"The more ridiculous their licensing gets, the more businesses will look to open source solution"

I couldn't agree more, I have to wonder as to if Microsoft has read the marketing manual written by telcos, banks and maybe insurance companies, see: "Confusopoly

I wonder if I can purchase some virtual licenses with my virtual wallet, where I keep my virtual bank card which of course is drawn from my virtual bank, which no doubt is guaraunteed and protected by some virtual regulatory agency...

You really have to wonder about a company that puts version control on their licensing model!

I think Microsoft is going to learn that the only people interested in participating in their ever-changing license strategies are going to be Virtual Customers

Re:Good for them

[Total_Wimp]

Not to be rude by calling you bass ackwards or anything, but...

But there are cases where companies could wind up paying more money under the new model, Park said. For example, if a user runs six virtual instances of a product such as BizTalk Server on a four-processor box, it would have to pay for six BizTalk licenses.

The article was plenty weird in how they gave their examples. Until I get a more clear explenation I'm just gonna assume that whatever will put more money in Bill's pocket is most accurate.

TW

Re:Good for them

[Tim C]

Higher prices 'benefit' consumers.

Actually, this will lower prices for anyone it affects. Currently, if you have a four processor box running (e.g.) VMWare, and partition it into four virtual machines, one of which is running SQL Server, you need a four-processor SQL Server licence. Under the change in terms, you'll only need a single-processor licence.

Congrats on getting your "+5, Bashes MS" though.

Re:Good for them

[debiansid]

An example of how companies are not always very much educated about licenses. My firm plans on using MySQL database without knowing its license details, saying that "it's open source, so no sweat". The nitty gritty details are rarely concentrated upon unless its absolutely necessary -- for example when the customer wants to know about it.

Whereas many businesses consider license details before adoption, many just don't know anything ahead of "open source, hence free" and "uhh... shitloadsa money".

How many people actually READ license agreements before going ahead and installing a product?

Re:Good for them

[Aenema]

Higher prices 'benefit' consumers. I'll have to remember that one.

You forgot to open your sarcasm tag.

Re:Good for them

[RMH101]

with norton, you might as well just get it over with early, though. it's going to bork out at some point and cause you a world of pain, so why not do it early and save the suspense?

Re:Good for them

[alexcohn]

Quite a few contemporary solutions (e.g. http://www.mini-frame.com/) rely on sharing single CPU resources between a group of users. Their major price advantage was a single Windows/Office license. The new scheme will dirve these guys out of business.

Re:Good for them

[Emperor Cezar]

The article was plenty weird in how they gave their examples. Until I get a more clear explenation I'm just gonna assume that whatever will put more money in Bill's pocket is most accurate.

And that is why they say people on slashdot are not objective.

Re:Good for them

[neural cooker]

Exactly! I couldn't agree with you more. That was the reason that corporations where created in the first place (at least in the US), but it's changed a lot since then in practice. We need to get back to that.

Re:Good for them

[coopseruantalon]

Well that was how it was supposed to be, but someway along the lines several courts decided that corporations were requiered "by law" to only concern itself with the bottomline. By the way, here's more analysis of the Corporation: http://www.thecorporation.com/

For old games

[Sycraft-fu]

I think DOSBox is more useful. It really does a good job on the old DOS stuff. The Windows stuff, well generally I find it'll run natively on XP with maybe a bit of tweaking.

Between DOSBox and what's built in, I rarely find an old game I can't run. DOSBox runs on Linux too.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/

Re:For old games

[HunterZ]

DOSBox is great. It's also got a great forum community at http://vogons.zetafleet.com/ if you need any help or have any comments/questions/suggestions.

Re:For old games

[KiloByte]

If you are running anything i386 compatible (and yeah, I do mean Pentium 17 and/or x86-64) box, why you won't just run the stuff natively? You see, you don't need to emulate anything.

Microsoft can't revoke your DOS 6.22 license, and there is FreeDOS...
(disclaimer: while I do have a DOS partition, I didn't boot it in like a year)

Re:For old games

[Dave2 Wickham]

Because booting into actual DOS is painful; you lack the nice GUI tools, multitasking, etc, and you have to stop everything you're doing. Plus there are some (early) games which depend on clock speed, so become pretty much impossible to play on modern machines.

Re:For old games

[Sycraft-fu]

Number of reasons. The show stopper is hardware support. Most of my hardware doesn't work in DOS mode. My graphics card does, but I don't know how well, I'm not sure how complete it's VESA support is, but none of my soundcards do, none of my joysticks or game pads, etc. Also I don't like leaving my multi-tasking environment. I like the ability to switch out to other programs, play MP3s in the background, whatever. There's also old hardware emulation to consider. I don't have an OPL chip in my system anymore. My soundcards either have samplers on board, or just MIDI outputs. So if there's an old game I want to play that's pre general-MIDI, I need something to emulate an OPL2 or 3. Speed is another issue. Current processors are inconcevably fast compared to what the games were expecting. This often causes execution problems, since they didn't properly speed-limit themselves.

A good emulator deals with all that. I just launch it like any other program.

Re:How is that cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, MS has been covering this for years, by requiring you to have a CAL (Client Access License) to be able to connect to a Terminal Server, or well, any of their servers really.

If you've got SharePoint, MS SQL, Exchange and Terminal Server all running on the same server and you use that server for file and print services, guess what you need 5 CALs for each and every client.

1 client licenes for Exchange
1 client license for MS SQL
1 SharePoint client license (SharePoint btw, requires MS SQL)
1 client license for Terminal Services
1 for file and printing

They're just raping their customers even more now. Per processor or per virutual processor licensing scheme are total bullshit. I bet within the next 10-20 years we'll see this come up in the courts.

Its like I'm really playing virtual skee ball!

[ikarys]

Can we now do the following on a single virtual processor license?

Get 40 xeons all contributing to a single massive virtual processor.
That virtual processor runs 40 virtual virtual processors.

MOD PARENT UP!

[Spy der Mann]

Either funny or insightful (the analogy is astonishingly true)

Sure, no problem

[Diabolus777]

I'll just pay them with virtual money

Re:Sure, no problem

[Diabolus777]

Yeah, i should have read the thread before posting.
A wonder i'm not getting modded redundant.

You have to be bloody fast these days to get non-redundant posting here.
Seems every topic gets nailed in 5 minutes. . .

Fair licensing

[click2005]

I think M$ should just forget all this silly per per core/per processor licensing. The best way for them to earn more money is to charge per clock cycle. They could then charge people a premium for running non-M$ software.

Allow or require?

[nurb432]

And i assume a virtual cpu license is cheaper then a hard cpu license, since performace is less.

So now you get a dual core cpu ( soon you wont have a choice ), and you get screwed by Microsoft.

What is next, back to per cycle charges?

Or how about just change to a national 'per brain' charge? Once a person is born, they just start charging you since eventually you will use a computer of some sort.

Its all a f-ing scam. Should they be able to make a profit? Sure. But should they be allowed to screw you? No.

Re:Allow or require?

[Locke2005]

But should they be allowed to screw you? No. No one can screw you without your compliance... well, at least in the area of software purchasing, anyway.

Re:Allow or require?

[ConceptJunkie]

But should they be allowed to screw you? No.

Bzzt. Yes, they should be allowed to screw you. But you can't be forced to let them.

Re:Allow or require?

[ScentCone]

Should they be able to make a profit? Sure. But should they be allowed to screw you? No

All you have to do is not buy their stuff. Then all you have to do is convince other people that Linux is easier to use, works on more hardware with less fuss, does everything they want, etc. No problem, right? Or, just convince everyone that Oracle is cheaper, or maybe DB2. And once you've used your calm, persuasive explanations to steer people away from Windows and over to a easier, plug-and-play no-compiling, no fuss *nix desktop - problem solved. And you don't have to talk about what companies are "allowed" to charge. Because if you want to talk about what companies are "allowed" to charge, why not look at the cost of Apple's OS vs. XP? Apple charges more. Should they be "allowed" to do that?

Re:How is that cheating?

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

You don't need a CAL for Terminal Server for Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional.

1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[eikonos]

Why does one copy of Windows cost more if you have more CPUs, since it's still only one copy of Windows? That's like buying a whole pizza where the price is based on the number of slices it's cut into. A pizza cut into 6 slices would cost $6, but the same pizza cut into 10 slices would cost $10.
It really should be 1 CD & 1 Product Key = 1 price.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so you've got a pizza in six slices. And you have five friends. Pizza for everyone.

Ok, so you've got Windows. And you have five friends. Windows for everyone?

What if you have 100 friends? 100th of a pizza is not very tasty. But each copy of Windows is identical to the first.

Are you saying that it should be 1 Product Key for one computer, regardless of the number of CPUs (virtual or otherwise)? And if so, under that scheme, why wouldn't everyone who needed lots of Windows servers just build a giant monolith with 128 CPUs and pay the thousand bucks once instead of 128 times?

I don't like weird licensing schemes either, but the other side of the fence has people on it too.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[koick]

Amen!

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[KillShill]

you can thank honest* politicians and honest* software industry shills.

you cannot thank anyone who has an ounce of reason or a shred of decency.

back to our regularly scheduled propoganda.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[sootman]

Whenever I buy a pizza I have them cut it into four pieces. I can't eat more than four.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[timelessroguestar]

well it's not exactly like a pizza it's more like:

1 CD & 1 Product Key & 1 Beowolf Cluster = 1 price

alright, scratch that, bad joke.

1 CD & 1 Product Key & 1 VPU (of 1 or more CPUs) = 1 price

so instead of charging a fixed price for each slice (for a pizza of n slices), they charge a fixed price for each of the k people eating it. if that's too biased for you, it's more like charging a fixed price for each person's bottomless bowl of MS spaghetti.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[CastrTroy]

Because it would probably be cheaper to buy 128 copies of windows and 128 single CPU computers. Either way, you'd have a lot of trouble getting 128 people to share a single copy of windows, all working on a single computer. Terminal servers are another beast altogether, and are probably fair if they are charged per terminal that's connecting. Running multiple copies of software on a single CPU, using a VM, is also different, because you are actually running multiple copies. Basically, if you can get the hardware, the software shouldn't cost anymore just because you have more processors. If I can tweak my computer so windows runs twice as fast, should I have to pay double? No. Well then why should I have to pay more for software, just because My computer runs faster than some other computer?

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[bokmann]

I would get it cut into 6 slices... I don't think I could eat 10 slices of pizza.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[killjoe]

Windows does not support 128 processors.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[krunk4ever]

RTFA? I can't believe they modded the parent as "insightful". It's as insightful as not reading the f-ing article can get.

Using your analogy, people are currently paying for the x cuts already. But not all x cuts are needed simultaneously, and they are only charging for the maximum # of cuts that you need simultaneously at any given time.

from http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051010-5413 .html

Microsoft announced today that they are changing their licensing policy for running Windows server operating systems inside a virtual machine (VM). The old licensing system required that every copy of a Windows server product stored on a server was required to be licensed, either individually or through a bulk licensing program. With the new system, only running instances of operating systems must be licensed. The server operator can legally store as many different copies and installations of the OS as desired, including copies for backup and recovery, without these copies adding to the license total. Licenses need only be purchased for the maximum number of operating systems that will be running at any one time. In addition, restrictions on moving instances between servers have been lessened, and some products that are currently licensed per physical processor can now be licensed for the number of virtual processors being used.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[eikonos]

If you give five slices of pizza to your friends, that's less pizza for you and it's still the same total amount of pizza. If you buy 1 copy of Windows with 1 Produce Key and share it with your friends then it's the equivalent to 6 copies of Windows or 6 whole pizzas. As for the massive group server, everyone would still have to buy windows for their client machines anyway.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[Tim C]

I used to think like that, then I realised something: writing good multi-threaded code is very, very much harder than writing good, single-threaded code. There are all sorts of extra things that you have to take into account; suddenly the load on the system can cause weird, unexpected failures as race conditions are introduced (or avoided), and so on.

Moving to a multi-threaded design increases the amount of time, effort and skill required across all stages of a project, from design, through coding to testing and bug fixing. It's that extra level of effort and time that you're paying for when you pay a per-CPU licence.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[po8crg]

Why does one copy of Windows cost more if you have more CPUs, since it's still only one copy of Windows?

Windows isn't licenced per-processor, it's licenced per-server.

The only Microsoft application licenced per-processor that anyone's likely to care about is SQL. Previously, you paid one licence per processor in the server that you ran SQL on. Now you pay one licence per processor that SQL is actually using in a virtual environment.

Here's a complete list of per-processor licenced applications (from my Select price list; the actual prices are under a NDA, sorry):

SQL Server
Commerce Server
Host Integration Server
BizTalk Server
Speech Server
Application Center
ISA Server
Identity Integration Server
Content Management Server

Of those, ISA Server is something no-one sane would install in a virtual environment, so this doesn't affect it. The others are not really big deals.

Also, remember they already change per-processor. If you don't like per-processor pricing, fine; but don't complain about per-processor pricing being reduced.

Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[eikonos]

If you don't like per-processor pricing, fine; but don't complain about per-processor pricing being reduced.

Reducing the per-processor pricing is great, but they shouldn't be doing it at all because it's just a price grab. If you want a more powerful server you buy more powerful, more expensive hardware. You shouldn't have to pay more for the operating system just for running it on more powerful hardware. That's be like paying more for gas because you've got an eight-cylinder engine instead of six.

Now all we need to do

[Freexe]

is come up with a vitual host that has no processors

What's virtual?

[elronxenu]

So does this mean if I run, say, two copies of Internet Explorer, then I have to pay double the license fee?

What's the difference between running two instances of Application X on one CPU, and running one instance of Application X on each of two CPUs?

It boils down to the question "what is virtual, anyway?". If I run a process under an emulator, versus running it on the native operating system, there's no difference as far as the application is concerned. Only its execution environment has changed. So presumably I should require two licenses of the operating system, because I am running two instances of it.

It makes sense to count not CPUs but the number of concurrent instances of an application, irrespective where they run. For applications which are licensed according to some scale, of course. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with linux and OSS!

finally they step up

[wardk]

MS has been charging for virtual innovation* for ages, it's about time they stepped up to full disclosure.

* the gatesean technical term for krapware

Payment plans

[Junior J. Junior III]

Can I pay for these virtual licenses with virtual dollars?

Beacuse They can

[nurb432]

They do it because they can use it to squeeze more $ out of you. And as long as people accept it, it will continue.

This is one reason 'per cycle' charges have almost dissapeared. Once the minis arrived on the scene, most people rebelled against that sort of license fee.

Why license by CPU anyway?

[gellenburg]

Can someone clearly explain to me why (other than greed) software is licensed based on how many number of CPUs/ cores are in a machine to begin with?

Re:Why license by CPU anyway?

[sethanon]

The idea is to increase the average price per unit of software without exceeding the ability of the little guy to buy the software. The assumption is that someone running a piece of software on an 8 CPU system is more likely to be able to swallow an increased price and should be generating more revenue from the software than someone running a single CPU.

You could achieve the same thing by charging per transaction or by MIPS but those sorts of metrics get complicated for the user and the vendor to administer.

Re:Why license by CPU anyway?

[gellenburg]

Isn't that kinda saying that just because I prefer and can afford a Filet Mignon that the restaurant should charge me more for A-1 Steak Sauce?

So it really *is* all about greed.

That kind of shit pisses me off. I have a Power Mac, and if I go into the "Mac" section at Micro Center, a USB hub, or mouse, costs 25% more than a similar one---from the same manufacturer---on the other side of the store (the PC section).

Re:Why license by CPU anyway?

[po8crg]

Can someone clearly explain to me why (other than greed) software is licensed based on how many number of CPUs/ cores are in a machine to begin with?

1. Mostly it's databases. Take a look at a Microsoft SKU list; there aren't many products other than SQL licenced that way that anyone ever buys.

2. Otherwise, there would be an incentive to buy one huge machine for all databases, instead of many smaller machines with separate databases.

3. It creates an incentive for the DB vendors to make the software really good on machines with lots of processors. Most applications don't have noticeable multi-threaded performance gains; DBs do.

No. Per processor, not core.

[kcb93x]

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/mult icore.mspx

"On October 19, 2004, Microsoft announced that its server software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed on a per-processor, and not on a per-core, model."

VMs in blades

[DeepDarkSky]

I think this kind of licensing is for situations where you run multiple VMs in blades.
My company recently setup a rack of 40 blades, each with 16GBs of RAM and all attached to SAN. Each blade is capable of running about 10 VMs. The same setup is duplicated at the redundant site, and a high-speed connection between the two locations, with about 92TBs of storage between them. Supposedly, the VMs can be moved around between any of the blade between the two locations, giving us the possibility of about 800 VMs...all within about 1 rack's worth of space.
Now, each blade does NOT have 10 processors, but is capable of running 10 VMs easily. And though I can't say I like Microsoft for wanting to charge for virtual processors, I can understand why they'd do it.

Re:How is that cheating?

[WinPimp2K]

Au contraire - (That's French for Kind of - not really)

Each copy of XP Pro comes with a CAL for Terminal services - but only if your server for Terminal Services is running Server 2000.

Those CAL's are not valid if your TS box is running Server 2003 (once known as XP Server)

B O H I C A

[sl4shd0rk]

Thanks bill...

Re:They have to do SOMETHING

[ScentCone]

You're clueless. For people running VMware and other virtualizations with certain server apps, this will make MS's products less expensive to license. RTFA. "Anti-customer?" Well, since you've got the whole point of this move of their's exactly, precisely backwards, it makes sense you'd think that, I guess. Being exactly, completely wrong probably has you seeing much of the world incorrectly. MS isn't committing suicide with this, they're being smart, doing their customers right, making it easier for the consulting army to make good (and cheaper) recommendations. Read before you spout off next time.

Bzzzt No they shouldnt

[nurb432]

In this case Microsoft is a declared monopoly, the rules change. One of those rules should include not screwing people ( any longer ).

Re:Bzzzt No they shouldnt

[ConceptJunkie]

Well, we are saying the same thing. By being a monopoly, they were forcing you to let them screw you. :-P

However, like some other posters said, it seems appropriate to pay them with Monopoly money.

Does this exist?

[Kaenneth]

Is there any available virtual PC environment that allows you to simulate more CPU's?, that is for example, if you have 2 physical cores, making an OS believe you have 4?

Most useful for testing multi-cpu software for basic compatibility I would think.

Re:Virtual processors? 64bit = 2 32bit?

[KillShill]

no, you pay 32 times as much.

but only if it's on sale.

otherwise it's 2^32 times more.

Re:I'm confused...

[hpavc]

Every processor virtual or otherwise needs to be licensed for each product. So a 2 processor box with 6 virtual processors instances is 8 processors (the windows that booted the virtual processors) and the virtual processors.

This high number of virtual processors is likely to come into fashion in an ASP situation. If you look at vmware enterprise-like solutions where you can have standby virtual processors on other machines and the like.

Seems like a money grab to me that will just alienate folk, just like their user/connection + terminal service licensing destroyed the terminal services. Making it more expensive to license a product in TSE and it did a regular desktop.

man

[834r9394557r011]

Whatever happened to just buting a copy of the OS and it ran. I mean really like they need to be bastards and charge for instances of a software running. I mean I can install and run this game three times, but I only paid once. They don't seem to have a problem with that. It seems that your not buying a product anymore. Pretty soon they will charge per service per virtual server. That'll be sweet I bet. I just want to buy the damn cd and do whatever I want with what I friggin paid for.

Re:How is that cheating?

[mboverload]

They don't require CALs for macs!

MS Licences and GDPs

[gaanagaa]

0.3% of GDP on Windows licences! Are you having a proverbial "laugh"?

UK GDP - source Google - $ 1,782,000,000,000

0.3% of UK GDP = $5,346,000,000 or $5.4bn

I'm sure the UK spends a lot on Windows. But bear in mind that Microsoft's total annual revenues are only about $40bn, of which roughly half is client (Windows XP, etc.) and server (Windows 2003 Server). (In fact this over-states total Windows licenses, as there is also SQL Server, etc. in there.) But even on a best case, you're saying that the UK buys more than a quarter of all Microsoft Windows licenses. In fact, what you're really doing is making up sprurious statistics to get some temporary kudos.

Next item of absurdity: "the United Kingdom spends 0.3% of GDP on it's transport infrastructure". Really? Source please. Of course there is no source, because this is a ridiculous made up number. Lets go to the UK Office of National Statistics: oh! it turns out that the UK government (excluding what is spent by private industry) spends, da da, £20bn on transport infrastructure. (Which, at today's exchange rate is about $35bn, or around 2% of GDP.)

VMs to circumvent software instability

[dougwhitehead]

I've noticed that a fair amount of development occurs in VMs to offset the lack of drivers and overall instability of new software. If it dies, so what? just run it again... It also is convenient as a means of creating an "image" with a configured set of tools installed.

Of course, none of this would be necessary if: 1) software companies didn't burden their customers with alpha quality code and 2) it weren't so damn difficult to uninstall or unmuck-the-registry in Windows.

Taxing developers who support your technologies is not too bright IMHO

It's actually an old story

[Chemisor]

A beggar found shelter in a tavern and sat by a fireplace where a hunk of meat was roasting on a spit. Before eating his meager dinner, consisting of a piece of dry bread, he held it out toward the meat to catch some of the flavour. The tavern keeper saw him and demanded payment, causing the poor fellow considerable distress, since he had no money. A wise man who was eating at a nearby table saw the commotion and asked the keeper what the problem was. "This thief is stealing the flavour of my meat!" the keeper said. "If he wants it, he better pay for it or git out." "That's all right," said the wise man. He pulled out a coin, threw it down on the fireplace, picked it back up and replaced it in his pocket. "For the flavour of your meat, I have now paid you with the chime of my coin."

Re:It's actually an old story

[richie2000]

Best thing I read all day.

OK, so I just got up, but still!

Re: How is that cheating? Yeah, but

[usurper_ii]

I was just looking at this today. If I understand it right, and please feel free to freaking flame me if I don't, WinXP PRO will only allow one client to access the XP PRO Remote Desktop server at at time. Now I don't know about 2000, but the point is, you can't buy XP pro in place of Server 2003...unless you only needed one client to access the server at a time to begin with. I also take it that a person can't buy more CAL licenses for XP PRO, as well, because I looked for that a little bit, too, and couldn't find any CAL add-on packages.

Usurper_ii

the mainframe folks have tried this, too

[swschrad]

and that's why you find a mainframe "at every desk and in every home." it's so popular.

You lost me here.

[usurper_ii]

As noted in another reply on this subject, XP (and I think 2000), will only allow one client to access its built in "server" at a time. Your comment that those CALs aren't valid for 2003 Server (XP Server?) confuses me. I think you could use the client on XP Pro to connect to a 2003 server, as the 2003 Server should have its own Terminal Server Licensing Server that comes with its own CALs (5 pack, 10 pack, etc.), indepent of the client OS. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the CALs are server side, residing with the Licensing Server, not client side, correct?

Re:Hmm..

[RenHoek]

Ah, didn't understand the article then :) No need to get mad.

Re:WTF- regimen/regiment????

[The name is Dave. Ja]

1.3a is the winning entry:

3a. A regulated system, as of diet, therapy, or exercise, intended to promote health or achieve another beneficial effect.

"Diet, therapy or exercise" are intended as examples; not applicable in this case. I guess the beneficial effect is cashflow-related - for them, anyway.

Contrast with IBM

[BBCWatcher]

Most IBM software is priced per CPU. And everything after that is in the customer's favor. If it's a dual core CPU you pay for one CPU, not two (unlike, say, Oracle). If you use virtualization software (like z/VM, LPARs, Virtual PC, or VMware) you only pay for the number of CPUs that the software actually executes on. If that means you run 300 instances of DB2 for Linux on a single Linux mainframe CPU running z/VM, you pay for one CPU, not 300. Unlike Microsoft. If you want to switch from DB2 for Windows to DB2 for Linux (on the mainframe or anywhere else), fine -- the processor licenses are cross-platform. Don't pay again. The main reason corporate customers run virtual machine technology is so they can consolidate the ridiculous numbers of test and development servers which cost a fortune. Under IBM's pricing policy that's encouraged, and they can get their costs under control. Under Microsoft's new policy it'll cost those businesses more if they use virtualization to any significant degree.

Re:Contrast with IBM

[Keeper]

No, it doesn't, and that's the entire point.

Old licensing mechanism: each virtual machine must be licensed for each CPU on the machine. Got 4 active virtual machines running in a 2 proc box, you must have 8 licenses.

New licensing mechanism: one license is required per each executing virtual machine instance. Got 4 virtual machines running in a 2 proc box, you must have 4 licenses.

Re:Now?

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

Wow! Web hosting with no SLA whatsoever - just what I was shopping for today!

Virtual License for Desktop Windows?

[0xC2]

As in, if you buy a computer without Windows, you don't have to pay for Windows! This could catch on big! I doubt it will happen anytime soon...

I imagine this applies to the OS license...

[msimm]

I dug into this recently because we are setting up a number of systems running dual-core chips. Microsofts licencing policy was surprizingly reasonable (at the time) and it was Oracle who appeared to be looking to gouge us (but only if your running more then 1 dual-core processor, so we left a socket open).

Quintupled Your Software Bill?

[BBCWatcher]

Assuming each of your blade servers has two CPUs -- not a bad assumption -- Microsoft just quintupled your software bill, didn't they? All the more reason to switch to Linux, Linux software, and processors that can do better than a 5 to 1 VM ratio. (Mainframe Linux comes to mind.)

Mainframes

[Hyperhaplo]

In the mainframe world they have several ways of costing:
Per LPAR (virtual machine) capacity
Per CPU seconds used (rationalised for costing)
Per access - With some programs you pay for the number of times the program is run.

We recently had to negotiate with CA because we upgraded a mainframe (nearly doubled its capacity) and CA argued that we owed them more due to the LPAR having greater capacity.

This is akin to Windows Server Edition costing more because you are running it on a 3.4Ghz machine rather than a 3.0Ghz machine.

After dealing with mainframes for four years I have come to this concolusion when it comes to money: Companies will charge every cent they can, in every way they can up to the point of the customer not using their product.

The ending to the story above is quite nice. One of our managers nicely told CA that since we have not increased our usage of their product they can either submit a better offer than a $300,000 increase (we're halfway through a contract btw) or we will migrate to another product. We are talking about CA AllFusion Endevor here. There are alternatives. CA knows it. We know it. A better deal was done. (No, we are not privy to the details, only that it was more than what we are currently paying, far less than what they demanded, and we are continuing to use CA Endevor. I think someone tipped them off that we could be expanding to use more CA products in the future and that alienating us could cost them a lot of money).

http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=259

However: For what we pay for the mainframe to run is nothing compared to what it costs to do the same transactions on Midrange. Ever looked up the price of using webMethods?

Re:How is that cheating?

[zerocool^]

I really don't see what's so hard to grasp about this.

Remote Desktop == Terminal Services.

Every XP copy sold comes with the ability to have one user at a time connect via Remote Desktop (TS).

Every 2003 server copy sold (well, at least small business server, which is most economical for almost all the companies I consult for) comes with the ability to have 2 users connect simultaneously via Remote Desktop (TS), plus the currently logged in local user.

If you want more than 2 people to connect to your Server, you install the Terminal Services service stuff, and pay for the license to have X number of people connect. If you want more than 1 person to connect to your XP machine, buy a 2003 SBServer.

It's not that hard, and it's really not that sinister. I've never seen any of this BS about what OS you have to be running for your CAL provided by WinXP or any of that shit. If your OS has Remote Desktop built in (XP Pro), use it to go into another XP Pro or 2003 machine. If not, go to microsoft's site, or google 'msrdpcli.exe site:microsoft.com' and download the remote desktop client - it works all the way back to Windows 98. Let your sysadmin take care of the licensing based on the number of people that need to simultaneously connect remotely.

~Will

Lawn Mower Analogy

[serutan]

I only mow my lawn about every two weeks. My neighbor across the street mows his every week. Shouldn't he have to pay twice as much for a mower as I do?

If software companies are allowed to control "their property" in this way, I don't see why sellers of physical products won't eventually do the same thing. Instead of buying a product and owning it, you'll merely be buying a license to use it for a certain amount of time. Then the license will expire and you'll either have to renew it or throw the product away. Tell me how this is different from what software companies are already doing?

But the good news is...

[dskoll]

... they accept virtual cash, too! So this ten-dollar-bill really contains six paravirtualized ten-spots.

Re: 2003 SBS Server

[reezle]

Except that 2003 SBServer doesn't support licensed Terminal Services anymore.
Yet another thing they removed on the transition from SBS 2000 to SBS 2003

I see

[WindBourne]

And we invaded iraq for WMD.
Oh yeah, Santa is coming real soon.

This will reduce costs in the same way.

So what?

[teklob]

If you have multiple virtual processors running on one actual box, you will pay more. If you have multiple physical processors running together, a la the oh-so-overused beowulf cluster joke, you will pay less. What's the big deal?

Re:How is that cheating?

[Punboy]

Actually, "au contraire" means "Actually," or "On the contrary"

Active Directory? What are you smoking?

[leonbrooks]

Samba 3 already does most AD things more efficiently and flexibly than AD. Samba 4 will absolutely ace it.

Not sure what MS-Exchange features you're looking for, either. Semi-automatically misconfiguring the HELO string? Dinking with attachments (maybe bundling them all into a WINMAIL.DAT file)? Write access to the entire mail database for the lowliest user? Randomly hanging onto mail for half an hour or so? Name your favourite!

Re:Active Directory? What are you smoking?

[4lt1r15]

you sound like a real user...

Re:I'm confused...

[typical]

Seems like a money grab to me that will just alienate folk, just like their user/connection + terminal service licensing destroyed the terminal services.

Lock in creates economic value, which can be exploited by the company producing lock in up to and including the cost of switching away. You use IIS? How much do you think it'll cost you to switch to Apache and teach all your people Apache? That's how much Microsoft can suck out of you.

so generous

[idlake]

The new regiment will allow per-processor licensing to be handled based on the number of virtual processors

Microsoft is so generous to us.

How about this?

[salmonz]

How about not paying for software? Most people don't anyways.

unless you cheat

[RMH101]

If you really want multiple concurrent RDP connections to an XP box (Terminal Services in miniature, basically), then you can with a bit of bodging:
Download the termserv.zip file (google it) and extract it somewhere. Reboot into Safe Mode. This is necessary to remove Windows File Protection.
Copy the termserv.dll in the zip to %windir%\System32 and %windir%\ServicePackFiles\i386. If the second folder doesn't exist, don't copy it there. Delete termserv.dll from the dllcache folder: %windir%\system32\dllcache
Merge the contents of Concurrent Sessions SP2.reg file into the registry.
Make sure Fast User Switching is turned on. Go Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Change the way users log on or off and turn on Fast User Switching.
Open up the Group Policy Editor: Start Menu > Run > 'gpedit.msc'. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Terminal Services. Enable 'Limit Number of Connections' and set the number of connections to 3 (or more). This enables you to have more than one person remotely logged on.
Now reboot back into normal Windows and try out whether Concurrent Sessions in Remote Desktop works...

Re: patent it!

[nasta]

Yes they finally did something innovative, and this should be patented!

Re:How is that cheating?

[SiChemist]

What I find "sinister" about the whole thing is the CALs. I mean, you pay Microsoft for the server and the clients, and now you have to pay again for some right to magically connect the two? Ridiculous.

Re:Yet another MS fanboi raises his ugly head.

[ScentCone]

What has escaped you completely is the concept of buying a copy of an O.S. and doing what you want with it. You know, the idea that it's actually YOUR copy when it's on your computer?

I'll run however many VM's I darn well please; and MS can go to hades if they think I owe them anything more.

You've got the words SUCKER written all over you; and you're too clueless to even see it.

You do understand what a license is, right? We're not debating the philosophical appropriateness of licensing, we're talking about agreements that people enter into. In this case, we're talking about a change from one licensing model to another. It's a good change. As for being a "sucker," well... if I'm helping a large business with their IT needs, and they've chosen to license MS products, they're in a position where they could be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines if they'd been following your advice. Get a grip.

motives

[halleluja]

I've seen quite some multi cpu systems, but I rarely see Windows-based 4 cpu systems, let alone 16 cpu systems.

I'd guess there's a lot more 1-cpu servers running virtual machines than 2+-cpu servers, am i right?

Greedy bastards!

[Snaller]

Good thing Google is slaying them!

Two Distinct Sides

[courtarro]

It's funny that people can read this with two distinct points of view and either say "yay! it's cheaper!" or "no! that's more expensive!". If you typically work with a beefy 4-cpu machine that simulates one megabox, you're good to go. Now you'd only have to pay for one license where you previously paid for 4. OTOH, If you're the type to run 4 VMware virtual servers on one megabox with a lot of ram, you're in the second, and it's going to cost you 4 times as much next time.

In other words, readers may have jumped to either conclusion based on their own experience, not whether they read the article. Thus, a huge debate raged about the wrong problems! Ideally, Microsoft would charge licenses on the minimum of each configuration (the lesser of [physical CPUs] and [virtual CPUs]), but then that's the consumer ideal. Oops, forgot the Linux reference: I pay 4 times as much for my Fedora server, which comes to a whopping $0!

Read Channel9 Forum Replies - interesting

[* * Beatles-Beatles]

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1255 84

M$ Licensing

[tim_bissell]

Computer == HiFi

M$ software == CD

per-processor licensing == CD price = base price * consumer's-number-of-ears

does anybody else find this ridiculous?