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MS Drops Licensing Restrictions from Web Server 2008
Channel Guy writes "According to a report from CRN, Microsoft plans to allow users of the Web Server SKU in Windows Server 2008 to 'run any type of database software with no limit on the number of users, provided they deploy it as an Internet-facing front-end server.' The previous limit was 50 users. Microsoft's partners expect the changes to go a long way toward making Windows Web Server 2008 more competitive with the LAMP stack, against which Microsoft has been making headway in recent months."
With Windows Web Server 2008 you'll still have to pay for the OS. With LAMP it's free.
Windows Server 2008 is the server version of Vista. Will it have the same licensing model? Will this unlimited Windows Web Server be available only in the Ultimate version?
In any case, this shows that Microsoft is getting desperate, and even with this I don't think they'll get any market share from LAMP.
Everything I've seen ... they felt they were forced to do that for anti-competitive purposes.
They wanted to make it free, but feared to run afoul of the monopoly issues, by undercutting/bundling the product that competes with vmware, etc.
This way, its nearly free, but not really free.
One aspect to modern computing that was largely unforeseen by Microsoft is the server farm. Well, Microsoft was completely blindsided by the Internet in general, but a command-line OS was something that Microsoft had, threw away, and then denied ever existed.
Suppose Gates had had a little more vision, realized that the CLI still had a place in the world, and thrown a billion or two into DOS development? Suppose Microsoft had turned DOS into a real contender for the server room, maybe tacking a CLI and some utilities on top of the NT Kernel? They could have called it MS-DOS/NT. Sure, it wouldn't be DOS as we all knew and loved it (hah) but then they wouldn't have been caught flat-footed when people started assembling hundreds and thousands of computers into racks and connecting them to the Internet.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"Only hobbyists and small-time outfits that run their own hosts would mind a measly $400."
That is just the tip of the Microsoft corporate licensing nightmare. At my government agency employer, we only use Linux for all our web servers. Why? Because we are developers and we want to drop a web/database/file/email/proxy/printer/whatever server wherever it is needed without being bogged down in a sea of Microsoft red tape.
GPL means one simple licence: use it on any machine you want, whenever you want. Absolute flexibility. No counting CPUs, no counting seats, no worrying about whether you bought enough licences. And no over-purchasing just to make sure. The GPL means freedom from licence hell. It is just what us developers want: an OS and software stack that we can use wherever, whenever, however. It allows us to concentrate on technical issues.
Freedom matters.
I am anarch of all I survey.
You can say something is bad without being able to fix it. Netcraft's statistics is much more broken than your average statistics. Perhaps because what they are trying to do is impossible.
"Wrong Linux requires more because Linux has more tweaks and settings on how admins want it."
Only if they were required for basic function would that be considered "more administration". In fact, usually this means less administration because you can set up Linux in a way that suits your environment faster than Windows, which rarely-if-at-all will be able to do so. If you're willing to live with the Windows feature subset, then you definitely don't have any more administration to do. But in that case you are probably hemoraging money in the time your users have to work around the computer setup.
"Wrong Windows is easier updated."
What's hard about yum and the autoupdate services?
"And with Linux you need it as well, unless you are a Linux expert."
If the people handling internet-facing boxes are non-experts, then you are a likely candidate to be 0wned.
"And in that case your salary is higher (or should be) than most Windows administrators"
Not where I live. In fact, everywhere I've lived a Windows admin for a small company makes about 20% more than a Linux admin.
"With Linux in theory you have the ability to fix it yourself."
But it's not just you. It's you and a whole slew of interested parties. In addition, you don't have to wait for it to become MS's priority. If it is your priority, you can always hire someone to do it for you.
In most of your answers I'm sensing that you are forgetting that computers are supposed to serve a purpose - that's their whole reason for existing. Don't worry, most MS people I know think this way. They view computers as simply a cost of doing business, and therefore are worried only about the cheapest way to setup computers for everyone in the office. Most Linux people on the other hand are usually trying to accomplish something on computers. So yes, it is cheaper to have an idiot MS administrator baby-sit machines that are used by office workers to play solitaire or host their porn. But when you have actual business requirements that need to be fulfilled, with Linux you can just do it, while with Windows you have to go through the toll-booths hoping that the features you need won't be held for ransom at the end of the trail.
"And if you do fix it yourself, you are taking away time that you should be using for administration tasks."
Here's the whole problem - in Windows, your business is just plain screwed. You don't seem to be calculating that into your cost calculations. How much does it cost for your business to be screwed?
"No there are not sever licenses. But as illustrated in your previous points your increased salary (should be) does make up quite nicely for the "no license" fees."
I'm curious why a competent Linux admin should make more money than a competent Windows admin. Competent admins all earn their keep, while all incompetent ones should find other work.
Let me go through what my company did in one year with Linux on the server (this was in 2004):
This assumes an existing single company server of either Win or Linux.
Groupware:
Linux price: $0.00
Estimated MS price:
hardware: $2,000 (MS best practice is to use own server for this)
software: $5,104 (2000 server + exchange + CALs)
Development/Deployment for Web Apps (web+database):
Linux price:
hardware: $800.00 for server
software: $0.00
Estimated MS Price: $14,196 - $29,196 (MSDN + SQL Server + Win2k*2)
hardware: $1600.00 for servers
Domain management (authentication+resource administration):
Linux price: $0
Estimated MS Price:
hardware: $2,000
software: $1,500
Telephone PBX server:
Linux solution:
hardware: $1600 (including phones)
software: $0.00
Windows solution:
not available. Most proprietary solutions were about $10k
So, how many admins does it take to do all this? We
Engineering and the Ultimate
It's interesting to see Microsoft's actions here. They seem to think that the best way to handle an Open Source based competitor is to lower the price, but maintain their current proprietary licence. They just can't let go of the sources, because their belief in proprietary software is rock-solid. It's simply unthinkable. Yet, they're just sitting there while LAMP is gradually taking over the market completely. Sure, price is an important factor when deciding upon which software to use, but that's not all. Microsoft is blind to the fact that businesses is settling for OSS competitors not only for its generally lower price, but also for the customisation possibilities and the fact that bugs generally get squished faster within OSS than in its proprietary counterparts. If Microsoft really wants to reclaim market share, they really need to rethink their licencing.