Yes RHEL has less total cost of ownership. You get a faster, more secure, better supported OS for that price.

Wow, that was fast. You really don’t have a life, do you?

I’ve taken the trouble to provide attributions (aided by your notorious sock-puppet, IMGX64, who provided the link).

Where’s your evidence, little man?

“I’ve taken the trouble to provide attributions”

No you didn’t.

Quote at top. (Mandatory for FUDs.)

Link to Rubber Duckies. In your case, TL;DR.

Link to MS Server price.

I don’t know what these represent in your high-rise first floor slum-dwelling apartment, Adam, but to me they are attributions.

As always, you have literally nothing.

That’s not TCO.

I apologise to both your mother and your sister for the “slum-dwelling” crack, btw. I stand contrite.

But you’d have to admit: any serious external observer would conclude that you, on your own, are capable of turning a des-res in the heart of Albuquerque into a slum, just by opening your potty mouth.

Keep doing it, though. It’s always fun waiting for the toe-jam encrusted foot to force its way in.

“Agriprop.” Yeah, tell that to the Mexican farmers. On second thoughts, don’t. They actually have to work for a living, unlike Mummy’s Little Loon.

No, it isn’t TCO. But it’s a starting point.

Now, let’s see. RHEL servers have a ridiculously constrained starting point which is roughly 25% higher than Windows servers.

Linux admins are very expensive, because they have to deal with all sorts of complicated crap that is built into the fabric of the server.

Windows server admins are quite cheap these days, even if you hire them internally rather than relying on a hosting mechanism (which, for most SMEs, you probably should).

I don’t have figures for the next five years of ownership, and neither do you.

But I’m providing evidence that you start from a lower cost base if you use Microsoft technology.

You are providing no evidence whatsoever. As always.

For many businesses the price for Windows Server isn’t a problem at all. Even the hardware isn’t such a big deal any more.

I would be surprised though if the license wouldn’t be limited by sockets. One Enterprise license allow 8 sockets and some of the other options 4.

Well, I said I was open to correction.

And I said that the nitwits in charge have a ludicrous pricing mechanism going that can only benefit salesmen.

I genuinely do not know (nor, frankly, do I care. It’s not my line of business).

But you could well be right. I’m just quoting baseline figures.

(And the RHEL price I quoted was basement level, btw. Two sockets and four virtuals. I’d like to think that’s a fair comparison.

(Per year.

(I don’t want to have to hammer that small but important detail into your skull one more time.)

DrLoser,

The cost of a Red Hat subscription is miniscule to any large enterprise. It’s not even of any statistical significance compared to their other expenses.

Minuscule.

Rather like you.

Did you do the Econ 101 elective at the Podunk Hairdressers’ Lurnin’ Foundation?

Can you use a calculator? Do you even faintly comprehend the gouging prices from RHEL?

What would a ten person company gain from all this?

Gaguing? Seriously? Do you see Red Hat putting a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to buy their OS?

Red Hat has NO leverage at all, all their stuff is open source and open standards.

Unlike Mafia$oft with their proprietary Win32 API and vendor lockin techniques that make it hard to move software solutions from Windows to other OSes.

Red Hat has nothing at all to leverage over customers forcing them to stay with them. Hell, you can even get CentOS which is the exact same OS for free.

And yet they are hugely successful. That should tell you something.

Go look at the prices for Oracle, IBM and SAP’s proprietary enterprise software, you’ll find that RHEL is a bargain in comparison.

It’s not about the sticker price, but what you get out of it that matters. World class support and services seems to make it worth the $1200/yr/CPU or whatever petty amount it costs.

“Gaguing? Seriously”

No, “gouging.” Seriously. Let me do the math for you.

Assume I am comparing two equivalent systems. (It’s an assumption.)

Right now, the Windows Server 2008 R2 offering is $1,024.23.

Granted, that extra $150 to buy the RHEL equivalent (it’s an assumption) isn’t much.

But since you can run every single other bit of FOSS software on top, it comes down to this:

Would you rather pay a one-off (and lesser) fee to Microsoft in order to do that, or would you rather pay an annually recurring fee to Red Hat?

It doesn’t even come down to what you get back in terms of support and services.

I mean, if that isn’t “Gaguing” (which I assume is a reference to a French post-Impressionist painter living out his years in the South Sea Islands. I respect your knowledge and erudition, Adam, if not your spelling), I’d like to know what is.

And if you’re really concerned about “how much you get out of it” (which you’re not), let me reiterate this very basic fact.

You can build your own LAMP stack, and everything associated with that LAMP stack, entirely out of Open Source Software.

And you can stick it on a Windows server or you can stick it on a RHEL server.

The Windows server appears to be cheaper than the RHEL server.

Feel free to discount the probability that the Windows server will have equally good support.

Do not feel free to ignore the obvious in your face you really are a divot aren’t you fact that the cost of the Windows server is a one-off and the cost of the RHEL server is annual.

And do not feel free to assume that Microsoft is “locking you in.”

Build that there damn LAMP stack on a Windows Server. Once you get sick of the gnunking … was that how you spell it … you can seamlessly transition to RHEL.

If you can stomach the price, that is.

“And I believe (and am open to correction on this) that the MS Server licence doesn’t give a [censored] how many sockets you have. Or how many cores. Or how many years you are going to use it.”

What a coincidence. I’ve been doing some research about the Windows Server pricing model just last week.

First of all, it does care about number of CPUs, RAM, and most importantly, number of users, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2008_R2#Editions . It’s not per year though, which is a positive thing.

Second, my research was futile. I gave up eventually. There is absolutely no way to understand it without talking to a Microsoft salesman (even people on ServerFault recommended that!).

However, what I did get was this:
1- For editions other than Web, you need a license (CAL) for every single user (or you can choose per-device licensing) that your server knows about. And that’s not just for Active Directory; if you install a PHP application that authenticates users, you still need a CAL for each user (about $150 for 5 users).
2- You can buy an “external connector” (I think about $500) which gives you an unlimited license to users that access it from the internet. You still need individual CALs for users within your company.
3- The Web edition is like having a server with an external connector, but you can’t have internal users using it. CALs are not allowed either.
4- Microsoft makes it really hard to know the price of Windows Server licenses. Even your link doesn’t link to the official Microsoft website.
5- There is also Volume Licensing, Microsoft partners, OEMs, etc. You can’t get any information without contacting them.
6- There are also Windows Small Business Server, Windows Essential Business Server, Windows Multipoint server, and Windows IGiveUpImJustGoingToCallAMicrosoftRepToDetermineTheBestSolutionForMyCompany.

I was looking that up out of sheer curiosity. I’m glad I don’t run a company.

Windoze and RHEL are not even in the same league. One is a proprietary OS with vendor-specific APIs, and one is a POSIX-compliant open source OS. RHEL competes with Solaris and AIX.

And LAMP doesn’t work on Windows, I figure the L for Linux would give that out. The closely related WAMP stack does, but its 3rd party software. LAMP is integrated with RHEL and benefits from Red Hat’s updates and support.

@IMGX64:

Yeah, it’s a pain, isn’t it?

And that’s a whole bunch of subsidiary costs. I’m not a Microsoft shill: I’m just as annoyed about it as you are.

My rider about the Italian suits wasn’t a throat-clearer: I’m genuinely pissed off about the whole thing.

But I’m still curious as to how RHEL servers compare, price-wise, against W2K 2008 R2 servers. I’m guessing that if you’re a large enough corp and you lean on the salesmen enough it’s pretty much a wash …

... except that annual thing still comes back to haunt me.

As you say, thank God neither one of us is in the business of sorting this crap out.

@Adam:

“LAMP is integrated with RHEL?”

How so, apart from the trivial detail that it runs on Linux rather than NT?

And what “miniscule” proportion of users would notice that trivial detail?

I don’t think you are understanding DrLoser.

LAMP is part of RHEL (ie, it’s bundled with the OS). It benefits from Red Hat Satellite Server updates.

And you can call Red Hat support and ask them questions about LAMP and get answers because it’s part of the OS and support agreement.

So Adam, what you’re saying is, it’s okay to pay MORE for an open source solution? Where’s FreeAsInBeer™ ?!?

Wow. What Free Software advocate would claim Free Software has to be FreeAsInBeer™?

The famous FSF saying is “It’s free as in freedom, not free as in beer.”

@Adam:

Is that AMP support really worth paying through the nose?

I mean, they’re not going to help you with your database schemata. And they’re hardly likely to solve your problems with that ten thousand line long bit of Perl you’ve hacked together. And, much though I hate administering Apache (I have. I have overseen a transition between 1.3 and 2.2, and believe me it wasn’t fun. I’ve even done a security audit on the thing), I have to admit that, once it’s there, it’s there.

Where’s the added value in all this?

@Adam:

And here we are discussing “Free, as in beer.”

If you didn’t want to discuss that point, it’s difficult to justify any of your earlier posts. All of which come down to “It’s not quite as free as in beer, but at least you get to talk to a master brewer for what Red Hat gaugins you.”

I mean, try to stay consistent for once.

Adam, you’ve claimed several times that companies would save lots of money by switching to open source. I don’t see how that’s possible when the open source package costs more than double.

“I mean, try to stay consistent for once.”

Consistency – one thing KimTjik failed miserably at.

And you expect Adam to fair better than that?

Also, if it’s better written, then why does it need support? It’s like the old adage “if Macs never have issues, then why is there a support forum?”.

Why does RedHat need support if it’s so vastly superior?

“The famous FSF saying is “It’s free as in freedom, not free as in beer.”“

For the record, the FSF also does not recommend Red Hat:

“Red Hat GNU/Linux

Red Hat’s enterprise distribution primarily follows the same licensing policies as Fedora, with one exception. Thus, we don’t endorse it for the same reasons. In addition to those, Red Hat has no policy against making nonfree software available for the system through supplementary distribution channels.”

http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html (I just love this page, this is probably the tenth time I link to it on TMR)

“Fare,” please.

I like to try to stay consistent when I gauguin things.

This is why Adam sucks so hard at trolling. He can’t keep his argument moving in a straight line so he’s constantly losing momentum and starting over.

He’s got nothing left.

DrLoser,

I keep telling you that software is a trivial expense, you don’t listen.

The added value is support and services that quite frankly no competent Enterprise would roll their own solutions when a company like Red Hat exists to help them.

You get access to people who are actually very knowledgeable about the OS without having to hire a recruiter and paying them massive amounts of money to find someone similar who might quit 3 months later after he screwed up your CentOS cluster.

That’s why Red Hat is a BillionDollarCompany™ despite your not being able to figure out how it all works.

“Apache … once it’s there, it’s there.”

LOL. I thought you guys of all people would figure out that is far from the truth.

Anyway you can continue arguing over this. Maybe if you try hard enough you can convince administrator to move this site to Windows.

@IMGX64:

What, so you’re saying that Adam has just wasted his valuable time trying to defend an enemy of FOSS for charging extortionate, but nevertheless very reasonable under the circumstances because you also get LAMP support, amounts of money?

Jeez. What sort of sock-puppet are you? You even provide attribution. His Singular Hand will be removed from your nether regions forthwith…

I don’t agree with a lot of what the FSF says.

I like the idea that you’re evil if you supply a distro that is entirely composed of FOSS software, but admits that non-FOSS software actually exists.

Good little link, that.

OK< Adam, in simple (yet amusingly mis-spelled) words, what exactly do you believe in?

Other than the fact that it is socially acceptable to mock children with disabilities, of course.

“Anyway you can continue arguing over this. Maybe if you try hard enough you can convince administrator to move this site to Windows.”

Interestingly enough, there have been some riff-raff at LHB about this site being slow.

Did you say this site ran on Linux or something?

And seriously, once Apache is there, it’s there. It has a disgustingly complicated configuration scheme, and it really isn’t the best in breed any longer, but the very last criticism I’d make is that it takes a lot of administration once it’s set up.

Or does Internet Server Admin count amongst your almost uncountable number of l33t skillz? Since you’ve never yet shown us proof of ability in any other field, how about this?

Let’s hear when you last had a problem with running Apache.

There. That’s not too big a challenge, is it?

Oh I need to remind you of my political and ideological standings again?

Well here goes: – Windoze is a crap – Mafia$oft needs to die
— Dissolve the company entirely, put the upper management in jail for violations of the Sherman’s Anti-Trust Act and use their illegally acquired wealth to pay down the debt – Linux is the best OS on the planet. Put that into the US Constitution if possible. – FOSS is a better way to write software. Ditto. – Copyright should last 14 years at most. Corporations can not own copyright. – The government should fund FOSS development with taxes on proprietary software in order to tip the financial favor more to writing FOSS.

“Software is a trivial expense.”

Pure-Dee Ignorance, right there.

I suppose Adam thinks it grows on Decision Trees.

“Oh I need to remind you of my political and ideological standings again?”

Charming. Now, are you going to tell us about the last time you had problem with Apache or what?

Or are you just going to ignore it like Kim to every question?

@Adam:

Got a single person who supports you in those beliefs?

Other than Schestowitz, obviously.

Apache has regular updates that fix security and stability issues. You don’t update your Apache installation at your own risk, or you can just buy a RHSS subscription and get it done for you automatically by professionals.

His beef with Apache?

Well, the Foundation does a lot of things. But ya gotta admit, it doesn’t make calculus any simpler, does it?

“'Apache … once it’s there, it’s there.’
LOL. I thought you guys of all people would figure out that is far from the truth.”

Gosh, I missed out the automatic updates. Silly me. They work on Linux servers, and they work on Windows servers.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes. Once it’s set up and configured to your needs, you never need to touch it again.

That was my point. What’s yours?

The tax on proprietary software should be something like 100% of retail cost. Meaning lets say Adobe wants to make $1000 from Photoshop, it would sell for $2000 and $1000 would go to pay the salary of people working on The GIMP.

Also, FOSS developers should be totally immune from income and sales taxes and make a minimum of $100k – and proprietary developers would have added income taxes.

And that’s where I have to depart from your otherwise eminently reasonable point of view.

There’s no obvious reason to throw all those taxes at worthless incompetents like the GiMP developers.

I think you should have it, Adam. All of it. Yes, you.

You’re Good Enough, You’re Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Despise You!

“The tax on proprietary software should be something like [...]”

So, are you just going to blather on and on about this stuff, or are you going to tell us your experience with Apache?

C’mon – I, for one, would like to hear it.

“I think you should have it, Adam. All of it. Yes, you.

You’re Good Enough, You’re Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Despise You!”

I don’t need it.

In other words, you support the idea of one-way communism. You realize the Republicans are NEVER gonna support any scheme such as this… right? Nor will the Democrats, nor any thinking individual.

Adam, start with small bites. Take a good portion of that income you are making and donate it to FOSS developers. That also goes for those supposed thousands of dollars you are getting for all those classes you take. Donate at least 50% to FOSS projects. Impose this tax scheme on yourself first, let us know how it worlks out for you, and who knows, we may just decide you have a good idea and chip in. In other words, put your own personal money where your mouth is.

P.s. before you say that you alread do this, be ready to provide receipts of payments and verifiable copies of income you have recieved. In other words, make it 1005 open and transparent.

Still not a word about your experience with Apache?

You are really trying hard to channel all that evasiveness from Kim, aren’t you?

@DigitalAthiest

I support the free market. Properitary software is what is communism – a government-sponsored monopoly called copyright. Eliminating proprietary software will result in a freer market for all.

“That also goes for those supposed thousands of dollars you are getting for all those classes you take.”

You mean thousands of dollars in crazy people money for imaginary classes that don’t really exist?

I think you’ll need a damned good accountant to do all the book-keeping. Particularly one skilled at calculus.

“I support the free market. Properitary software is what is communism – a government-sponsored monopoly called copyright. Eliminating proprietary software will result in a freer market for all.”

I still can’t see a word from you about your experience with Apache.

In the absence even of anecdote, I think we can conclude that Adam has never had a problem with Apache once set up.

That takes one plank of his argument out.

Now, I’m just taking a running leap at this, you understand, but I would confidently predict that he has never asked Red Hat for support on his MySQL schemata. I would go further and assume that he has no knowledge of anybody else asking for that support, either.

And I know he’s a whizz at C programming and all, and I assume as a consequence that he is capable of writing a ten thousand line long Perl program … although I note that he has, in the past, been less than complimentary about “Web programming.”

So, he’s probably had to consult Red Hat about why the reference to a hashmap on line 6238 in a callback didn’t quite work as a closure?

I’m not holding my breath.

But he’s gone on record as stating that you pay all that money to Red Hat precisely because you need support for Apache, MySQL and Perl, and I have no doubt whatsoever that he can back that statement up with cold, hard, facts.

Aww does the poor JoeMonoco child want my attention?

Five posts addressed to me and I didn’t even respond to one! I’m going to try for a new streak.

How do you support the “free market”? The scheme you push for would be as far froma free-market as possible, requiring even more regulation than is already required. Mind you, I do not now, nor have I ever believed in the concept of “free market”, unless you wish to count Somalia as an example. However, what you propose is as far from a “free-market” as it is possible to be; it proposes punishing anyone who is succesful or even dares to take a chance by requiring them to double the price of their goods so half can go to other companies who will get tax breaks akin to religious institutions. Never mind that they will also be businesses such as the ones you propose taxing, striving to accomplish the same thing, and hopint to turn a profit. The only difference is that profit will hopefully come on the backend of the transaction rather than the front end.

“Five posts addressed to me and I didn’t even respond to one! I’m going to try for a new streak.”

You can’t produce anything to back up your position, again? Well, that’s pretty unusual of you, isn’t it?

@Adam:

Actually, one post from you addressed to @DigitalAthiest (you still can’t spell right) and absolutely none addressed to you.

Fine streak that is. Even I can count up to five without taking my shoes and socks off.

@DigitalAthiests

Why is punishing proprietary software development communist? Is punishing crack dealers communist?

Quite frankly, selling crack is a lesser crime in my book. One affects only a small group of people while proprietary software harms everyone.

Proprietary software … crack …

Yes, and about that Perl and/or MySQL thing. You’ve implicitly admitted that you were lying about your Apache experiences.

Now let’s hear about your Perl and MySQL experiences.

I’m a fair man. Substitute anything you like for the M and the P of LAMP.

In fact, I’m even beginning to doubt the L.

“Fine streak that is. Even I can count up to five without taking my shoes and socks off.”

The poor sod is trying his best to pull off a KimTjik impression, I tell ya, even though he is never as skillful as Kim at obscuring his own position.

Too bad that, like crack, I have a choice not to use it. Nobody is forcing crack or proprietary software on me. Ironically, goods like you try to force open source software.

Proprietary software and crack share a lot of similarities. Both are bad for your health, intentionally addictive, and both peddlers of crack and of proprietary software give you a “free trial” to hook you in.

Still waiting. The M or the P, please.

Adam, how do you figure that twisted bit of logic? Please name one bit of violence caused by proprietary software? Crack causes murder, theft, assault, and who knows what else. These are REAL crimes that truly have an effect on the people involved on both sides of the issue. The only thing that proprietary software does is to keep people from ripping off someone else’s work. To conflate proprietary software with the crack trade is analagous to conflating females with rape. Just because you are not able to understand women—who don’t even understand themselves—does not mean that they are worse than the rapist who forces them to do things they don’t wish to do.

“In fact, I’m even beginning to doubt the L.”

Oh, oh, oh… I’d definitely love to hear Adam talking about the “L” part!

I don’t provide FreeAsInBeer™ consulting, DrLoser. If you want to hear my experiences with Linux software, you’ll have to pay me my going rate, which is $500 per hour + $200 because I don’t like your face.

You don’t provide anything, Adam, except unintended hilarity and bad spelling.

So here goes. I have used MySQL in about three companies, and I’ve never once needed to phone the (Linux) provider for support.

I’ve programmed Perl (3 years) and Python (2 years) and even some PHP, and I’ve never once needed to phone the (Linux OR Windows) provider for support.

I’m not asking for your code-base, moron. I’m just asking for a single, even unattributable, instance where you have needed to phone somebody (it doesn’t even have to be the OS provider) for support on either M or P.

$700 please.

What, and support your nonexistent extra-curricular college courses? No thanks.

An M or a P, please, Vanna.

“$700 please.”

You are asking people to pay you in order to hear your (purported) experience with phone support? How cute!

I was trying to be nice and give you a deal, but if you don’t agree now I’ll have to raise it to $800.

OK, lose the M. Database theory can get quite complicated. Here’s my $700 worth:

my $ignoramus = “Hello, World!\n”
print $ignoramus

Now we need to hear about your extensive experience with, and OS consultation about, the P.

P. Go on. Even you can P.

Missed out the semi-colons, didn’t I? Naughty, naughty Python person.

“I was trying to be nice and give you a deal, but if you don’t agree now I’ll have to raise it to $800.”

Hah… At it stands, the market value of “hearing someone’s experience with phone support service” is hovering around “not even a friggin’ dime”. This is unless, of course, you have mistaken the request as some kinky online booty call. In that case, I can reassure you that neither I nor Dr.L are interested in that sort of stuff. Not from you, at least.

$900.

Thirty minutes. P.

C’mon, Adam, even the Cards’ pitcher can do that after seven gruelling innings.

Just one little P. You’ll feel better for it.

$1000.

Twenty nine minutes.

back to the topic: conflating proprietary software with FOSS, as opposed to conflating women with rape.

It isn’t rape if you charge $1000 for it.

$1100.

To be honest, it might as well be rape if you’re going to charge $1100 for it.

$1337.

It’s still a good deal, IMO.

Well, time’s up. Let’s recap:

“The cost of a Red Hat subscription is miniscule to any large enterprise. It’s not even of any statistical significance compared to their other expenses.”

And yet it is still more than the equivalent cost for Windows. And you’re charged each and every year for it.

“It’s not about the sticker price, but what you get out of it that matters. World class support and services seems to make it worth the $1200/yr/CPU or whatever petty amount it costs.”

Which is about where we start discussing the benefit of paying actual money for “free” software.

“LAMP is integrated with RHEL and benefits from Red Hat’s updates and support.”

No it isn’t. AMP is a software stack. There’s no obvious difference between running it on L and running it on W.

“And you can call Red Hat support and ask them questions about LAMP and get answers because it’s part of the OS and support agreement.”

Actually they’ll tell you to piss off. It’s not their business to do your SQL or Perl programming for you.

“'Apache … once it’s there, it’s there.’
LOL. I thought you guys of all people would figure out that is far from the truth.

“Apache has regular updates that fix security and stability issues. You don’t update your Apache installation at your own risk, or you can just buy a RHSS subscription and get it done for you automatically by professionals.”

Or you can not buy a RHSS subscription and get the same benefits.

——————

Not a word about your Apache knowledge. Not a word about your MySQL knowledge. Not a word about your awesome Perl skillz.

I’d have taken you on trust for any single one of those, because quite frankly I don’t think you’re intelligent enough even to lie about them.

So, then. We can confidently conclude that you are a know-nothing trouserless loudmouth when it comes to LAMP stacks. Unless …

... Unless you’d like to indulge Joe and tell him all about your $1337 Linux knowledge?

I still don’t get why Mafia$oft makes you work over 8 hours on a Sunday, DrLoser. That’s just screwed up. Don’t they have labor standards or is that another law they regularly violate?

I would ask them for a 9-5 M-F astroturf schedule. It’s only fair.

“... Unless you’d like to indulge Joe and tell him all about your $1337 Linux knowledge?”

@Adam

If you are looking for me, I am always here ready to pay attention to all that immense knowledge of yours.

I’ll take that as an admission of pure ignorance, then.

Typical DrLoser. When he has nothing left he gets butthurt and throws insults.

Since when is that an insult?

You’re a worthless pile of stinking crud and a disgrace to your big sister, your mother, your putative father and in fact to the whole human race. Equivalent to rape, indeed.

Now, that’s an insult.

I’ll take that as a compliment coming from you.

NoU™!

Or did you forget that little sparkle of wit for a moment?

Anyway, you’re absolutely right. Why should I descend to your level?

After all, you have so much to tell us about your Linux expertise. It seems to be about the only positive thing you can offer.

We’ll take your Bash scripting expertise as a non-pareil given. What else do you know?

Don’t let poor Joe down. His popcorn is going cold.

I can not for the life believe that Microsoft could tolerate such sorry excuse for a human being to be their representative.

Mafia$oft must be more downright incompetent than I originally thought.

Isn’t that two different companies? Or have I missed a subtlety there?

Actually, but don’t tell anybody, I’m an Apple mole. And Microsoft actually pay me, the fools!

Now, about those $1337 Linux skillz of yours…

Why would Apple need a mole at Mafia$oft? It’s not like they got any innovation or software worth stealing.