[NTLUG:Discuss] Would you pay $3,000.00 for Linux (HP thinks so)

[Steve Baker]

cbbrowne at hex.net wrote:
 
> > Hard to believe but I guess its true.....
> >
> > http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/08/23/new.linux.os.idg/
> 
> Ah, well if you've bought an HP IA-64 box, you've already spent $80K, so
> that spending $3K for a "qualified" operating system install is hardly
> anything at all.
> 
> Remember, this isn't reflecting a situation where they're selling a $600 PC,
> but rather a case where they're selling $100K worth of hardware that likely
> goes into a project with overall costing of $1M.  $3K for licensing of some
> security tools isn't something people will freak out
> over...

Aren't they releasing their modifications as source code though?  If so,
then you can get this good stuff for $0.00.  If not, shouldn't someone
point RMS at them and watch the fur fly?

It certainly *sounds* like they are selling modifications to the kernel,
and a bunch of the networking tools - which are presumably GPL/LGPL.

But you are right - for an expensive box like theirs, $3k isn't a lot of
money for peace of mind...although if it is all closed source, it's a bit
of a lottery and you may well find that they opened up as many loopholes
as they closed.  If anyone *does* find a hole and starts infecting these
systems then you'll have to wait for HP's corporate machine to notice
the problem, admit to it, find it, fix it and distribute the patch.

Instead, I'd like to download the fix from the web the very next day as
is generally the case with Linux security problems.

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