[NTLUG:Discuss] red hat decommissioning and no new linux distros planned

[Chris Cox]

Greg Edwards wrote:
...
> JMHO, the biggest reason that *NIX (prior to Linux) did not make an 
> impact in the small business and home markets was the price.  The small 
> guy could not afford a $1500+ OS plus the add-ons needed just to have a 
> base platform.  I understand that the RH Enterprise products do provide 
> more than SCO ever did, but, maybe someone is starting to get a little 
> too greedy!!
> 

Actually.. thought the cost of Unixware (cheapest real Unix on x86 at
the time) was indeed high... the biggest
factor prior to the mid-nineties was the RAM requirement.  You really
had to have at least 8M of RAM and that meant a computer that was $3000+
even without the OS.

A Unix workstation back then would set you back at least $4500.
You can imagine the cost of a server.

There was a period of $3000-3500 BSD variants.. but at the time,
BSD was going through the license turmoil with the Sys V code base.
The BSD machines could usually do with less than the 8M norm for
SCO.

Just remember the state of the PC back then!!  Would you buy that for
$4500??