"Anthony Mandic" <o0@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3F23A822.97A8CCF6@hotmail.com...
> Yuan wrote:
>
> > > > As someone who works in a University, I am amazed UNIX vendors don't
> > > > give away free copies of their operating systems to students and
home
> > > > users.
> > >
> > > Why? Do Microsoft do this?
> > >
> > 50 UK pounds for Windows 2000 student license,
>
> Which isn't exactly free.
>
Cheaper than most Unix OS.


> > My second copy of Windows 2000 was given to me for free by MS UK.
>
> That's sounds more like it. So they do do it.
>
So? it's a special case.


> > > > If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give
> > > > their OS releases, home users would be more likely to buy cheap used
> > > > HP kit.
> > >
> > > How do you conclude that?
> > >
> > Since Dr. Kirkby told me how fast his HP C3600 is compare to his
> > quad 450MHz U80, I have been trying to find a HP machine too.
> > For 1000US, you can find an HP C3600 from eBay with faster
> > processor than a single 450MHz U60/80 which tend to have higher
> > price tag.
>
> Ah! So that explains his troll post.
>
No, it's just a simple fact that second hand HP kits are not as popular as
Sun kits,
hence the seller can only demand less.


> > BUT, you can downloads Solaris ISO from Sun but not HP-UX.
>
> That's good. So what?
>
You don't like to excersise your brain cells do you?
So you can downloads the ISO, use your favourite CD buring software, and put
a few blank CD-R into your CD-RW, burn from those ISO into bootable CDs as
installation medias, and install Solaris from those CDs, it works out much
cheaper
than buying the media set from the vendors.

> > > > When those home users go in to industry, they are more likely
> > > > to buy **EXPENSIVE** new HP kit.
> > >
> > > What makes you think they would be in a position to do so?
> > >
> > People get used to the hardwares and softwares they use,
>
> So? That doesn't explain how they go from being a home user/student
> to being in a management position with purchasing power. Unless ...
> whoever hired them was a complete and utter idiot.
>
So you were never a student and you were never a home user?


> > I can't get over using Outlook Express as my default news client,
>
> My condolences.
>
My consolences to you too.


> > > Exactly how many home users go from there immediately to
> > > management positions with buying power?
> > >
> > Not a lot, but guess how MS become so dominent.
>
> I'm not here to guess. So don't patronise me with specious
> statements. Show me facts and figures.
>
The same as your non-constructive "so?", "your point being?" comments.
Students buy cheap MS products ---> students grow up only knowing
how to use Windows.

> > > > So it's to HP's advantage to give
> > > > away HP-UX to students and home users.
> > >
> > > I can't see how you can draw that conclusion.
> > >
> > Quote from Uli:
> > "If the students become consultants, they surely will prefer something
they
> > know by heart. One big advance of Linux these days."
>
> Linux isn't HP. And quoting someone else's misinformed statement
> doesn't make it any less misinformed. Show me some proof. How do
> those who come to prefer HP do so when they don't use it as a
> student or home user?
>
He only uses Linux as a fact to show you how it becomes popular.
That's the proof you want.


> > > > The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor -
> > >
> > > That sounds more like conjecture. What evidence do you have
> > > to support that claim?
> > >
> > Same quote...
>
> Same quote what?
>
As above.

> > > Why? How many home users/students have 8 CPU systems?
> > >
> > Not a lot,
>
> Exactly.
>
> > lets suppose we all buy from a reseller,
> > a SS10/20 and U2 can take more than 1 CPU, even
> > a dual CPU U60 goes for under 1000pounds now.
>
> So? How does that constitute an 8 CPU system? At most its only 2.
>
Up to 8 CPUs means you can use it on systems with up to 8 CPUs,
means you can installed it on a dual CPU or quad CPU system, as the
bew license only allows you to install Solaris on a single CPU machine
without paying extra.

> > $1....WOW! that's a lot of money, you can buy a botte of mineral water.
>
> What's a botte?
>
bottle, typo.

> > > > One can't expect Microsoft to give Windoze away for free, as
Microsoft
> > > > will never gain any extra revenue from hardware sales.
>
> Looks like you've just proven "Kirbu" wrong.
>
> > Microsoft = software company = sell softwares for $$$.
> > Sun, HP, IBM, SGI = hardware companies who sell their own softwares =
> > selling hardwares for living, not softwares.
>
> Your point being?
>
Are you wasting people's time?
So Sun, SGI, IBM, HP don't need to rely on software sales for their profit.

> > Irix works on MIPS, HP-UX runs on PA and Itanium, Solaris on Sparc with
> > limited support on x86.
> > Now who makes MIPS, PA and Sparc based machine?
> > If SGI do as MS, you would have possibily the prettiest OS without any
> > hardwares to run it on.
>
> Your point being? MS don't appear to have any problems with that.
> Why do you think SGI would?
>
Are we short of x86 vendors? are we short of manufacturers producing Intel
based
machines?
Of course not! Windows runs on x86, with plenty of x86 vendors out there,
they don't
need to worry about having no systems to run Windows on.
But Irix runs on MIPS, if SGI drops hardware production, and they are the
main
manufactorer for MIPS machines, what's the use for developing the OS when
there
is clearly no market for it.

> > > > One can't expect SCO to give away SCO UNIX, as again they will gain
no
> > > > extra revenue from hardware sales, although they might have done
with
> > > > software sales had Linux never existed.
> > >
> > > How do you conclude that?
> > >
> > The whole software and hardware company thingy.
>
> You haven't presented anything by way of a concrete argument
> yet. All I'm seeing is conjecture. How about you show me the
> money?
>
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/investor/fi...aphics2002.pdf
starting from page 5.

> > > > > > >
> > > Again, how do you conclude that?
> > >
> > I am the only person in the entire department of EE.Eng with a copy of
SCO
> > UnixWare
>
> My, aren't you lucky. But so what?
>
Only supporting "But I don't think any home user or student would
care less whether or not SCO was given away now." statement using
the "figures" you asked for.
1 out of 400+ EE students, researchers and staffs use SCO UnixWare.
Without this 1, department will still be running, we will still produce
research works.
No harm done as it can be replaced by another flavour of OS, mainly Solaris.

> > Those are just my opinions
>
> They certainly are. And that's the trouble. Too much baseless
> opinion and no facts.
>
m.....interesting, aren't you all about your own baseless opnions and no
facts?
Don't see you saying anything constructive in this thread at all, only "so
what?",
"your point is?", "How do you conclude that?"


Yuan

Martin Stenzel wrote:

> What I see from your postings here on c.s.hp.hpux is that you want
> _everything_ for free.

Its not the only place where he wants this. But this appears
to be the first time he's trolled big time across a lot of
disparate newsgroups.

> It is everybody's/company's own decision what to to give away for free,
> at what price at what conditions.
> Sounds you are striving for the illegal part....

It does, doesn't it?

-am © 2003

Anthony Mandic wrote:
>
> "Dr. David Kirkby" wrote:
> >
> > As someone who works in a University, I am amazed UNIX vendors don't
> > give away free copies of their operating systems to students and home
> > users.
>
> Why? Do Microsoft do this? Perhaps you should widen your
> job experience.
>

Someone else has said they do. I know they encourage the use of MS
products at universities by giving huge discounts.


> > If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give
> > their OS releases, home users would be more likely to buy cheap used
> > HP kit.
>
> How do you conclude that?

There are a large number of

> > When those home users go in to industry, they are more likely
> > to buy **EXPENSIVE** new HP kit.
>
> What makes you think they would be in a position to do so?
> Exactly how many home users go from there immediately to
> management positions with buying power?
>

How on earth do you expect me to know the *exact* number? I think
anyone who runs Solaris/AIX/HP-UX etc at home is likely to be
sufficiently interested in computers to take that career path. Or like
myself, have no professional involvement with computers, yet still
infulence what kit is bought.

> > So it's to HP's advantage to give
> > away HP-UX to students and home users.
>
> I can't see how you can draw that conclusion.

I stated my logic for that, so I'm unwilling to repeat it.

> > The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor - I strongly suspect
> > it's in their long term economic interest to encourage people to learn
> > their operating systems. Once you know one commercial UNIX operating
> > system, you are likely to want to stick to it.
>
> That sounds more like conjecture. What evidence do you have
> to support that claim?

Becuase I know what products students are confortable with when they
leave univeristy and what one they don't know.

> > Why on earth Sun don't change the licence conditions of their
> > so-called free licence for Solaris on SPARC, I don't know. Solaris can
> > be freely downloaded, yet its illegal to use it on virtually all used
> > Sun kit sold. Their previous licence, which allowed for its use on
> > machines of up to 8 CPUs seemed more sensible.
>
> Why? How many home users/students have 8 CPU systems?

Probably very few. 4 CPU systems are much more common. I don't see
nothing wrong with them changing their old licence conditions and
changing 8 to 4. But the free Solaris licence that prevented you using
it if the machine was capable of holding more than one cpu (not even
having more than one cpu), is silly. That excludes sparcstation 10's
and 20's, but of which are common amongst home users.

> > One can't expect Microsoft to give Windoze away for free, as Microsoft
> > will never gain any extra revenue from hardware sales.
>
> But by your previous arguments, said home users of such
> free software would go on to use it commercially.

Yes, okay, MS should do so. Apprently they do so anyway, although I
was unaware of it. I know they encourage its use in universities, by
making it so cheap.

I suspect where I would would switch to StarOffice for students if MS
products cost a fortune and StarOffice did not. Unfortunatley, even if
Sun gave us StarOffice, there would be no inclination to switch to
it, since Windoze and all the MS products cost us next to nothing.

> > But SGI, HP, IBM, Sun etc. will gain extra sales of hardware, by allowing
> > home users to learn their operating systems, rather than that of their
> > competitors.
>
> You're argument seems specious to me. One could just as easily
> conclude that it would be better to do as MS does and stick to
> software and forget about hardware.

MS seeem to be doing pretty well at it.

> > One can't expect SCO to give away SCO UNIX, as again they will gain no
> > extra revenue from hardware sales, although they might have done with
> > software sales had Linux never existed.
>
> How do you conclude that?

I give up with you.

--
Dr. David Kirkby,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Medical Physics,
University College London,
11-20 Capper St, London, WC1E 6JA.
Tel: 020 7679 6408 Fax: 020 7679 6269
Internal telephone: ext 46408
e-mail davek@medphys.ucl.ac.uk

Yuan wrote:

> > > > Why? Do Microsoft do this?
> > > >
> > > 50 UK pounds for Windows 2000 student license,
> >
> > Which isn't exactly free.
> >
> Cheaper than most Unix OS.

And how much for a Unix license for a student?

> > > My second copy of Windows 2000 was given to me for free by MS UK.
> >
> > That's sounds more like it. So they do do it.
> >
> So? it's a special case.

Is it? Why didn't you state that when you first mentioned it then?

> > Ah! So that explains his troll post.
> >
> No, it's just a simple fact that second hand HP kits are not as popular as
> Sun kits, hence the seller can only demand less.

No, its a troll post. "Kirbu" was doing his usual bitching and
moaning because he can't get it for free.

> > > BUT, you can downloads Solaris ISO from Sun but not HP-UX.
> >
> > That's good. So what?
> >
> You don't like to excersise your brain cells do you?

At least I make an effort to spell.

> So you can downloads the ISO, use your favourite CD buring software, and put
> a few blank CD-R into your CD-RW, burn from those ISO into bootable CDs as
> installation medias, and install Solaris from those CDs, it works out much
> cheaper than buying the media set from the vendors.

Which has nothing what so ever to do with the fact that you
can do it with Sun but not HP. Do try and learn how to reason
logically.

> > > People get used to the hardwares and softwares they use,
> >
> > So? That doesn't explain how they go from being a home user/student
> > to being in a management position with purchasing power. Unless ...
> > whoever hired them was a complete and utter idiot.
> >
> So you were never a student and you were never a home user?

Like most everyone else, I was both. What I use nowadays, I
never used then. Hence I don't see how your (and "Kirbu"'s)
statement is anything other than specious. If you can't back
it up with some facts and figures it remains specious.

> > > I can't get over using Outlook Express as my default news client,
> >
> > My condolences.
> >
> My consolences to you too.

Why? I don't have to concern myself with virii and the other
plagues OE brings with it. If you're happy with it, good luck
to you.

> > > > Exactly how many home users go from there immediately to
> > > > management positions with buying power?
> > > >
> > > Not a lot, but guess how MS become so dominent.
> >
> > I'm not here to guess. So don't patronise me with specious
> > statements. Show me facts and figures.
> >
> The same as your non-constructive "so?", "your point being?" comments.

I'm not the one stating conjecture as fact. If you want to
do that, you'd better be prepared to defend your stance when
challenged.

> Students buy cheap MS products ---> students grow up only knowing
> how to use Windows.

Do they buy such cheap products? Show us the figures. I gather
you mean "knowing how to use" loosely. Try working at a helpdesk
sometime where the users use MS day in and day out. After that
much experience do they "know how to use" it?

> > Linux isn't HP. And quoting someone else's misinformed statement
> > doesn't make it any less misinformed. Show me some proof. How do
> > those who come to prefer HP do so when they don't use it as a
> > student or home user?
> >
> He only uses Linux as a fact to show you how it becomes popular.
> That's the proof you want.

Try again. His use of it only shows it popular to him. Not to
anyone else.

> > > lets suppose we all buy from a reseller,
> > > a SS10/20 and U2 can take more than 1 CPU, even
> > > a dual CPU U60 goes for under 1000pounds now.
> >
> > So? How does that constitute an 8 CPU system? At most its only 2.
> >
> Up to 8 CPUs means you can use it on systems with up to 8 CPUs,
> means you can installed it on a dual CPU or quad CPU system, as the
> bew license only allows you to install Solaris on a single CPU machine
> without paying extra.

Which Sun has probably reasoned is adequate for the majority of
circumstances. But the only way to know is to see the figures.

> > > Microsoft = software company = sell softwares for $$$.
> > > Sun, HP, IBM, SGI = hardware companies who sell their own softwares =
> > > selling hardwares for living, not softwares.
> >
> > Your point being?
> >
> Are you wasting people's time?

I'm asking to see some facts. All I'm seeing is baseless conjecture,
specious arguments and opinions. So who's wasting whose time?

> So Sun, SGI, IBM, HP don't need to rely on software sales for their profit.

And MS and Linux don't need to rely on hardware sales for their
profit. Circular argument. So where are we now? Back to square
one yet?

> Are we short of x86 vendors? are we short of manufacturers producing Intel
> based machines?

Do we need to be?

> Of course not! Windows runs on x86, with plenty of x86 vendors out there,
> they don't need to worry about having no systems to run Windows on.
> But Irix runs on MIPS, if SGI drops hardware production, and they are the
> main
> manufactorer for MIPS machines, what's the use for developing the OS when
> there is clearly no market for it.

And you're missing the point. Anything will run on anything if
ported. You don't need MIPS to have SGI, etc. etc. etc. If SGI's
OS was worthwhile, it would get ported. No?

> > You haven't presented anything by way of a concrete argument
> > yet. All I'm seeing is conjecture. How about you show me the
> > money?
> >
> http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/investor/fi...aphics2002.pdf
> starting from page 5.

I haven't got all day to wait for this trash to download.
Cite the actual figures and then compare to MS's revenues
for the same period.

> > > I am the only person in the entire department of EE.Eng with a copy of
> SCO
> > > UnixWare
> >
> > My, aren't you lucky. But so what?
> >
> Only supporting "But I don't think any home user or student would
> care less whether or not SCO was given away now." statement using
> the "figures" you asked for.

Perhaps, perhaps not. We won't know unless they tried.

> 1 out of 400+ EE students, researchers and staffs use SCO UnixWare.
> Without this 1, department will still be running, we will still produce
> research works.

And would they be able to do it irrespective of what other
hardware and software they have/use?

> No harm done as it can be replaced by another flavour of OS, mainly Solaris.

Then the choice doesn't really matter for you?

> > > Those are just my opinions
> >
> > They certainly are. And that's the trouble. Too much baseless
> > opinion and no facts.
> >
> m.....interesting, aren't you all about your own baseless opnions and no
> facts?

No, I'll all about asking to see some facts for a change.
I haven't really stated any opinions yet and I've not quoted
any facts. I'd like to see someone convince me one way or the
other.

> Don't see you saying anything constructive in this thread at all, only "so
> what?", "your point is?", "How do you conclude that?"

That's my way of getting you to prove your arguments. If you
can't back them up, they're not facts. And I'll question every
point till its proved or disproved.

-am © 2003

Uli Link wrote:

> The prices for the download versions of Solaris are very moderate.
> For developing apps you the x86 version is a great help.

Anyone trying to install Solaris x86 is likely to have a fair share of
problems. It did not support my Logitech mouse. It supports a small
subset of the hardware Linux does, making it hard to install on an
'average PC'. Not exactly the sort of impression you want to create.

> > HP have a reasonably attractive package that allows non-commerical
> > users to gain the latest copy of the Tru64 operating system and the HP
> > C compiler for Tru64 for $100. Yet HP have no such policy with their
> > other UNIX operating system (HP-UX).
> >
> Use GCC instead. When you want/need portability using the same compiler on
> every platform is a great help.
> The quality/performance of the generated binaries differ over the platforms.

Yes but one can't even get HP-UX (the OS) cheaply, so without the OS,
you have no hope of running gcc.

> >
> > One can't expect SCO to give away SCO UNIX, as again they will gain no
> > extra revenue from hardware sales, although they might have done with
> > software sales had Linux never existed. But I don't think any home
> > user or student would care less whether or not SCO was given away now.
> >
>
> But they did about 5 years ago. And as the gave away a license for free
> educational and non-comercial use the market share raised. And a word to all
> this flame wars vs. SCO
> UnixWare 7 is an excellent product, like the OpenServer5 was 10 years ago.

I was not aware of that. We never installed a copy.

> I think the problems of *NIX hw vendors is Intel or AMD.
> In the early 90ties you could not buy the processing power on the x86
> platform, not even for really lots of money.

Agreed. PC's were hopeless then and there was no decent OS to run on
them.

> Today a 3GHz Xeon or Athlon blows away Sparc and PowerPC,

Agreed. That is why my office at work has 2 Ultra 5's and an Ultra 1.
At one time there would have been 10 Suns in there. Now those 7 Suns
have been thrown away, or I've taken them home.

> if you need more
> processing power you can buy 10 boxes down the road in the supermarket.

That is not quite true - depends on the problem. Writing code for
distrubuted comptuers is a lot harder than writing code for machines
like my Ultra 80 that where all 4 CPUs share the same memory.

> And Linux and Free/Open/NetBSD has evolved to very solid and serious O/S
> with a little help from the GCC.

Yes, that is true. In the scientific community (which I know well),
Linux is the main OS people use. However, if you need very high
relieability, I don't think PCs are the best solution, although its
outside my area of expertese. I see Sun/HP/IBM etc will still maintain
a market - one they can increase by getting students using their OS.

--
Dr. David Kirkby,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Medical Physics,
University College London,
11-20 Capper St, London, WC1E 6JA.
Tel: 020 7679 6408 Fax: 020 7679 6269
Internal telephone: ext 46408
e-mail davek@medphys.ucl.ac.uk

"Dr. David Kirkby" wrote:

> > > As someone who works in a University, I am amazed UNIX vendors don't
> > > give away free copies of their operating systems to students and home
> > > users.
> >
> > Why? Do Microsoft do this? Perhaps you should widen your
> > job experience.
>
> Someone else has said they do. I know they encourage the use of MS
> products at universities by giving huge discounts.

Yes, that's been established now and I'll accept its a fact.
So we can establish its a common practice from time to time
from vendor to vendor.

> > > If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give
> > > their OS releases, home users would be more likely to buy cheap used
> > > HP kit.
> >
> > How do you conclude that?
>
> There are a large number of

Yes?

> > > When those home users go in to industry, they are more likely
> > > to buy **EXPENSIVE** new HP kit.
> >
> > What makes you think they would be in a position to do so?
> > Exactly how many home users go from there immediately to
> > management positions with buying power?
>
> How on earth do you expect me to know the *exact* number? I think
> anyone who runs Solaris/AIX/HP-UX etc at home is likely to be
> sufficiently interested in computers to take that career path. Or like
> myself, have no professional involvement with computers, yet still
> infulence what kit is bought.

Because you stated this as fact. I'd like to see what evidence
there is for it. Its quite possible that they go into an
environment that already uses the same infrastructure. Or
they buy into that environment at home so as to improve their
job prospects. Any argument could be valid. They could all
well be valid too.

> > > So it's to HP's advantage to give
> > > away HP-UX to students and home users.
> >
> > I can't see how you can draw that conclusion.
>
> I stated my logic for that, so I'm unwilling to repeat it.

Yes, but as a scientist, you should know the value of facts
and the importance of drawing the correct conclusion from them.
Given that HP don't do this now, how do you conclude that they
manage to stay in business? I would conclude, from the stated
claims, that they can't. But they do, so we have a contradiction.

> > > The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor - I strongly suspect
> > > it's in their long term economic interest to encourage people to learn
> > > their operating systems. Once you know one commercial UNIX operating
> > > system, you are likely to want to stick to it.
> >
> > That sounds more like conjecture. What evidence do you have
> > to support that claim?
>
> Becuase I know what products students are confortable with when they
> leave univeristy and what one they don't know.

Don't you mean for those students that you know?

> > Why? How many home users/students have 8 CPU systems?
>
> Probably very few. 4 CPU systems are much more common.

And 2 and 1 CPU systems even more so?

> I don't see nothing wrong with them changing their old licence conditions
> and changing 8 to 4. But the free Solaris licence that prevented you using
> it if the machine was capable of holding more than one cpu (not even
> having more than one cpu), is silly. That excludes sparcstation 10's
> and 20's, but of which are common amongst home users.

But it must have been done for a reason. We don't know what
that reason is so we can only speculate. However, there's
nothing preventing anyone staying with Solaris 8 if they
have more than one CPU.

> > > One can't expect Microsoft to give Windoze away for free, as Microsoft
> > > will never gain any extra revenue from hardware sales.
> >
> > But by your previous arguments, said home users of such
> > free software would go on to use it commercially.
>
> Yes, okay, MS should do so. Apprently they do so anyway, although I
> was unaware of it. I know they encourage its use in universities, by
> making it so cheap.

Yes, that's been established now. However, how prevalent is it
and how does it compare to its widespread use? Perhaps the
figures will suggest that giving it away for free isn't that
great an idea.

> I suspect where I would would switch to StarOffice for students if MS
> products cost a fortune and StarOffice did not. Unfortunatley, even if
> Sun gave us StarOffice, there would be no inclination to switch to
> it, since Windoze and all the MS products cost us next to nothing.

The only issue here is that MS Office only runs on MS OSs. StarOffice
is more OS/platform independent isn't it?

> > > But SGI, HP, IBM, Sun etc. will gain extra sales of hardware, by allowing
> > > home users to learn their operating systems, rather than that of their
> > > competitors.
> >
> > You're argument seems specious to me. One could just as easily
> > conclude that it would be better to do as MS does and stick to
> > software and forget about hardware.
>
> MS seeem to be doing pretty well at it.

Yes, they seem to have captured a large slice of the OS pie
without any hardware base. So what does that tell us really?
Is hardware important?

> > > One can't expect SCO to give away SCO UNIX, as again they will gain no
> > > extra revenue from hardware sales, although they might have done with
> > > software sales had Linux never existed.
> >
> > How do you conclude that?
>
> I give up with you.

Already? And I was just getting started.

-am © 2003

Yuan wrote:

> Since Dr. Kirkby told me how fast his HP C3600 is compare to his
> quad 450MHz U80, I have been trying to find a HP machine too.
> For 1000US, you can find an HP C3600 from eBay with faster
> processor than a single 450MHz U60/80 which tend to have higher
> price tag.
> BUT, you can downloads Solaris ISO from Sun but not HP-UX.
>
> Yuan

I will correct that one. It is a 400 MHz HP C3000 using gcc that is
considerably quicker than a 450 MHz CPU in my Ultra 80 using Sun's
compiler. Overall I'm very impressed with the HP. Very well built,
performs very well, looks nice, ... shame it can't take a few more
CPUs.

--
Dr. David Kirkby,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Medical Physics,
University College London,
11-20 Capper St, London, WC1E 6JA.
Tel: 020 7679 6408 Fax: 020 7679 6269
Internal telephone: ext 46408
e-mail davek@medphys.ucl.ac.uk

[Yuan]:
>
> 50 UK pounds for Windows 2000 student license, compare to what I
> paid for HP-UX 11i for 100pounds from eBay + shipping, Irix 6.5
> base with 6.5.2 and 6.5.13 update for 75pounds + shipping, both
> WITHOUT license, media kits only. My second copy of Windows 2000
> was given to me for free by MS UK.

here's what our students at the Department of Informatics can get for
free:

1. Windows XP pro
2. Windows 2000 pro
3. Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server
4. Windows Server 2003 Web Edition
5. Windows Server 2003 Std. Ed., Windows Server 2003 Ent. Ed.
6. MS Visio Professional 2002
7. MS Project Professional 2002
8. Visual J# .NET
9. Visual Studio .NET 2002 (CD5 = ComponentUpdate) (5 CD-er)
10. Visual Studio .NET 2003 (CD3 = Prerequisites) (3 CD-er)
11. Visual Studio .NET 2003 Student Tools
12. MSDN Library .NET 2002 (April 2003) (3 CD-er)
13. MSDN Library .NET 2003 (for VS.NET 2003) (3 CD-er)

only one licence of each, and they must supply the CD-Rs themselves ;-)

notice that MS Office is not included -- they want to entice system
developers, not secretaries.
--
Kjetil T. | read and make up your own mind
| http://www.cactus48.com/truth.html

> > The prices for the download versions of Solaris are very moderate.
> > For developing apps you the x86 version is a great help.
>
> Anyone trying to install Solaris x86 is likely to have a fair share of
> problems. It did not support my Logitech mouse.

When you buy a *NIX workstation you will buy most likely a keyboard and
mouse with it.
Even the monitor cables are propietary even if all have that damn 13w3
connectors :-(
I think buying a second hand MS-mouse or better a old Logitech Pilot-3button
mouse is not a problem.

> It supports a small
> subset of the hardware Linux does, making it hard to install on an
> 'average PC'. Not exactly the sort of impression you want to create.

That's true, but it is absolutly no problem getting the components from
Sun's HCL.


> Yes but one can't even get HP-UX (the OS) cheaply, so without the OS,
> you have no hope of running gcc.
>
That's a real disadvantage :-((

> >
> > But they did about 5 years ago. And as the gave away a license for free
> > educational and non-comercial use the market share raised. And a word to
all
> > this flame wars vs. SCO
> > UnixWare 7 is an excellent product, like the OpenServer5 was 10 years
ago.
>
> I was not aware of that. We never installed a copy.

I was lucky enough to get a few personal licenses for UnixWare2, 7 and OSR5.
And the media kits were sold for about 50$ those times.

> > Today a 3GHz Xeon or Athlon blows away Sparc and PowerPC,
>
> Agreed. That is why my office at work has 2 Ultra 5's and an Ultra 1.
> At one time there would have been 10 Suns in there. Now those 7 Suns
> have been thrown away, or I've taken them home.
>
> > if you need more
> > processing power you can buy 10 boxes down the road in the supermarket.
>
> That is not quite true - depends on the problem. Writing code for
> distrubuted comptuers is a lot harder than writing code for machines
> like my Ultra 80 that where all 4 CPUs share the same memory.

Look for a Compaq Proliant, many of them takes up to four PentiumIII.
The problem of writing distributable code is the same for a x86 SMP machine
or a Sparc/PowerPC/Mips architecture. Bringing it to a cluster is a new
dimension of complexity. So far I agree.

>
> > And Linux and Free/Open/NetBSD has evolved to very solid and serious O/S
> > with a little help from the GCC.
And x86 CPUs with enough floatingpoint power.
A 486 was a good CPU for database with lots of integer and I/O those days.

>
> Yes, that is true. In the scientific community (which I know well),
> Linux is the main OS people use. However, if you need very high
> relieability, I don't think PCs are the best solution, although its
> outside my area of expertese. I see Sun/HP/IBM etc will still maintain
> a market - one they can increase by getting students using their OS.

You can buy x86 built for professional use, built like tanks.
Compaq, IBM, Dell. Reliable as the Risc counterparts.


---
Uli

In article <3F23C384.51499CBB@ntlworld.com>,
Dr. David Kirkby <drkirkby@ntlworld.com> wrote:

>> If you buy a used Sun, this machine would have been run wich a license before.
>> Even if the seller used a corporate license, the machine definitely did come
>> with a valid license from Sun when bought from Sun.
>>
>> At least this license could be sold together with the HW.
>
>Agreed. That is not the case.
>
>> If Sun states differenty, this is illegal and thus void.
>
>I'm no laywer, but I don't think it is.

IBM did try to do the same before and did lost a case on court.

--
EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) If you don't have iso-8859-1
schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) chars I am J"org Schilling
URL: http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/usr/schilling ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily