Posted on 04/01/2004 7:32:45 PM PST by Incorrigible
Linux Loyalists Leery
NEW YORK - Two years ago, when Rick Carey was chief technology architect at Merrill Lynch, he was crazy about Linux and especially about Red Hat, the leading Linux distributor. At the time, he was leading the charge to migrate all of the computer systems at Merrill to Linux.
But these days, things have changed. Carey, who is now chief technology architect at Bank One (nyse: ONE - news - people ), says that although he still likes Linux, he's not rushing into any deployments of the open-source operating system. Chicago-based Bank One has run some Linux pilot programs, but it is not planning any big roll-outs, Carey says.
"There's some caution," Carey says. "The marketplace has changed significantly in regard to Linux. I guess I'd describe my position as cautious enthusiasm."
One factor: the SCO lawsuits. Last year, SCO (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ), a software maker in Lindon, Utah, sued IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), claiming IBM had taken code from Unix, to which SCO holds some copyrights, and put that code into Linux, which is distributed for free. More recently, SCO sued AutoZone (nyse: AZO - news - people ) and DaimlerChrysler (nyse: DCX - news - people ), claiming that by using Linux they too are infringing on SCO's copyrights.
"SCO is targeting large companies," Carey says. "If we put a large Linux presence out there, it puts us on the radar to get sued. It's like walking around in the woods during deer season."
But Carey's other concern has to do with Linux vendors themselves, like Red Hat (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ), which recently introduced a new licensing policy that will force customers to pay a per-CPU fee for the commercial version of its product, called Enterprise Linux. In the previous version, you could pay for one copy and then put it on as many machines as you wanted.
Red Hat won't let customers do that with Enterprise Linux. But Red Hat claims Enterprise Linux is still free--because customers are being charged for support, not for the software itself (ahem).
Customers like Carey resent the policy, which will significantly boost the cost of using Linux. "The companies that are trying to treat Linux like it's regular software and have a business model based on per-CPU or per-desktop licensing worry the heck out of me," Carey says. "For us, that makes Linux prohibitively expensive. And it makes a stronger case for us to go Windows."
Gasp! Did he say ... Windows? From ... Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )? The root of all evil?
"This is not a religion," Carey says. "I want the most value for the dollars I spend."
Carey says one reason he embraced Linux was its lower cost. But if Linux becomes almost as expensive as Windows, why not go with Windows, and benefit from the work of thousands of Microsoft engineers and programmers? Carey talks about "the innovation premium"--meaning the price you pay to get the latest and greatest.
"Most open source is imitation," Carey says. "Linux is an imitation of an operating system. If these [Linux] companies are going to create a price point that is significant enough that they are approaching the same pricing model as the innovation premium, why pay a premium for imitation when I can pay a premium and get innovation?"
Keep in mind--before you write your angry letters to the editor--that Carey has held high technology positions at two very big banks, and he is not a Linux basher. He was one of the earliest and most vocal proponents of Linux. He is even a fan of Richard Stallman, the pioneer of the open source movement.
Matthew Szulik, chief executive of Red Hat, says Carey's views do not represent those of most Red Hat customers. But in the same conversation, Szulik says he'd love it if Red Hat could become the next Microsoft. "Who wouldn't want to be Microsoft?" he asks. "I mean, come on. Honestly."
Carey says he's disturbed by Red Hat's Microsoft envy--especially since Red Hat, like everyone else in the Linux community, has spent years bashing Microsoft. "First you say they're bad--now you say you want to be like them? I don't think we need more companies trying to create monopolies," he says.
"The vendors are changing, the licensing models are changing," Carey says. "The companies doing these Linux distributions are trying to make money by taking away the freedom of Linux. I don't mean free as in cost. I mean free as in free speech. If you make me pay more for ten users than for three users, you're taking away some of my freedom. From the consumer perspective, that's not why we went into this. It was freedom of choice."
Another danger is emerging. Although dozens of Linux distributions exist, switching from one to the other could become more difficult as companies like Red Hat and its rival, SuSE, which is owned by Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ), attempt to differentiate their Linux distributions by developing new features. Once applications are written to work with a certain set of features, moving them to a different Linux distribution could require a lot of difficult and expensive rewriting.
"That's what makes me cautious," Carey says. "There's a risk there. I have the right to switch, but it could be costly."
Equally bothered by Red Hat's new policy is Thaddeus Beier, technology chief at Hammerhead Productions, a Studio City, Calif.-based company that runs Red Hat Linux on computers that create special effects for movies.
"I do think people have heeded Red Hat's change of focus, and have treated it as the wake-up call that it is," Beier says. "In my industry, people have been reevaluating their relationship with Red Hat and other Linux vendors."
Beier says Red Hat may have raised its prices too soon. Today most customers can still migrate away from Red Hat without too much pain. "Another couple of years and migration away from Red Hat might have been quite painful indeed. Now, everybody is stepping back and saying, 'Whoa!' and realizing how close they came."
Next month, after Hammerhead finishes its current movie project, Beier will switch his machines over to another form of Linux. He doesn't know which version he will choose. But he knows it won't be Red Hat's Enterprise Linux. "That's ridiculous," he says.
Apparently some people don't want those Red Hat guys to become billionaires. Shocking.
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
I'll grant you that, but I still have less problems with my Linux installs than I do with the MS boxes. I've been continuously running (i.e. no reboots) a database server on Linux for over 2 years, and with the exception of power problems, it has never even hicupped.
Incorrect. Contrary to Lyons' assertion, RHES is licensed per box; 2003 Server is licensed per CPU. So your 4-way box will cost more with 2003 Server ($600 * 4 = $2400) than with ES ($800).
I keep a couple Knoppix CD's around, too.
If interested in low priced Mac's, try this:
http://www.macprices.com/refurblaptops.shtml
I've never at any time supported the Microsoft-as-monopoly argument, but now I've come to the conclusion that MS deserves to die for one reason alone: its financing of SCO.
Who didn't see this coming? And it's only going to get worse. All the best builds will eventually have a price tag.
I'm pretty fond of Enterprise SuSE. Same price as Enterprise Red Hat but much faster. And it comes with fairly informative manuals for n00bs, as opposed to most of the other builds of Ix. Lindows isn't all that great, and I'd avoid Mandrake....unless it's improved since I last used it two years ago.
So long as the bang for the buck is still there, I don't have a problem with companies charging for their work.
"for the labourer is worthy of his hire."
Supports them, sure. I am unable to find the MS doc I was looking at last night, which discusses per-CPU licensing.
But 2003 Enterprise is quite expensive, notwithstanding all of the other licenses (CALs, Exchange, TS, etc.) you'd need to actually do something with it. Much more pricey than the Red Hat solution.
Lyons didn't put this blurb in the article by accident.
I'm sure he knows from firsthand experience that any article critical of Linux or OSS in general will be answered with hate email and DOS attacks... courtesy of the "linux community".
I was ready to get geared up to use Suse until I talked to our account rep at RH who provided me with a development entitlement which gives an affordable environment (300 for five entitlements so long as they are not production).
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