[3169] in WWW Security List Archive
Re: [NTSEC] Re: General Question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chuck D'Antonio)
Wed Oct 9 12:28:21 1996
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 09:31:18 -0400
To: Eric Germann <ekgermann@cctec.com>
From: c_dantonio@harvard.edu (Chuck D'Antonio)
Cc: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
>He says nothing about server and workstation. He asks specifically about
>4.0. More to the point, Catapult only runs on NT Server, so the above
>article has absolutely no bearing.
>
>This "I hate MS because they chose their licensing terms" mantra is getting
>old. When developing Web sites, the $400 difference between the two OS
>versions is peanuts compared to the cost of connectivity and the other
>associated soft costs. Its their product to license as they wish. If you
>don't like the license, don't buy the product. Period.
The message complaining about licensing terms did point people toward using
Linux/Apache rather than Microsoft products. That sounds like suggesting that
someone not buy the product to me. The issue with Microsoft's licensing isn't
whether or not they have the right to license as they see fit, but rather the
thin line they're walking with respect to anti-trust legislation and their
agreement with the Justice Department.
If Microsoft limits their license regarding TCP/IP connections on Windows NT
workstation, then you have to buy the server version to run a web server.
They bundle a web server with NT Advanced Server, so many financial officers
will consider it needless expense to buy a server that may better meet the
technical requirements of a project. The result is fewer people buying other
vendors' web servers. Since O'Reilly is one of these other vendors, they're
justifiably upset about it all. Does the $400 licensing difference matter?
Probably not, but taking a personal stand about non-competitive practices and
encouraging others to do the same _is_not_ about saving everybody $400. That
sounds much more like what the post your replied to was doing.
You don't have to agree about discouraging use of Microsoft products for non-
competitive practices. You don't have to agree that their practices are the
least bit non-competitive. We're all just having a big discussion here, and
some of us will care about what Microsoft is doing. I use some Microsoft
products daily. I think some of their products are very good at what they
do, but they don't produce the best-of-breed in every category they publish
in.
I'd rather have the choice of several vendors for all of my software, and many
of Microsoft's business practices prevent this. I don't discourage them from
trying to, that's business. But I also advocate technologically superior
products when I see them that way -- even those that cost substantially more
than Microsoft's offerings. Very few forums are better for that than mailing
lists and newsgroups read by others facing some of the same technology choices
that I face.
Chuck
--
Chuck D'Antonio
Programmer & Network Support Specialist
FAS Administrative Computing
Harvard University
