Free UNIX for non-commerical use.

From: Dr. David Kirkby (drkirkby_at_ntlworld.com)
Date: 07/27/03

  • Next message: Dave Uhring: "Re: Free UNIX for non-commerical use." 
    Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 03:44:04 +0100

    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. 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. When those home users go in to industry, they are more likely
    to buy **EXPENSIVE** new HP kit. So it's to HP's advantage to give
    away HP-UX to students and home users.

    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.

    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.

    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).

    I'd like to know HP's logic of the differing policies of Tru64 and
    HP-UX. It seems very odd to sell Tru64 and compiler for $99, yet give
    no discounts on the HP-UX.

    One can't expect Microsoft to give Windoze away for free, as Microsoft
    will never gain any extra revenue from hardware sales. 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.

    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. 

    -- 
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
  • Next message: Dave Uhring: "Re: Free UNIX for non-commerical use."

    Relevant Pages

    • Free UNIX for non-commerical use.
      ... give away free copies of their operating systems to students and home ... If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give ... away HP-UX to students and home users. ... The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor - I strongly suspect ...
      (comp.sys.sgi.admin)
    • Free UNIX for non-commerical use.
      ... give away free copies of their operating systems to students and home ... If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give ... away HP-UX to students and home users. ... The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor - I strongly suspect ...
      (comp.unix.solaris)
    • Free UNIX for non-commerical use.
      ... give away free copies of their operating systems to students and home ... If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give ... away HP-UX to students and home users. ... The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor - I strongly suspect ...
      (comp.sys.hp.hpux)
    • Free UNIX for non-commerical use.
      ... give away free copies of their operating systems to students and home ... If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give ... away HP-UX to students and home users. ... The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor - I strongly suspect ...
      (comp.unix.aix)
    • Free UNIX for non-commerical use.
      ... give away free copies of their operating systems to students and home ... If HP gave away HP-UX, whereas Sun, SGI, IBM etc. did not give ... away HP-UX to students and home users. ... The same can be said for any UNIX hardware vendor - I strongly suspect ...
      (comp.sys.dec)