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Re: [PLUG] RH Enterprise Linux Purchasing Woes
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A RH employee told me this same thing at LinuxWorld, no PO Under $2K -
says their accounting dept. He made it sound like it was difficult for
them to process PO's - so they required lots of human involvement. Maybe
they need a better accounting system. This is a problem for me - because
as a var, I would need to purchase blocks of ES support licenses well in
advance of when I might actualy need them in order to be above the
threshhold, but the support start date would be the same for all. ie: Say
I bought 6 ES licenses but took 3-4 months before I rolled out servers for
all them - the ones I rolled out 4 months later would only be covered for
8 months, so it's obviously unacceptable. This goes back to RH being
channel unfriendly. They seem to be lusting after the BIG corporate
contracts - but I think they could do just as well (if not better) by
getting dozens of small var's into this program - IMHO. We have been
looking closely at SuSE, Debian, and Gentoo as alternative's for our
appliance products, but RH is still being requested by the bigger corps
for the systems they'll manage.
Jason Wertz said:
> I'm not sure if anyone is even considering moving to RedHat Enterprise
> Linux in a production environment but it has some advantages that are
> making me consider the ES version...5 years of security upgrade support
> being the main one, I really don't want to upgrade every year with the
> free products. I also don't mind paying a little bit each year to
> support RedHat so they can offer this level of support.
>
> Here's the issue, I work for a non-profit that can only make purchases
> via purchase orders. We have NO company credit card (something to do
> with the state). RedHat has the following bizarre rules (please take
> note that these fees need to be renewed every 12 months so the headaches
> keep coming back).
>
> 1. No POs for orders under $2,000.
>
> 2. Online CC payment only for the cheaper $349, unboxed, downloadable
> version of RedHat Enterprise Linux ES (the only difference between the
> $799 and $349 is the lack of install media and level of support...12x5
> versus 24x7 and I do fine without any support at this point. All I want
> is the product that has a 5 year life cycle. Actually, I'd be happy with
> a 2 year life cycle but 1 year just doesn't cut it).
>
> 3. You can't get the $349 version through a reseller, only through
> RedHat (but the $799 is available through resellers).
>
> 4. This doesn't really effect me, it is just wierd. The $799 includes
> free version upgrades. The $349 version needs to be repurchased any time
> you want to do a version upgrade (not really a problem if you only do
> version upgrades at the end of your 12 month term).
>
> Is RedHat the only company that does this no PO deal? I essentially have
> to spend money on something I don't need just so I can pay for their
> product. This is almost getting as crazy as Oracle licensing. I don't
> believe I'm saying this, but I can buy Microsoft licenses easier. Debian
> here I come.
>
> Sorry, just had to vent. Any thoughts?
>
>
>
> Jason Wertz
> Senior Technology Specialist / WebMaster
> Delaware County Community College
> ph: 610-325-2771
> fax: 610-325-2820
> http://learn.dccc.edu/~jason
>
>
>
>
>
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