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Re: [News] SLED 10 to Be Ready in July, Not August

__/ [ B Gruff ] on Monday 10 July 2006 11:34 \__

> On Monday 10 July 2006 11:20 Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> 
>> I don't know about annual fees, neither should we care. And speaking of
>> Care:
>> 
>> OneCare from Microsoft goes for $49 per year, IIRC. That's software that
>> fixes other software from the very same vendor. Somewhat like Novell
>> charging its customers per critical patch. Pay or rot.
> 
> *You* might not care, but it was actually this very issue that turned me
> completely to Linux.  I used OO.o. Firefox, Thunderbird, and then Norton
> went ape.  Rather than mess about or buy a new one, I bought SuSE 9.1:-)


If only more people knew about that option....

Ironically, we see more boxed and shrink-wrapped software on the shelf which
'fixes' one O/S, rather than see an actual alternative. I'm appending to
this message a relevant timely quote from Ballard


> Nevertheless, the figure you quote is significant, in that I thought that I
> saw SLED 10 price $50p.a.?:-)


Not per annum. Per purchase. And you get to keep all of it. Including OO.o,
patches, and the possibility of upgrading for free through the OpenSUSE
Channel.


> I don't suppose you know where I can find an Idiot's Guide to the
> differences between SUSE 10.0/10.1 and SLED 10?


This seems to be a question that begs for a FAQ. Here is the most recent 
among the answers I used to address it:

__/ [ Roy Schestowitz ] on Sunday 09 July 2006 13:12 \__

> __/ [ houghi ] on Sunday 09 July 2006 09:58 \__
> 
>> Wad wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Gang,
>>>
>>> Will SLED 10 be usable for the home pc? Since SLED 10 will focus on
>>> the commercial user what does this mean for the home user? Will SLED
>>> 10 be somehow crippled in regards to multimedia capabilities? What
>>> 'real' differences can I expect between SLED 10 and SUSE 10 aside from
>>> say the new package manager, GUI, and new 3D tricks.  Can anyone shed
>>> some light on the subject?
>> 
>> Yeas and no.
>> 
>> Yes in that it will work.
>> No in that you will have to pay for updates and upgrades.
>> 
>> What is the reason you do not want to run SUSE 10.0 or 10.1, because
>> they are basicaly the same as SLED. There are no 'real' differences. The
>> package manager is the same, GUI is the same (although standard GNOME is
>> selected) 3D tricks are the same.
>> 
>> If you want to run it on a home-system. Run SUSE. Seriously.
>> You can run SLED at home, yet there is no reason to do so. If you need
>> to ask, run standard SUSE. The moment you
> ^^^ seems like you lost some text
> 
> 
> I believe that the main reason for using SLED might be the inclsuion of
> stuff that otherwise requires 'hacking' by the OpenSUSE community. That
> said, I am aware of ports of SUSE that contain some of the codecs and
> plug-ins 'out of the box'. For some reason, SLED reviews appear to be more
> enthusiastic than SUSE reviews. Maybe that's because SLED is more brushed
> and standardised (less choice). This appeals to those who never knew, or
> wanted, or even appreciated choice -- those to whom a Windows XP-esqe
> 'Start menu' seems like the /right way/.



Appendix (see cross-reference above)

,----[ 2006/07/09, 21:03, Rex Ballard: ]
| Microsoft has the additional advantage of maintaining a monopoly
| control of the desktop market.  Regardless of what happens after the
| machine is sold, OEMs know that given the choice of purchasing more
| than enough licenses regardless of whether they were actually needed by
| end-users or not, and having too few licenses, with the inability to
| purchase more, and at prices which price the end-product so much higher
| that competitor products that demand would falter, the OEMs negotiate a
| better deal by purchasing far more than they actually need.  For
| example, if an OEM expects to sell 10 million PCs, and Microsoft is
| willing to sell him 10 million at $80 per copy, or 15 million at
| $40/copy, purchasing the 15 million copies give a net price of roughly
| $60/copy, which is still superior to the smaller order.
| 
| Of course, this quantity discount also gives Microsoft the ability to
| impose some unusual restrictions.  For example, Windows must be
| installed on every machine sold. Windows must be the ONLY operating
| system installed on these machines.  The OEM is not allowed to make ANY
| alterations to the configuration, including partitions which would
| allow users to install Linux in a separate partition, 3rd party
| software that competes with Microsoft products including Lotus Smart
| Suite, Netscape Communicator, or Open Office/Star Office.  The OEM can
| include this software "on the side", and even Linux, but cannot
| preinstall the software.
| 
| Failure to comply with any of these terms could result in automatic
| revokation of licenses, which meant that the OEM was back into the
| state of "All Or Nothing", with the option of renegotiating for
| licenses (which may involve additional cash payments and nearly always
| involved additianal restrictions).
`----

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