[ILUG] Redhat taking all my money

[Darren Burnett]

What a day.  I've been pushing Linux for a long time in work.  We eventually 
went RH AS 2.1 over a year ago.  At the time we purchased one boxed CD and 
installed on approx 7 servers.  We used up2date to keep systems up to date 
(had to purchase additional lics).  As time went by we 'forgot' to update our 
systems.  Lazy Sysadminitis had set in.  Now as more of our systems go Linux 
I thought it prudent to keep our systems up dated.  I tried up2date.  No 
luck.  Our systems had expired.  So we went and purchased 15 Redhat 
management lics.  Still up2date wouldn't work.  Contacted Redhat in Ireland.  
It turns out that according to them we should pay for every install to be 
able to use up2date.  I had thought that we could install and just pay for 
updates.  Anyway they have recommended that I down grade to ES which makes 
sense as we only use 2 processors and never more than 4 gigs ram. 

So here is my gripe, it will cost €269 per server to be able to receive 
updates.  If we had chosen the path to migrate those NT boxes to W2K3 it 
would have cost €555 but this would have covered updates by my reckoning 
until 2010.  So one W2K3 until 2010 costs €555 where as RedHat will cost 
€1883?  

Time to look at other vendors.  As we use NetWare,  SUSE would definitely be 
an option.  

What other vendors would you recommend?  It is important that Oracle and Lotus 
would support these distros.


Darren