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Archives of the TeradataForum
Message Posted: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 @ 15:42:34 GMT
| Subj: | | Re: Teradata on UNIX |
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| From: | | Charles Farley |
Hi all:
--- David Hough A. wrote:
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*I* think they can't figure out how to ratchet up the software licensing fees to their present ungodly levels when starting with a free
operating system. Think of the embarassment factor... even for marketeers and lawyers!
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Not to take any of the cynicism away from teh above, because I do appreciate it and I think it's funny, but it also made a good
point to me. Many of the vendors I've talked to that have "looked at linux", are under the impression that the GPL or Copyleft, or whatever
free/open software license that the OS they want to use is under, would force them into publishing at least some small part of their code.
They need to understand that the kernel itself and some of the software (gcc, gmake, etc.) is under the licensing that would force them to
publish any changes they make and want accepted by the community, but any of their software can remain proprietary. The above brought that
to my mind, and I remember having a conversation with a sales guy from a certain vendor, who shall remain nameless (not NCR), about their
fears that if they were to port to Linux, all of their code would be reverse engineered, or would have to be published as open source, and
they would all be out of work in three days, blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum... This just isn't true, but to get this person convinced, I
had to send him out to the GNU site and have him examine the license and explain that it applies to the kernel, not his software. I thought
no one would make that sort of mistake when it came to licensing and assuming that a license for one thing also would be forced upon
another, separate thing, I guess I was wrong.
I don't want to start a licensing argument here, because I believe that I should pay for good software, and I think Teradata is much more
than good. I do some programming, and I like to get paid for my efforts, especially if they are commissioned, but there are times I will
just write something for my own desire, and turn that over for free as well, it's usually not as pretty of code, but it's free.
I hope I got my ideas across here, it's early, and I'm not quite awake yet, thanks,
loadc
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