# linux pricing?!?!



## Pehla (Apr 15, 2013)

we all know linux is free and opensource os...but did u know some distros are pay'd for?!?
well at least red hat does!! so.. u do know some of them for sale..but wtf?!?
red hat wants 15 000$ for one year subscripiton?!?!?
i mean come on... isn't that waaay overpriced?!?!

https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/server/


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## qubit (Apr 15, 2013)

You're paying for the support, which has no reason to be free.

The actual Linux distro remains free.


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## W1zzard (Apr 15, 2013)

If you're Google, eBay, Amazon or some other huge company that earns billions every year thanks to using Linux you'll happily pay Redhat to always listen to your issues and customize their operating system for exactly what you need.

Windows Server 2012 Datacenter is 5k$ per processor, too


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## Frick (Apr 15, 2013)

A lot of distros have that model. Ubuntu too.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 15, 2013)

Pehla said:


> we all know linux is free and opensource os...but did u know some distros are pay'd for?!?
> well at least red hat does!! so.. u do know some of them for sale..but wtf?!?
> red hat wants 15 000$ for one year subscripiton?!?!?
> i mean come on... isn't that waaay overpriced?!?!
> ...



wow, welcome back from the year 1999...

just go with CentOS...


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Apr 15, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> If you're Google, eBay, Amazon or some other huge company that earns billions every year thanks to using Linux you'll happily pay Redhat to always listen to your issues and customize their operating system for exactly what you need.
> 
> Windows Server 2012 Datacenter is 5k$ per processor, too



Wow 5k a processor thats mental ,is that fee so brazen to be per individual core? or the package of cores?.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 15, 2013)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Wow 5k a processor thats mental ,is that fee so brazen to be per individual core? or the package of cores?.



per socket. you can always go with a site wide license. and the market justifies the price if you ask me.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Apr 15, 2013)

Easy Rhino said:


> per socket. you can always go with a site wide license. and the market justifies the price if you ask me.



Yeah I except it given the mission critical nature of some but the figure still surprised a bit given its a yearly license , made me rethink supercomputers a bit wow .


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## Frick (Apr 15, 2013)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Yeah I except it given the mission critical nature of some but the figure still surprised a bit given its a yearly license , made me rethink supercomputers a bit wow .



Protip: Don't get one.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Apr 15, 2013)

Frick said:


> Protip: Don't get one.



Lol as if ..


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## v12dock (Apr 15, 2013)

I pass on dying CentOS I stick with comforting Debian


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 15, 2013)

v12dock said:


> I pass on dying CentOS I stick with comforting Debian



CentOS is not dying. In fact, in the past year it has been revitalized!  it takes mere days now to get out a release.


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## PopcornMachine (Apr 15, 2013)

Google, like companies should do when embracing open source, make their own distribution and hire their own staff to build and support it.

Now that's open source.  Paying Redhat a fee is almost just like paying Sun, HP, or IBM for their old UNIXes.  Except they were crappy on top of the cost.


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## Frick (Apr 15, 2013)

PopcornMachine said:


> Now that's open source.  Paying Redhat a fee is almost just like paying Sun, HP, or IBM for their old UNIXes.  Except they were crappy on top of the cost.



Depends entirely on what sort of company you run and what you do.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 16, 2013)

PopcornMachine said:


> Google, like companies should do when embracing open source, make their own distribution and hire their own staff to build and support it.
> 
> Now that's open source.  Paying Redhat a fee is almost just like paying Sun, HP, or IBM for their old UNIXes.  Except they were crappy on top of the cost.



redhat is barnone the enterprise operating system. it scales much better than windows server and costs much less. paying them a fee is what 99% of corporations do because they can't afford to hire two dozen comp sci engineers to reinvent the wheel. it makes smart business sense to go with redhat.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 16, 2013)

RedHat specifically is a Enterprise grade distro of Linux, when Red Hat went Enterprise class they started the Fedora project as their home version.  You aren't paying for Linux, you are paying for the support subscription.  If you have a problem, they work with you to fix it, and they are damn good about it.  You don't get that with a free distro.  And you can download and run Red Hat for free here.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 16, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> RedHat specifically is a Enterprise grade distro of Linux, when Red Hat went Enterprise class they started the Fedora project as their home version.  You aren't paying for Linux, you are paying for the support subscription.  If you have a problem, they work with you to fix it, and they are damn good about it.  You don't get that with a free distro.  And you can download and run Red Hat for free here.



i believe to download redhat you need to pay for customer support license. you will notice you can't just sign up.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 16, 2013)

Easy Rhino said:


> i believe to download redhat you need to pay for customer support license. you will notice you can't just sign up.



You can just sign up, you don't have to pay anything for Red Hat or a Red Hat account to download the ISOs.  Just click Download Software and then the Sign Up button or go here to create an account and select Personal as the account type.  Then you can access the downloads area.  All for free.


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## Mindweaver (Apr 16, 2013)

My first bought distro was Red Hat 7, and the company I was working for bought it for me. But I was a unix guy way, before I was a linux guy.. hehehe


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## fisheater (Apr 16, 2013)

*Rh & rms*



Pehla said:


> we all know linux is free and opensource os...but did u know some distros are pay'd for?!?
> well at least red hat does!! so.. u do know some of them for sale..but wtf?!?
> red hat wants 15 000$ for one year subscripiton?!?!?
> i mean come on... isn't that waaay overpriced?!?!
> . . .



There is RedHat, then there is RMS.  Where one stands is his/her choice.


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## W1zzard (Apr 16, 2013)

v12dock said:


> I pass on dying CentOS I stick with comforting Debian



We use CentOS on all our servers and very happy with it (after adding EPEL, RPMForge repos)

if you dont know CentOS: CentOS is the open source version of Redhat Enterprise Linux recompiled and released as free software (similar distros exist, CentOS is the most popular one)


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 16, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> You can just sign up, you don't have to pay anything for Red Hat or a Red Hat account to download the ISOs.  Just click Download Software and then the Sign Up button or go here to create an account and select Personal as the account type.  Then you can access the downloads area.  All for free.



have you done so, because unless you have an entitlement through redhat you cannot. this is very clear in their ToS and the main reason CentOS exists...


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## GSquadron (Apr 16, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> If you're Google, eBay, Amazon or some other huge company that earns billions every year thanks to using Linux you'll happily pay Redhat to always listen to your issues and customize their operating system for exactly what you need.
> 
> Windows Server 2012 Datacenter is 5k$ per processor, too





W1zzard said:


> We use CentOS on all our servers and very happy with it (after adding EPEL, RPMForge repos)
> 
> if you dont know CentOS: CentOS is the open source version of Redhat Enterprise Linux recompiled and released as free software (similar distros exist, CentOS is the most popular one)



Very nice observation and thanks for the tip.
Didn't know about CentOS


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## newtekie1 (Apr 16, 2013)

Easy Rhino said:


> have you done so, because unless you have an entitlement through redhat you cannot. this is very clear in their ToS and the main reason CentOS exists...



Yes, I did it minutes before posting about it.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 16, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> Yes, I did it minutes before posting about it.



can you take screenshots of exactly what you are doing? i know you can download REALLY OLD versions of RHEL.


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## Aquinus (Apr 16, 2013)

This is why you use something like RHEL. This is the production database server I work at work that lives in a data center instead of in the office.


```
[jdoane@362998-db2 ~]$ uptime
 15:26:37 up 400 days,  1:08,  1 user,  load average: 1.66, 1.78, 1.67
```

It doesn't take much downtime before people start wondering what is going on.


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## Frick (Apr 16, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> This is why you use something like RHEL. This is the production database server I work at work that lives in a data center instead of in the office.
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



Netware laughes at your puny server.

(not a production server I know but still)


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## Aquinus (Apr 17, 2013)

Frick said:


> Netware laughes at your puny server.
> 
> (not a production server I know but still)



Yes, that's because we switched servers 400 days ago and split our production system from one box to a app server and a db server. 

Before that the server was up for over 600 days and would have kept going if we didn't need to upgrade.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 17, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> Yes, that's because we switched servers 400 days ago and split our production system from one box to a app server and a db server.
> 
> Before that the server was up for over 600 days and would have kept going if we didn't need to upgrade.



i don't know why anyone would leave a prod server up for more than 2 year at a time. if you are running app servers and database servers you will need to update that software which inevitably means needing to update the OS to meet certification requirements. an OS upgrade means a reboot.


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## Aquinus (Apr 17, 2013)

Easy Rhino said:


> i don't know why anyone would leave a prod server up for more than 2 year at a time. if you are running app servers and database servers you will need to update that software which inevitably means needing to update the OS to meet certification requirements. an OS upgrade means a reboot.



Of all people, mister linux advocate should know that you don't fix something if it isn't broken.  Even more so when several hundred people use the application. Now Apache and PostgreSQL have been restarted a number of times and packages have been updated without a restart before. Only changes to the kernel or kernel modules generally require a restart.

I would rather my server be up for two years than have a Windows server that I have to restart once a month.


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 17, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> Of all people, mister linux advocate should know that you don't fix something if it isn't broken.



Yea right, try telling that to clients that want all of the new latest and greatest features that the software upgrades come with. Not to mention security updates, etc. In the real world, upgrading the software is a must and eventually to meet the requirements of the new software an OS upgrade is required which means a change in the kernel. That is just reality.


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## Pehla (Apr 17, 2013)

guys i dont mean to be rude but u went so much away from topic..
start new thread and discus till u drop.. 
it became so boring to keep geting mails about htread that is finished if u ask me! thn for understanding..


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 17, 2013)

Pehla said:


> guys i dont mean to be rude but u went so much away from topic..
> start new thread and discus till u drop..
> it became so boring to keep geting mails about htread that is finished if u ask me! thn for understanding..



bah, this is on topic if you ask me. linux uptime , ie availability, has everything to do with pricing. you can't price out a system that goes down all the time. anyway, you can always change your email settings.


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## W1zzard (Apr 17, 2013)

Easy Rhino said:


> an OS upgrade means a reboot.



Ksplice can upgrade your kernel without reboot: http://www.ksplice.com/

While it's certainly nice I can't see me justifying the cost for it. Apparently they don't sell it anymore since Oracle bought them and integrated it as unique feature into their RHEL Linux clone (~2k license per year)


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 17, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> Ksplice can upgrade your kernel without reboot: http://www.ksplice.com/
> 
> While it's certainly nice I can't see me justifying the cost for it. Apparently they don't sell it anymore since Oracle bought them and integrated it as unique feature into their RHEL Linux clone (~2k license per year)



yea, i think it is part of their "unbreakable linux" suite.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 17, 2013)

Easy Rhino said:


> anyway, you can always change your email settings.



Or unsubscribe from this thread if you don't want to keep getting alerts about it but still want to get alerts about other threads.


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## douglatins (Apr 17, 2013)

Red hat isnt supposed to be super duper secure?


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## Easy Rhino (Apr 17, 2013)

douglatins said:


> Red hat isnt supposed to be super duper secure?



who told you that??????????????


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## Disparia (Apr 17, 2013)

Easy Rhino said:


> Yea right, try telling that to clients that want all of the new latest and greatest features that the software upgrades come with. Not to mention security updates, etc. In the real world, upgrading the software is a must and eventually to meet the requirements of the new software an OS upgrade is required which means a change in the kernel. That is just reality.



I didn't need to hear from clients... I usually wanted the new features myself. That's what happens when your dba, programmer, and admin is the same person 

BUT it was pretty easy in my case. All employees were in one timezone and the company only ran two shifts. I could remote in around 11:30pm and execute the upgrade I planned earlier that day.


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