On Mon, 2004-02-02 at 10:54, Derek Neighbors wrote:

> To me this is more a kin to what Red Hat is doing by attaching the service
> fee to the license.  If they want to sell the "authorized dealer" aspect
> great, it gives them a decided advantage.  All the more reason, to **not**
> lock me into them.  If they really are superior what are they afraid of? 
> Why must they attach the service to the sale of the product?

In no way shape or form am I competent or authorized to speak for Red
Hat or their motivations.

Attaching the service to the price really is the bond that keeps the
maintenance agreement between the parties mutually acceptable. It
becomes the contract between user and Red Hat for continued maintenance
and upgrade paths.

I can see where you are going with this - Fine, I've got one computer
registered and updating. I've bought 10 other copies for various
machines in the same office...why do I have to pay for each machine each
year when I can just set up one machine to host the updates for all the
others?

I agree but it ain't gonna happen. What you do see on RHN is a list of
all machines that are registered to your account and their various
states. Through this system, you can select and even tell the machines
to update these specific packages (or all of them), and you can actually
tell this system to install new packages on next connection. While I
prefer to handle this stuff myself directly, it does offer more features
that a non-user has not seen or contemplated. Of course, profit probably
figures highly into their motivation for constructing the license and
the application of their license.

Craig