Licensing issue

[Jake Dellanaro]

Licensing issue
What are the current licensing policies with most Linux manufactures regarding
the number of WEB users be serviced from a Linux machine or the number of
processors which a Linux box may be running? Microsoft has recently changed
their take on number of users served and is now requiring the purchase of
additional client licenses for a server to handle simultaneous unauthenticated
SSL sessions of greater than 10. Microsoft also licenses their product per
the number of processors running the particular application (example: NT
server or SQL server)

[Neil Matthew & Rick Stones]

Hi,

Jake Dellanaro <jdellanaro@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:395b661a$1@news.devx.com...
>
> Licensing issue
> What are the current licensing policies with most Linux manufactures
regarding
> the number of WEB users be serviced from a Linux machine or the number of
> processors which a Linux box may be running? Microsoft has recently
changed
> their take on number of users served and is now requiring the purchase of
> additional client licenses for a server to handle simultaneous
unauthenticated
> SSL sessions of greater than 10. Microsoft also licenses their product per
> the number of processors running the particular application (example: NT
> server or SQL server)
>

There are very few licensing issues that affect users of Linux
distributions. A couple of examples spring to mind.

The first is "trialware" that is contained in some distributions. This is
commercial software provided for a limited period and must be
paid for if used. Easily identified and avoided.

The other is commercial software licensed within a distribution,
like the OSS sound software in the SuSE distribution. This prevents
you from installing the OSS modules on more than one machine,
unless you buy more copies of the distribution.

Having said that it is easily possible to obtain a Linux distribution
that contains no licensed software at all. Examples are Debian Linux,
and the downloadable versions of Red Hat and SuSE. With these
you are free to install them wherever you like, without restriction.
And they are not short on features either.

If you want to build a Linux web server, you can do so completely
for free.

Linux, and Apache (and PHP, the 'free' ASP alternative),
are totally free, gratis, no charge. No user limits
except those imposed by your hardware and connectivity.
And of course you get the source code as well

You can have as many web clients talking to a Linux
machine with the Apache web server as your hardware will support.
There is no charge.

Check www.apache.org for Apache licensing, www.php.net for
PHP licensing, and www.netcraft.com/survey/
to see just how successful Apache is as a web server.

Apache is free, but not because it's somehow no good.
It's free because its developers gave it away.

There is a WROX Apache book which tells you all you need
to know about configuring Apache. It is Professional Apache,
details are at
http://www.wrox.com/Consumer/Store/D...SBN=1861003021

You may like to know that you can also create a file and print
serv with a Linux box, one that can be used with Windows 9x
and NT. The utility that does this is called Samba, and is
included in most, if not all, Linux distributions.

The Wrox book Professional Linux Deployment has details:
http://www.wrox.com/Consumer/Store/D...SBN=1861002874


Neil and Rick