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From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,alt.sys.sun,comp.windows.x.announce
Subject: Re: The real OpenWindows source announcement
Message-ID: <86716@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 24 Nov 90 19:33:12 GMT
References: <1990Nov15.144507.22915@mcs.anl.gov> <12086@ibism.uucp> <MWM.90Nov19111558@raven.relay.pa.dec.com>
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| From: mwm@raven.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer)
| 
| | From: lcp@ibism.UUCP (Larry Poleshuck)
| | 
| | | From: korp@atlantis.ees.anl.gov (Peter Korp)
| | | 
| | | ... cost of media only -- $995 ...
| | 
| | What media are you using -- gold-plated clay tablets?
| 
| The same stuff BSD ships their distribution on?
| 
| Last time I looked, CSRG wanted $700 for a BSD tape set. Given that CSRG
| was using student labor to copy tapes, they should be noticably cheaper.
| 
| The price is very high for "free" software; especially if you're used to
| microcomputer software prices. For workstation software, that's not a
| high price. And it's in line with other "free" unix distributions of
| similar size.

  The CSRG distribution fee covers far more than tape distribution
costs.  One of the big ticket items it covers is Keith Bostic's salary.
If you call CSRG for help with 4BSD, it's Keith who answers your
questions.  CSRG considers this distribution support as part of the
distribution cost.

  I haven't heard of any such support being advertised for OpenWindows,
but I expect that there will be some effort to answer problem reports on
XPERT in much the same way that Heather Rose and company answer problem
reports about XView.  And, as others have pointed out, the OpenWindows
distribution probably comes with a fairly hefty chunk of documentation.

  You might be inclined to compare the cost of CSRG's operating system
against Sun's software system, claiming that they're not the same size,
complexity, etc.  On the other hand you should remember that CSRG
operates with a very small staff with almost no waste.  Sun is a major
corporation sporting much higher salaries both in management and at the
peon level (which is the only level which CSRG has! :-))

Casey