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From: ron@woan.austin.ibm.com (Ronald S. Woan/2100000)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix,comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Re: Risc System/6000
Keywords: all in all, reasonable cost.
Message-ID: <1565@awdprime.UUCP>
Date: 20 Feb 90 00:07:08 GMT
References: <1990Feb19.213357.7340@lavaca.uh.edu> <4115@ibmpa.UUCP> <10307@hoptoad.uucp>
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In article <1990Feb19.213357.7340@lavaca.uh.edu>,
jet@karazm.math.uh.edu (J. Eric Townsend) writes:
|>First off, the sales rep told me that I could buy GNU Emacs and that
|>X for AIX 3.0 would cost around $500.  

I didn't see the charge for GNU EMACS, but if I understand the GPL, we
can't charge more than a minor media and handling fee without
restriction of copying from your neighbor. Youch! I looked and our
distrbution charge is $125! I guess we have a lot of distribution
overhead (manual maybe?) Heck I would suggest that you just roll your
own or get it from your neighbor ($125 over 25 workstations wouldn't
be bad)...

|>"X server software" is $500, plus $50 for each terminal...  

Every major manufacturer charges for their own X-Window product to
cover porting (one heck of an optimization job too) and distribution
costs (don't forget full manual set).  The $50/terminal results from
the brain-dead Motif licensing fees (call OSF up, they'll say they
charge $50/term no matter the platform too), so no profit there.

All I can say is that my earlier numbers were correct and nowhere will
you find a cheaper buck/MIP ratio from a major manufacturer, and our
service will be second to none.

						Ron

+-----All Views Expressed Are My Own And Are Not Necessarily Shared By------+
+------------------------------My Employer----------------------------------+
+ Ronald S. Woan  (IBM VNET)WOAN AT AUSTIN, (AUSTIN)ron@woan.austin.ibm.com +
+ outside of IBM       @cs.utexas.edu:ibmchs!auschs!woan.austin.ibm.com!ron +
+ last resort                                        woan@peyote.cactus.org +