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Microsoft IT

Microsoft Adopts Virtual Licenses 300

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the but-i-virtually-paid-for-it dept.
* * Beatles-Beatles is one of many to let us know that Microsoft has changed how they handle licensing for Windows Server and related products with regards to virtual machine environments. The new regiment will allow per-processor licensing to be handled based on the number of virtual processors rather than the number of physical processors in the computer.
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Microsoft Adopts Virtual Licenses More

Microsoft Adopts Virtual Licenses

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  • My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:5, Funny)

    by donnacha ( 161610 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:18PM (#13760288) Homepage
    Great, I guess this means I'll continue to depend upon my own virtual licensing scheme, based on the amount of warez I can download.
    • Why not just use free alternatives?

    • Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nacs ( 658138 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:51PM (#13760480) Journal
      This kind of thing only benefits opensource so I approve. The more ridiculous their licensing gets, the more businesses will look to open source solutions ( Linux + Xen or Linux + UML, etc).

      I love this quote from the article:
      The shift will benefit customers, Microsoft says.
      Higher prices 'benefit' consumers. I'll have to remember that one. </sarcasm>

      • Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)

        by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:54PM (#13760877) Homepage
        Except you're thinking of it bass ackwards..

        Bob Armstrong, managing director of IT at Delaware North Cos. in Buffalo, N.Y., said he hasn't even evaluated running SQL Server in a virtual environment because of the license fees that would be required. Armstrong noted that with a virtualized quad-processor system, Delaware North would have to pay for four instances of the databases under Microsoft's previous policy, even if it used only two processors for SQL Server. "We were waiting for the change," he said.

        They're not talking about virtual processors, they're talking about the number of actual processors used to run the virtual OS.

        • Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Tuesday October 11, 2005 @01:50AM (#13762558)
          Not to be rude by calling you bass ackwards or anything, but...
          But there are cases where companies could wind up paying more money under the new model, Park said. For example, if a user runs six virtual instances of a product such as BizTalk Server on a four-processor box, it would have to pay for six BizTalk licenses.
          The article was plenty weird in how they gave their examples. Until I get a more clear explenation I'm just gonna assume that whatever will put more money in Bill's pocket is most accurate.

          TW

      • Re:Good for them (Score:2, Insightful)

        by fastgood ( 714723 )
        The shift will benefit customers, Microsoft says.

        "Product activation is a technology that protects users from pirated software ... by limiting use of a product"
        (according to Norton Internet Security 2005 dialog box, when it craps out 15 days after installation)

        --
        We totally stop working after 365 days and cannot
        be removed from your system ( without upgrading )
        to protect you from the Y2K6 bug that we made up.

        • with norton, you might as well just get it over with early, though. it's going to bork out at some point and cause you a world of pain, so why not do it early and save the suspense?

      • Re:Good for them (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10, 2005 @09:44PM (#13761117)
        Once more for Mr. Leap-to-conclusion mat:

        - This is a pay for what you use deal under virtualization, e.g. customers now buy fewer licenses in most scenarios

        - Microsoft supports 1 license per physical CPU. The story is still somewhat inconsistent with Oracle, IBM, etc (try getting a straight answer from Oracle)

      • Re:Good for them (Score:4, Informative)

        by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Tuesday October 11, 2005 @02:35AM (#13762708)
        Higher prices 'benefit' consumers.

        Actually, this will lower prices for anyone it affects. Currently, if you have a four processor box running (e.g.) VMWare, and partition it into four virtual machines, one of which is running SQL Server, you need a four-processor SQL Server licence. Under the change in terms, you'll only need a single-processor licence.

        Congrats on getting your "+5, Bashes MS" though.

  • Well... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by justsomebody ( 525308 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:19PM (#13760294) Journal
    Either is that greed talking or they feel that people cheat with terminal servers to avoid buying OS licenses.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:25PM (#13760691)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)

        by imr ( 106517 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:47PM (#13760835)
        On slashdot we only virtually read the articles, that's our policy.

      • Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:49PM (#13760842)
        I RTFA, and here's my take on it:

        If I have a 4 way box running 3 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 3 single CPU licenses (before I owed them for one 4 way license, more expensive).

        If I have a 4 way box running 6 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 6 single CPU licenses (a 4 way license is cheaper than 6 singles)

        According to TFA, you would never run more servers than CPUs in protection. That is utter bullcrap. ESX scales to 10 servers on a 2 way box according to VMware. I have a GSX box running on a 2 way box, and I have 6 production boxes using 25% of the CPU at any given time. That means I could scale to 15 with little trouble. In other words, this new scheme costs me more, a LOT more, than it did before.

        So yeah, MS is screwing us. They're just either misinformed or hoping the readers are.

        • Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Thundersnatch ( 671481 )

          According to TFA, you would never run more servers than CPUs in protection. That is utter bullcrap. ESX scales to 10 servers on a 2 way box according to VMware. I have a GSX box running on a 2 way box, and I have 6 production boxes using 25% of the CPU at any given time. That means I could scale to 15 with little trouble. In other words, this new scheme costs me more, a LOT more, than it did before.

          Umm... it's not very smart to run SQL Server in a virtual machine environment. RDBMS are far to memory and

      • Re:Well... (Score:2, Informative)

        by perdurabo0 ( 680983 )
        I see their claim, but most of my experience (corporate and not) is that you use VM's to allow you to run _many_ instances of operating systems on a single machine. Unless I misunderstood the article and this isn't also about OS's then I have great example (from work) that would not be a winning situation. We run several instances (~20) of Windows XP on a VM server for developers to use. Would this now require 20 XP licenses plus host OS instead of 1 XP license and the host OS license?

    • Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jugalator ( 259273 )
      RTFA.

      Instead of before, when their software running in VM's had to use a license for your physical processors (and these could be many), they can now use another (cheaper) license for the virtual processor. For people using their software in VM's this should usually be a good thing, although there are exceptions given.

      Here's a quote: (bolding mine since it's vital; it's not like you could just skip licensing before, you had to go for a more expensive model of licensing for all your processors... now you onl
  • So if I have a server with a dual-core processor, I have to pay twice the price for Windows? With SQL Server or something else, you can limit it to only run on one processor, but not Windows.

    • Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:25PM (#13760338) Homepage
      Actually, all the base versions of XP (AFAIK) are licensed for 1-2 processors. You can see it on the XP stick-on label. A 4-core machine might cost you more though.
      • Actually, all the base versions of XP (AFAIK) are licensed for 1-2 processors. You can see it on the XP stick-on label. A 4-core machine might cost you more though.

        Last I heard, the break-down goes something like this:

        Home: 1 CPU Pro: 2 CPUs Windows 2k Server: 4 CPUs 2k Advanced server: 16 CPUs 2k Datacenter: 32 CPUs

        I don't know the numbers for 2k3 server. And I might be off by about a factor of two.

        I stumbled across an interesting article that indicated that windows 2k may, in some cases, count
      • http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/mult icore.mspx [microsoft.com]

        "On October 19, 2004, Microsoft announced that its server software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed on a per-processor, and not on a per-core, model."

    • Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Joe5678 ( 135227 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:25PM (#13760339)
      Just a side note that although you can set SQL Server to run on only one processor, if the machine has two processors you are required to buy two processor licenses. At least under the old system. I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not. I don't think any of our SQL Server boxes have dual processors, but I certainly wouldn't pay for two licenses unless I was running it on both processors.

      I somehow doubt this licensing applies to "virtual" processors in a standard server (not a virtual machine), at least that was the stance they had taken previously.

      • Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:41PM (#13760431) Homepage Journal
        I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not.
        Exactly. Licensing gets easier under the new system, which most people postig seem to have missed (RTFA people).

        As you said, under the old system, you were charged for each processor. Thus, a server with two physical processors was charged for two processor licenses for SQL Server even though you were only running it on one. The situation now lets you simply purchase a single license for each CPU you are _actually running it on_. Despite everyone shouting greed, this is a rare occasion of MS doing what the customers (Corp Customers) have been asking for for a long time.

      • I don't think any of our SQL Server boxes have dual processors

        Most of our SQL boxes are *quad* Xeon rigs. We don't turn on hyperthreading (that would probably be dumb), but I wonder what would happen to our licenses if we did. If we paid for a 4-CPU license and I hop over to the BIOS to turn HT on... does that mean I'm violating the EULA because I'm running the thing on eight processors? What about the Server 2003 license?

        Weird. I mean, if you're running a single physical Xeon or P4 box and you buy a si

      • It would be much nicer of them if they just sold one product, and allowed you to run it on as many processors as you happened to own. The whole idea of charging more for people just to utilize the hardware they bought is outrageous. It's like charging someone more for gas, just because they are driving a Porsche. SQL server should cost the same whether your running it on 1,2,4, or 128 processors. Unless there is some real reason as to why it should cost more, like extra program modules needed to handle
    • So if you're only running one instance of Windows (but sharing processors among threads) you're still only need one license. It's when you try to run 2 distinct copies of windows simultaneously on the same PC that you have to pay twice.

      Although this is loosely equivalent to having to pay for your TV twice if you use it once for primary viewing and again for picture in picture...
      • Funny you mention the TV analogy...with most non-free TV services, you WOULD have to pay extra to use PIP. Any signal which requires a decoder box (digital cable, satellite, etc) generally gives you a certain number of outputs per box. If that output is 1, then to use PIP on your TV (at least, to use it usefully) you'd have to buy another box and pay the subscription for it.
    • Previously, if you had two physical processors, you had to pay for a double license. That has not changed and probably never will. However, what this change is about is how many virtual processors something is running on. So if you have a four-processor machine, and you are running virtualizing software and running a windows instance that sees (for example) two virtual processors, then your license for that windows will only be for the two virtual processors, not the four physical processors your machine ac

  • wow. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slashdotNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:20PM (#13760307) Homepage Journal
    They DID find a way to get even more money from their customers. And when we thought they were over, they finally did something innovative.

  • I don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:22PM (#13760318) Homepage
    Is this supposed to be cheaper? Unless people were running one virtual machine per dual-processor box, they will now be paying more. Isn't the purpose of virtualization to run multiple servers on one box, so one user can't access the other? Am I very confused?
    • Before, if you ran two virtual machines on a dual-processor box you would have to pay for two 2-processor licenses. Now if each virtual machine runs on a single processor of the dual-processor box, you only have to pay for two 1-processor licenses. So this would save you money. Even if those two virtual machines were running on both processes, it would cost you the same amount, not more. The only way this costs you more money is if you create more virtual processors than physical processors.
  • Other possible ways to count:
    - MB per instalation;
    - Number of temp files created and not deleted;
    - Number of blue screen of death;
    - Number of Bluetooth devices you won't use after upgrading service pack;
    - Number of Linux Admin that will nag you for using Bill Gates OS; ...

  • This, of course, means war (Score:5, Funny)

    by oGMo ( 379 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:26PM (#13760342)

    I guess the answer for this is to start paying for virtual licenses with virtual money.

  • Great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cytlid ( 95255 ) * on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:26PM (#13760343)
    This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?

    • Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by isotope23 ( 210590 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:33PM (#13760387) Homepage Journal
      "This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?"

      Yeah, they're called federal reserve notes....

    • It's actually an old story (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Chemisor ( 97276 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @09:38PM (#13761093)
      A beggar found shelter in a tavern and sat by a fireplace where a hunk of meat was roasting on a spit. Before eating his meager dinner, consisting of a piece of dry bread, he held it out toward the meat to catch some of the flavour. The tavern keeper saw him and demanded payment, causing the poor fellow considerable distress, since he had no money. A wise man who was eating at a nearby table saw the commotion and asked the keeper what the problem was. "This thief is stealing the flavour of my meat!" the keeper said. "If he wants it, he better pay for it or git out." "That's all right," said the wise man. He pulled out a coin, threw it down on the fireplace, picked it back up and replaced it in his pocket. "For the flavour of your meat, I have now paid you with the chime of my coin."

  • MS Virtual PC blogger talks about it here: (Score:5, Informative)

    by MelloDawg ( 180509 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:34PM (#13760390)
    http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/ 10/10/479186.aspx [msdn.com]

    Also check out his great series on running old games under Virtual PC.

  • Obviously a tough decision... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kaschei ( 701750 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:35PM (#13760400)
    From TFA:
    Under Microsoft's existing licensing policy, the maximum number of licenses that a customer has to buy for one application is equivalent to the total number of processors in the box, Park said.

    Microsoft struggled with that fact, said Zane Adam, a director of marketing in the company's Windows Server group.
    Translation: "It was a tough call, but we decided not to limit the amount of money we can charge to run the same code. It wasn't an easy decision, but we'll take your money after all."
  • As a Microsoft customer I feel this should really simplify things for me. Now my TCO between Linux and Windows will be much better and favor Microsoft! I can easily understand paying hundreds of dollars for a virtual process (which means, of course, a process that would be like a virtual machine, you know, a bunch of threads -- which I'm running now, but they're not actually a bunch of machine-like threads, well, they are, since they're on my machine, but they're not, like separate machines. If I were to

  • For those that didn't read the article. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Deathlizard ( 115856 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:45PM (#13760453) Homepage Journal
    1) This change affects only virtual processors, not physical ones. If your running VMWare or MS Virtual Server than this is for you. Otherwise move along.
    2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's
    3) Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition is now licenced for 4 instances of itself per Machine. So you could run 4 Windows 2K3 Servers VM's on one server and MS says "go for it"

    The Details from the Horse at MS [microsoft.com]

    • Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Informative)

      by LexNaturalis ( 895838 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:56PM (#13760503)
      Thank you! You basically saved me from having to write the same thing. I read the article in ~15 seconds and realized that ~99% of the posters had failed to even give the article a cursory scan. Microsoft does something to -save- people money and yet people still complain. Amazing!
      • they've been ripping people off for ages now and that they've reverted to something slightly less vomit-inducing, we're supposed to applaud them?

        companies who charge per cpu are downright STEALING from their customers. yes, real dollars that cannot be replicated due to the secret service busting their counterfeiting asses.

        "it's their software".... after they SOLD it too?

        pardon me while i go do something productive, like skin a shill alive.
    • It also affects anyone who has hacked Xen to run with Windows, or anyone who has found a way to run Windows inside of Windows. It also affects anyone running an 80x86 simulator to run Windows. It is unclear to me how you'd count virtual processors if you are running Windows under Wine or Dosemu, though, as there you don't emulate processors, you translate environment. As such, the number of virtual/physical processors visible to the translator MAY differ from the number visible directly to Windows.
    • If you are running multiple installations under VMWare Workstation, where you are not running all instances at the same time, you may very well likely have installed more than N instances of an OS under an N processor box.

    • Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pla ( 258480 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:43PM (#13760807) Journal
      2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's

      True, and thank you for the clarification - But you've overlooked one particular group of users that might earn the sympathy of a Slashdotter or two - Developers.

      In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.


      So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...

      Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.

      If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...

      • Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:5, Informative)

        by nachoboy ( 107025 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @09:37PM (#13761087)
        True, and thank you for the clarification - But you've overlooked one particular group of users that might earn the sympathy of a Slashdotter or two - Developers.

        In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.

        So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...

        Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.

        If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...

        These licensing changes are for companies who are using virtualization in production environments. If you are even a small-time developer, it makes sense for you to purchase an MSDN subscription (prices range from about $500 to $2500 for a year, depending on the products you need). MSDN recently included Virtual Server amongst its offerings. A few points about MSDN subscriptions:

        - You subscribe for one year, which gives you a starter set of all software on CD/DVD, plus 12 months of updates mailed to you and access to the download site.
        - MSDN licenses are *perpetual*. Even after your subscription lapses, all the software you have is still fully licensed and legal. It can even be resold (must go as an entire unit though).
        - Retail subscriptions come with retail keys, which generally means 10 activations. If you ever run out, though, I've found you can just give them a ring and they'll give you another key to use. Subscriptions purchased under volume licenses come with volume license keys and no activation.
        - The license is a free-for-all for development and test purposes. From the EULA [microsoft.com]: "For purposes of designing, developing, testing, and demonstrating your software product(s) ... Microsoft grants you a limited, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to make, use, and install the Server Software for any individual Server Software on any number of Servers."

        None of these licensing changes affect developers who are running software for development and testing purposes. Accuse Microsoft of gouging real customers if you must, but developers get a pretty sweet deal with MSDN.

    • Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Informative)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday October 10, 2005 @09:34PM (#13761068) Homepage Journal
      2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's

      Well, that's one very rare scenario. A more common one is I have 4 VMWare instances running Windows on 1 CPU. I'm working on consolidating 12 lightly-used servers onto 12 VMWare sessions on a 4-CPU machine.

      Server consolidation through virtualization is a popular trend and Microsoft is capitalizing on it. We were buying 1 license per VM anyway, so no change here.

  • Limiting an app to one processor? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phallstrom ( 69697 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @07:47PM (#13760459)
    Don't know much about it, but how would they handle the situation where I'd limit say Windows to VCPU 1 and Office to VCPU 2.

    Seems like I should only have to pay the single VCPU price, but I imagine that won't be the case will it...

  • Was I the only one to misread the title as "Microsoft adopts Viral licenses"?

  • Sure, no problem (Score:4, Funny)

    by Diabolus777 ( 663144 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:02PM (#13760527)
    I'll just pay them with virtual money

  • Allow or require? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:06PM (#13760544) Homepage Journal
    And i assume a virtual cpu license is cheaper then a hard cpu license, since performace is less.

    So now you get a dual core cpu ( soon you wont have a choice ), and you get screwed by Microsoft.

    What is next, back to per cycle charges?

    Or how about just change to a national 'per brain' charge? Once a person is born, they just start charging you since eventually you will use a computer of some sort.

    Its all a f-ing scam. Should they be able to make a profit? Sure. But should they be allowed to screw you? No.
    • But should they be allowed to screw you? No. No one can screw you without your compliance... well, at least in the area of software purchasing, anyway.
    • But should they be allowed to screw you? No.

      Bzzt. Yes, they should be allowed to screw you. But you can't be forced to let them.

    • Should they be able to make a profit? Sure. But should they be allowed to screw you? No

      All you have to do is not buy their stuff. Then all you have to do is convince other people that Linux is easier to use, works on more hardware with less fuss, does everything they want, etc. No problem, right? Or, just convince everyone that Oracle is cheaper, or maybe DB2. And once you've used your calm, persuasive explanations to steer people away from Windows and over to a easier, plug-and-play no-compiling, no fus

  • 1 Copy != 1 Price ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eikonos ( 779343 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:08PM (#13760561) Homepage Journal
    Why does one copy of Windows cost more if you have more CPUs, since it's still only one copy of Windows? That's like buying a whole pizza where the price is based on the number of slices it's cut into. A pizza cut into 6 slices would cost $6, but the same pizza cut into 10 slices would cost $10.
    It really should be 1 CD & 1 Product Key = 1 price.

  • Now all we need to do (Score:4, Funny)

    by Freexe ( 717562 ) <serrkr@tznvy.pbz> on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:09PM (#13760572) Homepage
    is come up with a vitual host that has no processors

  • What's virtual? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by elronxenu ( 117773 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:13PM (#13760605) Homepage
    So does this mean if I run, say, two copies of Internet Explorer, then I have to pay double the license fee?

    What's the difference between running two instances of Application X on one CPU, and running one instance of Application X on each of two CPUs?

    It boils down to the question "what is virtual, anyway?". If I run a process under an emulator, versus running it on the native operating system, there's no difference as far as the application is concerned. Only its execution environment has changed. So presumably I should require two licenses of the operating system, because I am running two instances of it.

    It makes sense to count not CPUs but the number of concurrent instances of an application, irrespective where they run. For applications which are licensed according to some scale, of course. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with linux and OSS!

  • finally they step up (Score:4, Funny)

    by wardk ( 3037 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:19PM (#13760646) Journal
    MS has been charging for virtual innovation* for ages, it's about time they stepped up to full disclosure.

    * the gatesean technical term for krapware

  • Can I pay for these virtual licenses with virtual dollars?
  • Can someone clearly explain to me why (other than greed) software is licensed based on how many number of CPUs/ cores are in a machine to begin with?

  • VMs in blades (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DeepDarkSky ( 111382 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:31PM (#13760740)
    I think this kind of licensing is for situations where you run multiple VMs in blades.
    My company recently setup a rack of 40 blades, each with 16GBs of RAM and all attached to SAN. Each blade is capable of running about 10 VMs. The same setup is duplicated at the redundant site, and a high-speed connection between the two locations, with about 92TBs of storage between them. Supposedly, the VMs can be moved around between any of the blade between the two locations, giving us the possibility of about 800 VMs...all within about 1 rack's worth of space.
    Now, each blade does NOT have 10 processors, but is capable of running 10 VMs easily. And though I can't say I like Microsoft for wanting to charge for virtual processors, I can understand why they'd do it.
  • Is there any available virtual PC environment that allows you to simulate more CPU's?, that is for example, if you have 2 physical cores, making an OS believe you have 4?

    Most useful for testing multi-cpu software for basic compatibility I would think.

  • man (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 834r9394557r011 ( 878286 )
    Whatever happened to just buting a copy of the OS and it ran. I mean really like they need to be bastards and charge for instances of a software running. I mean I can install and run this game three times, but I only paid once. They don't seem to have a problem with that. It seems that your not buying a product anymore. Pretty soon they will charge per service per virtual server. That'll be sweet I bet. I just want to buy the damn cd and do whatever I want with what I friggin paid for.

  • MS Licences and GDPs (Score:3, Informative)

    by gaanagaa ( 784648 ) <gaanagaa AT gmail DOT com> on Monday October 10, 2005 @09:31PM (#13761053) Journal
    0.3% of GDP on Windows licences! Are you having a proverbial "laugh"?

    UK GDP - source Google - $ 1,782,000,000,000

    0.3% of UK GDP = $5,346,000,000 or $5.4bn

    I'm sure the UK spends a lot on Windows. But bear in mind that Microsoft's total annual revenues are only about $40bn, of which roughly half is client (Windows XP, etc.) and server (Windows 2003 Server). (In fact this over-states total Windows licenses, as there is also SQL Server, etc. in there.) But even on a best case, you're saying that the UK buys more than a quarter of all Microsoft Windows licenses. In fact, what you're really doing is making up sprurious statistics to get some temporary kudos.

    Next item of absurdity: "the United Kingdom spends 0.3% of GDP on it's transport infrastructure". Really? Source please. Of course there is no source, because this is a ridiculous made up number. Lets go to the UK Office of National Statistics: oh! it turns out that the UK government (excluding what is spent by private industry) spends, da da, £20bn on transport infrastructure. (Which, at today's exchange rate is about $35bn, or around 2% of GDP.)

  • Contrast with IBM (Score:3, Informative)

    by BBCWatcher ( 900486 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @10:22PM (#13761315)
    Most IBM software is priced per CPU. And everything after that is in the customer's favor. If it's a dual core CPU you pay for one CPU, not two (unlike, say, Oracle). If you use virtualization software (like z/VM, LPARs, Virtual PC, or VMware) you only pay for the number of CPUs that the software actually executes on. If that means you run 300 instances of DB2 for Linux on a single Linux mainframe CPU running z/VM, you pay for one CPU, not 300. Unlike Microsoft. If you want to switch from DB2 for Windows to DB2 for Linux (on the mainframe or anywhere else), fine -- the processor licenses are cross-platform. Don't pay again. The main reason corporate customers run virtual machine technology is so they can consolidate the ridiculous numbers of test and development servers which cost a fortune. Under IBM's pricing policy that's encouraged, and they can get their costs under control. Under Microsoft's new policy it'll cost those businesses more if they use virtualization to any significant degree.

  • Lawn Mower Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug AT geekazon DOT com> on Monday October 10, 2005 @11:00PM (#13761451) Homepage
    I only mow my lawn about every two weeks. My neighbor across the street mows his every week. Shouldn't he have to pay twice as much for a mower as I do?

    If software companies are allowed to control "their property" in this way, I don't see why sellers of physical products won't eventually do the same thing. Instead of buying a product and owning it, you'll merely be buying a license to use it for a certain amount of time. Then the license will expire and you'll either have to renew it or throw the product away. Tell me how this is different from what software companies are already doing?

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