How free is Linux  ? If your application vendor only supports one of the Red Hat enterprise editions and this obligates you to pay at least $799 for your first year, is it still free? More directly, under what circumstances is Linux at $1,295 free with your order for an IBM OpenPower eServer 9174-720E?
In theory, of course, the answer is that you're not licensing Linux; in fact, you're not even getting an IBM operating system . You're getting a "1 year standard subscription and support license" from Red Hat, which you're then entitled to install on that IBM machine.
Similarly, the theory says you're free to buy that IBM box without an OS and roll your own Linux for it. In practice, of course, there are a few impediments -- ranging from high skill requirements to foregoing application certification and accepting the performance hit that comes from the incompatibilities between the Power5 and other PowerPC derivititives like the G5.
In other words, you can do this, but a business would need hundreds of copies to break even, and you'd better plan on being long gone before the next round of hardware and software upgrades comes along.
Rolling Your Own Installations
Now you might think that someone who needs a number of these machines could buy a support contract for the one used as a preproduction test bed and just roll out unsupported copies to all the others, but IBM has a helpful footnote on it's pricing page for 720 Linux that puts the kibosh on that idea:
The Red Hat license agreement defines the RHEL AS 3 charge unit as per install, meaning that a license is required for each server or LPAR on which RHEL AS 3 is installed.
In my opinion, therefore, the impracticalities combine with the licensing requirement to render both the ability to roll your own and the traditional right to install multiple copies from the same CD every bit as fictional as Red Hat's claim that they sell support with a free license instead of a license with free support.
Of Third-Party Licenses
It's easy to understand how and why Red Hat's reality reversal circumvents the GPL and related open-source licenses they work under; but why are so many people willing to go along? (continued...)
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