It's almost July 31rst....

Do you know where your money is?

For those who don't know what I am talking about, then you have nothing to worry about....yet.

For those that are already running an Open Source stable, reliable and fast platform, then this doesn't apply.

Everyone else, better get those checkbooks out.

That's right. Plenty of money is needed to fund the returns to the MS shareholders. Sadly, it appears there are plenty of people and companies happy to oblige.

TDN was commenting on this recently.

Apparently, even for companies which decide to grab ankles and open wallets it will take at least 30 days to sign the surrender documents. Therefore, the actual penetration of L6 should be in little doubt by now.

Keep those credit cards handy, anyone not knowing what this is all about. You'll need them on or about August 1, unless you make provisions now!

It was the Sun, 30 Jun 2002 10:33:29 -0500...

What's that with that banking corporation that's '70% sure' they will move 30,000 corporate desktops to Ximian GNOME on Linux if the licensing change works out to be too expensive?

A shame we don't know that bank's name. I hope they'll make the move, it'll be a hell of a big press release.

If it happens, I'd agree. I don't think we'll need that though. I think soon after 8/1/02 we'll start seeing more headlines about it without a single entity changing 30,000 workspaces at once. I'd bet that between 8/1/02 and 8/1/03 we'll see numbers that dwarf that, though maybe not in a single company.

The widespread panic as the pointy haired ones begin to perceive what it means to their own company and to them personally will make it seem like the 'Year 2000' hoopla just got the wrong year.

MS seem to be pushing the envelope just a bit too hard here. I know that $EMPLOYER's legal department has sent out word that, in essence, nobody is to even return Microsoft's phone calls without getting Legal into the loop. Per the memo, it used to take over a year of negotiations just to cut a contract to *sell* stuff to MS because they kept slipping in wonderclauses. Now, per Legal, it takes even longer because the wonderclauses are turning into non-negotiable demands.

What that means to me is that License 6.0 ain't happenin' at $WORK. Good thing, because one of the rumored wonderclauses is that you get rid of all the 'potentially viral software' in the Company.

Companies will save a fortune by not buying MS's new support license. As long as they watch bugtraq to see what new security patches to install they'll be ok. When the time comes for the next big upgrade Linux will be the obvious choice.

Yes, it is too late now for companies to negotiate with MS on the new support license. Apparently only about 1/3 of companies have done so. Looks like 2/3's have had enough of paying the MS tax. And no wonder. Pay up to 200% more with zero guarantee of recieving anything. The 1/3 who signed up must be really stupid.

Wow, so to agree to Lincense 6.0 conditions you must get rid of all MS SW.