kratz@dataspan.UUCP (Geoff Kratz) (06/17/88)
Our site is considering getting a source licence, but we need some good reasons
to justify the cost.
We currently have 2 Sun 3/160C's and a Sun 3/180. We will be getting a
Sun 4/280, 2 Sun 3/60's and 2 Sun 386i/250's in the next few weeks. However,
when Management found out the cost of a source licence (US$50,000) and
was told how "involved" the licencing is (one with Sun, one with AT&T) they
thought "forget it". (Even the Sun salesperson here suggested we not bother).
What I need to know (from sites that have source licencing) is this: was
the price of the source licence worth it? I need to know if getting a
source licence will actually pay for itself (ie: we got one and made
$X millions :-) which paid for the licence in N months!) and any other
advantages that having source will bring us, both short-term and long-term.
Money for software-type stuff (things they cannot wrap their hands around) is
tight here, but if I can find enough good reasons, our Management may say
yes.
Please don't suggest dropping some of the new hardware, as we need all the
console and file-server power we can get (Management has come to the
realization that we can get more work done with multiple windows
than with plain terminals).
Since ours may not be the only site in this situation, it would
probably beneficial to followup here rather than mailing answers to me.
Any mail I get I will summarize. Thanks in advance.
--
Geoff Kratz Dataspan Technology Inc. Ph:(403) 237-9313
400-540 5th Av SW
Calgary Alberta Canada T2P 0M2 "Hey, no problem!"
...!{ubc-vision,mnetor}!alberta!calgary!dataspan!kratzdce@mips.COM (David Elliott) (06/20/88)
In article <229@dataspan.UUCP> kratz@dataspan.UUCP (Geoff Kratz) writes: >What I need to know (from sites that have source licencing) is this: was >the price of the source licence worth it? I need to know if getting a >source licence will actually pay for itself (ie: we got one and made >$X millions :-) which paid for the licence in N months!) and any other >advantages that having source will bring us, both short-term and long-term. You really haven't provided a lot of background. Mips has little choice in getting source licenses, since we are a Unix systems developer selling Unix on our hardware. If your company is developing software to run on Suns, you may want the source for added documentation. That is, if you see an interaction that you are not sure of, or if you discover a case that isn't covered by the standard system documentation, you can go and look at the source. If your company depends on the system to provide support for lots of users, your systems programming staff may want the source in order to provide fixes for problems, or to provide enhancements for the benefit of your site. If your company depends on the existence of the system to be assured, source code may be a good idea. That is, if you expect the systems developer to go under next year (not likely in your case), you may want the source so you can provide support to your present customer base. So, a source license may be a good thing for your comapny. On the other hand, the presence of source code is kind of an "attractive nuisance", and should be handled with care. You need to understand that Unix programmers love to hack the system. If you find a bug, you may fix it locally, and your software may depend on this fix. Your customers, on the other hand, will still have the bug and not be able to use the software product. Local enhancements are a similar problem. If your systems "hackers" add a new option to grep and your software product contains a shell script that uses this feature, it won't work outside of your system. This is actually a more general problem. Our first systems product had a modified version of "install" that used a command called "printf", which was not part of our product. Since our systems administrator dutifully "localized" every system shipped internally to the company, every development machine had "printf" on it and worked just fine. Luckily, later evaluation was done on virgin systems and caught the problem. The final problem is code stealing. Programmers faced with implementing something that already exists in Unix may grab a copy of the source code and use it. For example, if I needed a way to convert an ASCII date to a Unix date, I might grab the set_date() and year_size() routines from the date(1) source instead of writing the code myself. On the other hand, this means that I can never provide my software source to anyone that doesn't have the same source licenses I do. All of these problems can be overcome by teaching the staff how to use the source wisely. -- David Elliott dce@mips.com or {ames,prls,pyramid,decwrl}!mips!dce
kratz@dataspan.UUCP (Geoff Kratz) (06/21/88)
In article <2439@quacky.mips.COM>, dce@mips.COM (David Elliott) writes: > You really haven't provided a lot of background. ... > David Elliott dce@mips.com or {ames,prls,pyramid,decwrl}!mips!dce Sorry, you're right. Our department (R&D) is primarily concerned with developing new software systems. We are currently working on a system to scan a document (maps at the moment) using a high-res scanner (Scitex laser scanner) and creating a boundary chain from the raster file. We then extract the medial axis from this file to produce the vector file. This is processed by people to add contour information (elevation and feature codes) plus any other useful info (this is the data capture departments area). The resulting file is converted to any number of formats (IGES, SIF) for a client. Included in this are a raster editor to clean the raster file and extract the parts we need, and a vector editor to manipulate the vector files. Our main goal for getting the source is to gain some insight into the system itself (the documentation enhancement you mentioned). For me specifically, that means actually see what happens in the low-level windowing (the documentation seems to be sparse or missing in places). A secondary goal is to make things easier for system admin internally (my other job around here). Our user-base (half technical, half non-technical) always wants to know "why it isn't working" when things break, and our manager is not always happy with vague answers to wierd problems. Pointing to a line of code (even though he doesn't know what it means) and saying "there!" would make things simpler for me and show them that I could (maybe) fix it, but shouldn't because that would mean re-fixing each release until Sun fixed it themselves (you also mentioned this regarding system hacks). The source isn't all that crucial for this aspect, but it sure would help. But, as I said before, our management would like to see some "revenue" created directly because of the licence (you know, money for money) and our department's arguments alone aren't sufficient. -- Geoff Kratz Dataspan Technology Inc. Ph:(403) 237-9313 400-540 5th Av SW Calgary Alberta Canada T2P 0M2 "Hey, no problem!" ...!{ubc-vision,mnetor}!alberta!calgary!dataspan!kratz
jsp@sp7040.UUCP (John Peters) (07/05/88)
In article <229@dataspan.UUCP>, kratz@dataspan.UUCP (Geoff Kratz) writes:
<^> Our site is considering getting a source licence, but we need some good reasons
<^> to justify the cost.
<^>
<^> What I need to know (from sites that have source licencing) is this: was
<^> the price of the source licence worth it? I need to know if getting a
<^> source licence will actually pay for itself (ie: we got one and made
<^> $X millions :-) which paid for the licence in N months!) and any other
<^> advantages that having source will bring us, both short-term and long-term.
<^> Money for software-type stuff (things they cannot wrap their hands around) is
<^> tight here, but if I can find enough good reasons, our Management may say
<^> yes.
<^>
<^> Please don't suggest dropping some of the new hardware, as we need all the
<^> console and file-server power we can get (Management has come to the
<^> realization that we can get more work done with multiple windows
<^> than with plain terminals).
<^>
<^> Since ours may not be the only site in this situation, it would
<^> probably beneficial to followup here rather than mailing answers to me.
<^> Any mail I get I will summarize. Thanks in advance.
The only person that can tell you wether source would benefit you
or not is you. Here at Unisys - Salt Lake City we are supporting the
UNIX O.S. so it is more than required. Even when I was just a student (all
of two weeks ago) I learned more from the UNIX source about programming than
from my instructors. If I needed to know how a problem needed to be solved,
I could usually find it in the sources somewhere. This can be especially
good for problems that seem to be system dependant (I was working on MC680X0,
Intel, and VAX systems). As for suggesting dropping new hardware, I
(being the hacker we all try not to be) would never suggest that.
-- Johnnie --