jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) (02/10/90)
I've just had a very surprising discussion with someone at the OSF Motif Help Desk, concerning what is apparently a new policy on support for Motif licensees, updates, and new releases. I hope that I misunderstood some of this, but I asked about it several times and was assured that this is the new policy. Here's the story. I just got the Motif 1.0.A update tape. Enclosed with the tape was a letter, which said in part: You can obtain future updates to Motif 1.0 by purchasing a Software Support contract from OSF or by relicensing the technology. Full source support is also available. There is no other information in the letter about what services are included in the support contract, or what the price is. I called the Motif Help Desk for more information. What I was told was: - There are two different support contracts. . "Technology", cost $1500/yr, includes updates only - no direct contact with anyone at OSF for bug reporting or fixes. . "Full Service", cost $2500/yr, includes updates *and* direct contact with people at OSF for bug reporting and fixes. - The Motif bugs mailing list, which I believe has previously been available to anyone with a Motif license, will only by available to those with "Full Service" contracts. - These contract only include updates to the particular release that you have licensed from OSF - that is currently 1.0; so they would include future equivalents to the 1.0.1 and 1.0.A updates, which I received *without* such a contract. They do *NOT* include major new releases, such as the (rumored) upcoming 1.1 (V11R4 compatible) release. Major new releases will have to be relicensed, at whatever the normal price is (i.e. $1000 if they don't raise the price). I find this to be a very surprising policy. First, the cost of these support contracts relative to the original cost of the product seems quite high to me. Second, limiting membership on the bug mailing list to those who have support contracts seems rather unreasonable. Third, and most important, charging such high fees and then *not* providing major new releases seems absolutely ridiculous. By the way, there was some discussion in this group a while ago about the OSF actively discouraging people from reporting bugs and fixes to Motif code here. I wonder if that is related at all to this support policy; perhaps they want to prevent people from helping each other in a free forum such as this, to try to force them to pay for support from OSF? jw
morris@dms.UUCP (Jim Morris) (02/13/90)
I agree that the support fee is high compared to the source licence fee. On the other hand the source licence fee ($1000) is incredibly low!! (In my opinion, compared to other source licences we have purchased). I suppose the OSF has to make some money somehow?? After all they are OSF not FSF. :-) -- Jim Morris. {motcsd|weitek}!dms!morris or morris@dms.UUCP Voice (408) 434-3798 Atari Games Corporation, 675 Sycamore Drive, Milpitas CA 95035 USA (Arcade Video Game Manufacturer, NOT Atari Corp. ST manufacturer).
fxtv@litp.ibp.fr (F-X TESTARD-VAILLANT) (02/22/90)
Is MOTIF available on Sun? If it is what is the simpler way to get it? Thanks in advance, FX Testard-Vaillant