XPost: comp.databases.ibm-db2   
   From: news.hans@telus.net   
      
   Darin McBride wrote:   
      
   >   
   > To be really fair, this is just nitpicking on the semantics.  To most   
   > people, "licensing" really means "total cost payable to the vendor."   
   > If I must buy an annual support contract to ensure the product's   
   > success in my environment, that's the same thing, at the end of the   
   > day - money going from my company to Oracle, IBM, MS, CA, whatever.   
      
   You seem to separate vendor cost from internal cost.   
      
   The implication is that any development costs or maintenance costs resulting   
   from inventing software to compensate for capabilities not in Ingres are   
   not to be counted, but paying Oracle or IBM for those same capabilities are   
   to be counted.  I'd be concerned about that style of accounting - it's   
   quite reminiscient of the CapEx vs OpEx accounting invented to get around   
   regulations in some industries.   
      
   No matter which way we try to wiggle, companies need to manage total cost,   
   not just "total cost payable to the vendor."  The proof is in the attempts   
   at outsourcing - whether it works well (or works at all) is irrelevant, the   
   relevance is that companies are doing this (in desparation?) to get total   
   costs under control.   
      
      
      
   However, as Serge says, this thread is WAY off topic and no longer relevant.   
   If you want to continue this discussion, I suggest we go to some Ingres or   
   open source advocacy group.   I hereby stop responding to the Ingres and   
   Open Source discussion in this thread and apologize to all for not having   
   stopped sooner.   
      
   /Hans   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)