[NEWS] Should Dual Cores Require Dual Licenses?

very good point, as we know MS sells per CPU for license and it seems some other companies want to do this aswel.....

This is something i had even though about until now.. Personally i feel that if the core is in a seperate encasing then yes, but if it is built into the same chip then no.

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| Should Dual Cores Require Dual Licenses? |
| from the symmetrical-multi-paying dept. |
| posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday February 12, @12:46 (The Almight|
| http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/12/1518245 |
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[0]sebFlyte writes "The multi-core debate continues. HP and Intel [1]have laid into Oracle and (to a lesser extent) BEA over their their treatment of multi-core processers. Oracle's argument that 'a core is a CPU and therefore you should pay us all your money' [2]isn't a popular one, it would seem. What does Oracle's stubbornness imply for the industry as a whole, with multicore chips coming to the fore so strongly?"

Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=05/02/12/1518245

Links:
0. http://slashdot.org/~sebFlyte
1. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39187579,00.htm
2. http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,39187577,00.htm

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that is absolutely ridiculous. One license per PC, not cpu. They are just being greedy.

I know that for MSFT, normal dual core procesosrs wont have a problem with XP Pro as it can support two hardware processors. The Pentium 4EE also wont have problems with XP Pro as it can support dual xeons. But other then that, i dont know.

They can take their idea and shove it in their ear.

Alot of enterprise software does licensing based on cpu. Its been that way for years. Dual cores means dual processors, pretty much.

Most users who end up with a dual core cpu from Dell aren't going to be buying that software so the point is moot.

Personally, I define a CPU as something like "a thing you plug into the motherboard which does a large majority of the system's processing". Since I don't plug a core into my motherboard, I'd say that regardless of how many cores they put on a single package, I should only be charged for one "CPU".

Those putting their software under liscence though probably define the CPU as something like "any wholy functional processing unit visible to the OS designed to do a majority of the processing". This covers dual cores, CPUs connected thorough clusters, and pretty much anything but Hyperthreading

Since it's the liscencers who write the liscences, my money is on dual core ending up requiring 2x liscences.
JigPu

Not for the rest of us. God, if Microsoft ever wanted to PUSH people to pirate software, this would be the fastest way.

No, you shouldn't have to worry about a second license if you use open-source software.

pretty much anything but Hyperthreading

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Unless they update their software to query the OS about HT cpus, the HT setup will look like an smp setup. Win2k is an example of where you can get nailed by this... it doesn't know about HT, so a dual Xeon box can't run Win2k Pro because it looks like 4 processors.

It still begs the question.

if you're going to dump XXX amount of cash into a system, why are you worrying about the minimal cost of the extra licesence?

Can you tie two licenses together to run win2K on a dual Xeon box?

In any case, this is going to have to come down to something sooner or later. The fact is that the research labs at the various proc companies are all looking into multiple cores (this new cell proc is only the beginning). In a few years, we are going to have many cores on each chip.

Right now, each company can do as they see fit for who can do what with what hardware as is their right. However, when the Joes start buying procs with four or eight cores and they get told that it will cost more to set up windows than they are spending on the whole computer, guess what marketing forces are going to do?

Probably not the magic that linux needs. However, consider if some other company such as Sun has a new OS that they can put big money into marketing and charge a couple of bills for, where MS can't get past the idea that the Chinese have to pay for windows now and that means huge prices on this side of the pacific as well...

Then too, if memory manufactures decide to mass market the chips they make for super computers (with a mini-proc on each chip), that could conceivably play a role in an installed price for software too.

CrystalMethod said:

It still begs the question.

if you're going to dump XXX amount of cash into a system, why are you worrying about the minimal cost of the extra licesence?

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but is an extra license going to cost me say another $150 for another license for windows Xp PRO?

then yes that $150 is a considerable amount more on my budget for a system.

So what if i can afford a $2000 computer, perhaps that is well budgeted and i dont want to have to settle for 512 of ram instead of 1g because i need to spend another $150 on a 2nd O/S license.

WinXP is small potatoes. What about MSSQL server at $1300 per CPU license?

Oracle is at least that much.

What if you had to purchase two licenses to run every server application you need in your network?

Antivirus server. Database server. Backup software. IM/Web monitoring. Email servers. That's thousands of dollars for a single CPU, never mind dual CPUs or multiple cores.

I should add that IMO, most software should be charged per instance of OS you are going to run it on, unless it's going to actually run on both instances of your CPU, be it a dual CPU, multiple core, or whatever. That way, one server with 4 CPUs would have to have one license for it's backup software, but 4 licenses for it's DB software if you wanted to take advantage of each CPU.

Yes software should be based on the amount of PCs not the amount of CPUs. This inclueds OS. I mean just becuase my pc can proccess data twice as fast dosnt mean I should pay twice as much.

^^ unfortuantly some people seem to think that, any way to make a quick buck or few grand at that.

Antivirus server. Database server. Backup software. IM/Web monitoring. Email servers. That's thousands of dollars for a single CPU, never mind dual CPUs or multiple cores.

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Most of those things don't license per-cpu anyway, if they aren't free software in the first place.

I don't see a problem with it where it happens already, e.g. w/ Oracle.

I can see it being kind of nasty if 5-10 years down the line you can't really AVOID getting a multicore box, and they nail you automatically in licensing. The only ones that are going to nail you are the ones who are already nailing you for multiprocessor setups though, and its up to them to revise themselves if necessary. I can't picture people who don't care right now suddenly charging extra per-processor licenses.

I bet the Open Source community must love things such as this.. The corporate industry is doing more to make people thing about OS's such as Linux far more than the open source community could ever do with actions such as this.

this is crap. Should i run out and buy 4 liscenses because im running dual/dual CPU machines for network renders? bit me m$.

the open source community does love this. im very involved in M$ and linux. im moving away from M$ as much as possible. Heck apple will love this, theyre working on dual core CPUs, if theyre not already making them? Thatd be like buying 2 versions of OSX for the new G5. Screw that.

Whats next, multiple licenses for ram? I feel bad for the data centers running 32CPUs...altho something that powerful, it would only be right to run linux on it.
this is truly just greed
/rant