[Toolserver-l] Windows toolserver

[Danny B.]

> ------------ Původní zpráva ------------
> Od: Simetrical <Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com>
> Předmět: Re: [Toolserver-l] Windows toolserver
> Datum: 07.2.2008 17:36:11
> ----------------------------------------

> The question is whether getting a Windows server is worth the cost.
> So far we have one person who has concretely said he would be
> interested in moving his application to a Windows toolserver.  That
> project is already running on a private Windows server and will
> presumably continue to do so even if a Windows toolserver is not
> provided (or at least, we were told nothing to the contrary).  I'm not
> clear, either, on whether that code would run anyway under Mono with
> no modifications -- the fifth post in this thread was by River, saying
> that Windows vs. Mono "shouldn't make any difference as far as i know"
> for running C#/.NET.  The base cost is at least $400, for a one-CPU
> license -- this allows multicore, by the way, so that's unlikely to be
> a big problem.  At $6/user, the per-user licensing cost seems likely
> to run to at least one or two hundred dollars more per year, unless
> it's very unpopular (in which case that's an argument against
> bothering in itself).
> 
> So that means at least $500-600/year, if I'm correct in assuming that
> the $400 base is also per year.  (If it's one-time, that seems like
> fairly remarkable pricing, I'm pretty sure lower than a copy of Vista
> Home Premium and Office, so I think I'm correct.)  It might be higher
> if some cost was forgotten or misunderstood, but it's maybe also
> possible to get a lower price from some other supplier.  If this
> figure is correct, I think it's fair to say that to justify the cost,
> we would need at least one useful thing that would be run on the
> toolserver that we are fairly certain would not be run otherwise.
> That's just as a minimum, to justify the expense and the effort.
> Preferably you'd think there should be more than one thing.  But as
> far as I can tell, nobody has yet come up with even one thing, so
> based on the response so far, it doesn't seem that there's anything
> that's been suggested yet that would justify this.
> 
> Is there any disagreement on the last two paragraphs?

Couple.

I never heard about yearly payment for MS software unless you lease it. It's been pointed out these are prices for non-profits, so it's obvious they are much cheaper then retail or even OEM version. Thus I'd take them as +- final. 

I strongly disagree with setting things in the way "Could it be run elsewhere? Then it should not be on Windows." This approach is very simplyfying - it's same as I'd say: Can you get from city to city in Skoda? So don't use Mercedes, Cadillac, Citroen... Again - who wrote it on Windows, most probably won't rewrite it. Will you? Who of you is going to rewrite my ASP libraries eg.? And I'd like to emphasize I am one of those, who _are_ willing to learn new things (and not lazy as been mentioned before) and in fact I'm trying to do so. I have bunch of ideas for tools which I'd done in few minutes/hours if I was doing it in ASP using my libraries. Now I don't have those tools, because I'm fighting with PHP and it takes me ages to make every simple stupid script running. (Yes, Linux masters can start to ROFL now...)  Which makes me exhausted for pretty long time ahead. Nobody has time to waste, so everybody will decide if they'll spend an hour writing either bunch of tools in minutes in language they are familiar with or one tool in entire hour (if ever) in language they aren't familiar with.
 
This leads to my other disagreement, which is about sentences like: "nobody showed the tools = no need for wints". I am pretty sure there is bunch of Windows programmers out there who don't participate with their brains because they simply don't have a conditions to. I'd say if there was a Windows toolserver it would attract other people with new ideas and tools, because they will have an opportunity to do so. Maybe it wouldn't be bad to make some public poll about that?

Also thanks to Sebmol who pointed out that every single person is master of its time. So, please, don't tell people to waste an hour of their free time to create one tool if they can utilize the same hour to create five tools. The world isn't single colored. We have wide palette of programming/scripting languages and different people are familiar with different languages. I am not pushing you to use those I use, don't push me to use those you use.

Danny B.