Moving from SCO to Suse Linux

[Bill Vermillion]

On Fri, Jul 30 19:07 , Men gasped, women fainted, and small children 
were reduced to tears as John Esak confessed to all:" 

> > I somehow had a feeling I'd end up in this thread.

> > If you buy BackupEDGE on SCO OpenServer, and then move to
> > Linux or UnixWare or something else, you are never forced to
> > toss your license and buy another copy at retail price.

> > We don't consider this any different than upgrading to a
> > newer version of OpenServer which may also require a newer
> > version of BackupEDGE.

> > We consider you a valued client and sell you a "cross
> > platform upgrade" for the same price as our standard "same
> > platform upgrade". These are also the same as an annual
> > support agreement.

> > We WILL require you to show proof of purchase of the original when
> > registering an upgrade on a different system or platform.

> > We MAY require you to certify that the old platform is retired.

> This is the sticky point. How exactly can you do this? I know
> FacetWin simply trusted me over the same issue. Was very
> nice of them, but if you have hundreds and hundreds (and
> thousands hopefully) of clients... all moving to Linux boxes...
> why wouldn't you assume that hefty number of them wouldn't
> keep running your software on _both_ platforms? I think that
> probably happens a lot. In your case, probably not a big
> deal... being one of the best software packages there is...
> just yesterday, Jim Asman and I were saying how BackupEdge is
> simply the most important software on any system we run....
> Anyway, not as big a deal for you because you _have_ a workig
> and reliable and usable license scheme. Perhpas, FP Tech should
> get with you for some advice. All this is different if there is
> some accountability somewhere in the mix. Imagine if you had
> no licensing/protection on BackupEdge... I doubt _very_ much
> you would be offering the same arrangements you are now. The
> product is too good to give away to hackers and free-loaders.

But both Tom and Jeff give away free versions of their programs
that operate for 60 days.  So it's a partical giveaway.

I first used a tar verify program that Warren Tucker put up in
alt.sources back in 1990.   That program came out around the time
that Steve's original c-tar did and I always wondered if they had
cross-polinated.   I used to use it religiously when archving files
to floppy.  A hacker could easily use something like that - but it
is far far from the the utility of BE today.

But BE is a great tool when you care called into a site that is
having problems and you need known good tools to be able to backup
and get things back in order.  That 60 days free is a system saver.

Several years ago one client was hesitant about the $300 he spend
for BE.   One night I got  call and they were having problems.

In the end it turned out to be a flaky bus extender - back in the
days when the early '386's had extra memory on cards with bridge
cabels for efficient transfer, and on this particular machine
the SCSI controller was mounted horizontally on a bus-extension
beneath the main motherboard.  

He remembered an earlier experience where I had to load the entire
OS one floppy at a time, and then configure the tape drive, before
anyting could be done.

That night - while trying to find the exact problem - I wound up
reloading from the two-floppy boot and then from tape at least
three times.   He realized right then and there how much money he
had saved by my insistance on buying BackupEdge.

That free trial and recovery makes believers out of many.

Bill

-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com