Follow up to my question about Sun Licensing (Long, Digested)

[fbresz at ittc.wec.com]

On Date: Tue, 7 Aug 90 17:58:09 EDT I said:

>	I probably shouldn't use my real name but I am not into forgeries
>so.  I have a customer whom we supplied with 2 Sun 3/260 Workstations (We
>are an OEM and added our software/hardware mods).  They also purchased a
>Sun 3/260 with the hopes of keeping everything similar.  Now the fun
>begins.  They also purchased 3 3/50 used diskless units (purchased used to
>save money) and hooked them to their 3/260.

>	Now Sun is beating on them to buy an RTU for the OS.  I believe
>this is way out of line.  Granted they are running SunOS 3.5 and probably
>should pay a bit to get up to 4.1 (then again rumor has it that legalese
>says you are entitled to all derived items?).  Anyway I would be willing,
>should I say they would be willing to pay for upgrade but Sun (as usual) is
>trying to gouge them for on the order of $5000.

>	Does anyone else have experience with purchasing used Sun equipment
>and the licensing and RTU for the OS contained therein.  Any help in
>beating Sun's price gauging is appreciated.

Judging from responses I have here and some voice conversations with
salesman the jury is still out.  I think we have resolved to leave the
3/50's alone for now and deal with this problem sometime in the future.
(whew what a headache)

Here are some replies I received, none notably from Sun OFFICIALLY, even
though Jim Battan, CLAIMS to be the offical word of Sun Portland, which by
the way, is where the machines in question reside.  However my local Sun
salesman tells me he heard rumblings because of the post.  So maybe it was
worth the headache.

	For even more info see Sun-spots issues v9n186 and v9n208.

X-From: len at math.nwu.edu (Len Evens)

You're right.  Sun's policy amounts to gauging.  In principle, it is even
worse than that.  When you buy the used equipment, you don't automatically
get the right to use license with it and supposedly you should purchase
that separately from Sun --- even for the existing operating system.

Since this is clearly intended to discourage a market in used Sun
equipment, it might ultimately be deemed an illegal attempt to monopolize
a market, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.

X-From: Jim Battan  <uunet!sequent!qtc!battan>

The official word from the Sun Portland office is that an RTU comes with
the OS that's installed on used equipment when you buy it.  If you want to
upgrade to a newer OS rev, you have to pay (lots) for it.

X-From:    mrsvr!rigel.blc at uwm.edu (Brett Chapman  x5156  )

Whoa!  Bad Joss!

This is the first instance I have heard of this!  There are perfectly
within their rights to demand this, but from what I have learned from
other people is that SUN has no problem with resold equipment.  Usually
they are happy to see their equipment proliferate!

My advice is to try and contact someone higher up at SUN.  This is
supposing you haven't done this already.  I think if you make some noise,
you can get SUN to back down on this point.

X-From: uunet!ssds!tims (Tim Sesow (Rocky Mntn))

I had  a similar experience to the one you cited with upgrading our
Sun-3/260 system to 4.0.3.  We leased our equipment to another company
prior to my joining this company.  After about 18 months the 3/260 was
returned to us.  It was currently running version 3.5 and SunOS was at
4.0.3.  I called my local (friendly and cooperative) Sun sales rep and
told her I wanted to upgrade to 4.0.3.  Anyway to shorten the story, Sun
had no idea what version I was licensed at so I sent a Purchase Order to
Sun for $300 (partial upgrade with media) and they sent me software and
manuals.  I then put the system under software maintenance and a few
months later received another whole set of 4.1 manuals and software.

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