CALs: Silly or Not?
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Here is the excerpt from I Can't Even:
EddieJennings: Personally, I think CALs are silly, but it's model Microsoft chose for licensing. Who are any of us to complain?
scottalanmiller: How come you think that they are silly? I actually have a pending video made about how great they are. What's the alternative?
EddieJennings:Not have them. You buy a server for your network and pay for a license of Windows Server. Great! Now your users and devices can connect to it. Rather than buy a server for your network, pay for a license for Windows Server, and pay for a license for each entity that wants to connect to it.
EddieJennings: Sorry, I answered the "what's the alternative?" question. Why are they silly? I'm of a mind when you buy a server license, that's it. Your users can access the server. Rather than adding to the cost and potential complexity of now paying for each entity to have the right to access the server you just licensed. There's nothing wrong with the choice to use that licensing model. I simply don't prefer it.
scottalanmiller: But that would be insanely expensive for small companies. the company with 10 users would have to pay the same as the one with 1,000 users. SMBs couldn't afford paying enterprise prices.
scottalanmiller: CALs are really, really easy - just count your users. Hard to get simpler. And they keep the price down. CALs are easy and reduce the cost. What's not to like?
Dashrender: lol - what's not to like is the cost at all.
EddieJennings: I'll start another thread, so this doesn't turn into the Hyper-V-like thread.
For this, I'll use the prices from NewEgg for Windows Server Standard OEM ($885). The 5-user CAL package they have is $231, so $46 / user CAL.
With the CAL model
Windows Server Standard + 10 users: $1,345
Windows Server Standard + 1000 users: $46,885If CALs didn't exist
Windows Server Standard + 10 users: $885
Windows Server Standard + 1000 users: $885I agree "potential complexity" shouldn't even be a thing, but just a look at SW and you'll see that it is. What's not to like? Paying an additional license fee per user in addition the fee for just licensing the server software.
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@eddiejennings said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
I agree "potential complexity" shouldn't even be a thing, but just a look at SW and you'll see that it is. What's not to like? Paying an additional license fee per user in addition the fee for just licensing the server software.
You can't say it is additional. You aren't paying for the use of the server until you pay for the CALs. If you wanted server licensing with no CALs, you'd have to move to "Core Licensing" and the cost would be scores or hundreds of times higher.
CALs keep the cost down, there is no "additional."
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@eddiejennings said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
With the CAL model
Windows Server Standard + 10 users: $1,345
Windows Server Standard + 1000 users: $46,885If CALs didn't exist
Windows Server Standard + 10 users: $885
Windows Server Standard + 1000 users: $885Your math is totally wrong. It's like this...
With the CAL model
Windows Server Standard + 10 users: $1,345
Windows Server Standard + 1000 users: $46,885If CALs didn't exist
Windows Server Standard + 10 users: $250,000
Windows Server Standard + 1000 users: $250,000See how much CALs are saving you?
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As Scott said if you did not have CALs this would cost a lot more
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The key piece here is that you are comparing the cost of the CAL model with the cost of something that doesn't exist. The "non-CAL" price you show isn't the non-CAL price at all, it's just one part of the CAL price. So not at all how you present it.
What you never show (and MS doesn't tell us) is what the cost of an "Unlimited CAL" license would be for Windows Server. Even they likely don't know, as no one has ever figured it out. CALs "limit" the cost and you work your way back up towards the max as you add more. CALs don't add on cost, they take it away.
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The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
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@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
I don’t know what you’re talking about CALs are easy and simple you count you pay you’re done
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@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
Huh? What do you mean? It's the easiest licensing implementation I know of. How could it be improved?
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@jaredbusch said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
I don’t know what you’re talking about cows are easy and simple you count you pay you’re done
Oh Siri, you so funny.
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@scottalanmiller Believe it or not, I understand what you're saying. Without the CAL model, there would be the core model, which is orders of magnitude more expensive.
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@scottalanmiller said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@jaredbusch said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
I don’t know what you’re talking about cows are easy and simple you count you pay you’re done
Oh Siri, you so funny.
That too
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@eddiejennings said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@scottalanmiller Believe it or not, I understand what you're saying. Without the CAL model, there would be the core model, which is orders of magnitude more expensive.
Exactly. Unless of course you had a million users like Walmart, then you are the big winner and for you, it would be break even. Everyone smaller would suffer
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I'm simply imagining a world where you buy a server license (that's a the price that it would be with the server+CAL model, rather than Core model) and that's it. Or better yet, a world where you don't buy a server license and just install Fedora or CentOS.
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@eddiejennings said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@scottalanmiller Believe it or not, I understand what you're saying. Without the CAL model, there would be the core model, which is orders of magnitude more expensive.
I somewhat agree. However, Microsoft (in this case) could not price their stuff so exorbitantly.
Their products would have to be priced at what the market could bear.
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@scottalanmiller said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
Huh? What do you mean? It's the easiest licensing implementation I know of. How could it be improved?
I already know you don't think it can be improved....
By actually managing licensing properly instead of "Here's a piece of paper to file." By managing licensing properly, yes, this would take a little bit of actual resources on a computer in order to track things.
I know @scottalanmiller, @JaredBusch, and myself will never agree on this one.
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@eddiejennings said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
I'm simply imagining a world where you buy a server license (that's a the price that it would be with the server+CAL model, rather than Core model) and that's it. Or better yet, a world where you don't buy a server license and just install Fedora or CentOS.
Right, but that's the only way it works - not buying software. You have to make the leap to the thing that you want is to not have to pay. Now the complaint isn't about the licensing, just that you want things for free. Which is fine, everyone wants things for free... but it's doesn't really matter.
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@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@scottalanmiller said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
Huh? What do you mean? It's the easiest licensing implementation I know of. How could it be improved?
I already know you don't think it can be improved....
By actually managing licensing properly instead of "Here's a piece of paper to file." By managing licensing properly, yes, this would take a little bit of actual resources on a computer in order to track things.
I know @scottalanmiller, @JaredBusch, and myself will never agree on this one.
Can't be done. The paper is so superior to that. I'm so glad that they aren't doing that, how do you propose that they track such a thing? Hint: it's impossible.
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@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
I know @scottalanmiller, @JaredBusch, and myself will never agree on this one.
No, but Jared and I can prove that what you want isn't possible. So it's better than agreeing - it's a definitive solution.
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@dafyre said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@eddiejennings said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@scottalanmiller Believe it or not, I understand what you're saying. Without the CAL model, there would be the core model, which is orders of magnitude more expensive.
I somewhat agree. However, Microsoft (in this case) could not price their stuff so exorbitantly.
Doesn't matter, flat pricing like this would always screw the companies that are smaller compared to bigger ones. It's "taxing the poor".
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@scottalanmiller said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@scottalanmiller said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
@travisdh1 said in CALs: Silly or Not?:
The idea behind CALs, great. The implementation of it, horrible.
Huh? What do you mean? It's the easiest licensing implementation I know of. How could it be improved?
I already know you don't think it can be improved....
By actually managing licensing properly instead of "Here's a piece of paper to file." By managing licensing properly, yes, this would take a little bit of actual resources on a computer in order to track things.
I know @scottalanmiller, @JaredBusch, and myself will never agree on this one.
Can't be done. The paper is so superior to that. I'm so glad that they aren't doing that, how do you propose that they track such a thing? Hint: it's impossible.
Well, I've seen it done. Not with Microsoft's licensing granted (it would get harry to track what CAL is a device and which is a user CAL.) Any sane system would be easy to track, which is where we'll always differ.
