Comment by reidrac | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reidrac | Hacker News Reader

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Definitely, but I think is just Microsoft investing in their ecosystem.

In schools students learn "Word" and not "a word processor". I've seen high schools getting software licences with special deals (way cheaper), and thanks to that other solutions are discouraged (ie. "Word" is the standard and it will be required by any future job offer)

Can all students afford a Word licence? (ie. practice at home) It really doesn't matter, piracy it's OK because it is an investment. Companies are the final target (won't run pirated software and all candidates are trained to use that software).

You can find that kind of strategy also in open source (ie. Red Hat benefits from CentOS).

There are avenues to acquire Office inexpensively.

* There was a $60 sale on 2007 for students.

* I was able to get a copy of 2010 for $1 for home use because I also use it at work

* You can always purchase a used copy of 2003 for cheap. It's dated, of course, but not really outdated yet.

I agree with you about the last thing somewhat, but not entirely. While RedHat benefits from people switching from CentOS to RHEL, it's not illegal to run CentOS, and the other direction is also available.

My company is currently using RedHat in a very large number (let say, we pay a lot to them...), but looks like we might end up switching to CentOS. Basically the price vs. amount of support we get from them does not seem to be worth it. And it is very close to what we would get from an Open Source community or by using Google.

But I do agree with the rest what you said.

I know it's not illegal, I didn't say that at all. I said it's the same strategy. Although a customer that can move from RHEL to CentOS can be seen as a problem, I think it's just an investment.

Look at the consequences of CentOS. There are mailing lists, forums, IRC channels, blog posts, lots of people providing support and training for free.

That rich ecosystem is translated into business for Red Hat.

EDIT: ate a word.

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