Thanks for the suggestions on buying a used RS/6000 - I have ordered one for
under $1000..

Now I need to buy a copy of AIX.

I see copies on sale on EBay for the amazing price of $65.00 to $100 or so.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tegory=11 228

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=46 19

Are these likely to be legitmate? Is there a risk they may not be?

Thanks!

"Don Brady" <dbrady@pobox.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:q2s530llpf9rm2pskts29d833vs2nbji9r@4ax.com...
> Thanks for the suggestions on buying a used RS/6000 - I have ordered one
for
> under $1000..
>
> Now I need to buy a copy of AIX.
>
> I see copies on sale on EBay for the amazing price of $65.00 to $100 or
so.
>
>
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tegory=11 228
>
>
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=46 19
>
> Are these likely to be legitmate? Is there a risk they may not be?
>
> Thanks!

Hi Don,

AFAIK AIX licences cannot be transferred between companies. E.g. it is very
likely that you need to get a licence from IBM directly and at EBay you will
see CD media that do NOT include any licence. Seems like some smart asses
try to ripp you off by generating the impression you are buying a licence
when in fact you just by a set of CDs (they probably stole from their
employer). Does ist state: "Licence included" anywhere in the offer? No?
Welcome to the real world.

Regards,
Andreas

Andreas Schulze schrieb:
>
> "Don Brady" <dbrady@pobox.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:q2s530llpf9rm2pskts29d833vs2nbji9r@4ax.com...
> > Thanks for the suggestions on buying a used RS/6000 - I have ordered one
> for
> > under $1000..
> >
> > Now I need to buy a copy of AIX.
> >
> > I see copies on sale on EBay for the amazing price of $65.00 to $100 or
> so.
> >
> >
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tegory=11 228
> >
> >
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=46 19
> >
> > Are these likely to be legitmate? Is there a risk they may not be?
> >
> > Thanks!
>
> Hi Don,
>
> AFAIK AIX licences cannot be transferred between companies. E.g. it is very
> likely that you need to get a licence from IBM directly and at EBay you will
> see CD media that do NOT include any licence. Seems like some smart asses
> try to ripp you off by generating the impression you are buying a licence
> when in fact you just by a set of CDs (they probably stole from their
> employer). Does ist state: "Licence included" anywhere in the offer? No?
> Welcome to the real world.

The only place to buy offical licences for AIX is IBM.
you might get the CD media for free if you pay the licence?

Gereon

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 00:06:30 -0500, Don Brady <dbrady@pobox.com> wrote:

>Thanks for the suggestions on buying a used RS/6000 - I have ordered one for
>under $1000..
>
>Now I need to buy a copy of AIX.
>
>I see copies on sale on EBay for the amazing price of $65.00 to $100 or so.
>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tegory=11 228
>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ategory=46 19
>
>Are these likely to be legitmate? Is there a risk they may not be?
>
>Thanks!

I didn't look at these links explicitly -- but IIRC, IBM changed the
license to the point that owning an RS/6000 means you're licensed for AIX.
IBM will sell you the media for $50, but only for AIX 5.1 or 5.2. If you
need 4.x you'll need to get it elsewhere.

Tom

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:59:16 -0500, TomK <namffuak@NO.skyenet.SPAM.net> wrote:

>I didn't look at these links explicitly -- but IIRC, IBM changed the
>license to the point that owning an RS/6000 means you're licensed for AIX.
>IBM will sell you the media for $50, but only for AIX 5.1 or 5.2. If you
>need 4.x you'll need to get it elsewhere.
>

Thanks! You know I think that I had heard that.

I will just order from IBM then!

TomK schrieb:
....
> I didn't look at these links explicitly -- but IIRC, IBM changed the
> license to the point that owning an RS/6000 means you're licensed for AIX.
> IBM will sell you the media for $50, but only for AIX 5.1 or 5.2. If you
> need 4.x you'll need to get it elsewhere.
>
Hi Tom,
do you have a reference for this?
I heard about this before, and know its like this at HP-UX.

Gereon

On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:51:54 +0100, Gereon Wenzel
<wenzel@ibh.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:

>TomK schrieb:
>...
>> I didn't look at these links explicitly -- but IIRC, IBM changed the
>> license to the point that owning an RS/6000 means you're licensed for AIX.
>> IBM will sell you the media for $50, but only for AIX 5.1 or 5.2. If you
>> need 4.x you'll need to get it elsewhere.
>>
>Hi Tom,
>do you have a reference for this?
>I heard about this before, and know its like this at HP-UX.
>
>Gereon

Unfortunately, no. It was in one of IBM's announcement letters back in the
early AIX 4.3 time period (about 3 years ago). IIRC, it was about the same
time they quit charging a multi-user fee (AIX 4.2 and earlier supported 2
users for the basic fee and there was an add-on charge to expand the user
count).

Best bet would be to search IBM's Infolink for the anouncements. And I'm
home recovering from surgery, don't have the bookmark, and can't find
where IBM has hidden the page . . . :-(

Tom

"TomK" <namffuak@NO.skyenet.SPAM.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:b68p309nr0tpe7mc7ul5crd8i8vcfsauo0@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:51:54 +0100, Gereon Wenzel
> <wenzel@ibh.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
>
> >TomK schrieb:
> >...
> >> I didn't look at these links explicitly -- but IIRC, IBM changed the
> >> license to the point that owning an RS/6000 means you're licensed for
AIX.
> >> IBM will sell you the media for $50, but only for AIX 5.1 or 5.2. If
you
> >> need 4.x you'll need to get it elsewhere.
> >>
> >Hi Tom,
> >do you have a reference for this?
> >I heard about this before, and know its like this at HP-UX.
> >
> >Gereon
>
> Unfortunately, no. It was in one of IBM's announcement letters back in the
> early AIX 4.3 time period (about 3 years ago). IIRC, it was about the same
> time they quit charging a multi-user fee (AIX 4.2 and earlier supported 2
> users for the basic fee and there was an add-on charge to expand the user
> count).
>
> Best bet would be to search IBM's Infolink for the anouncements. And I'm
> home recovering from surgery, don't have the bookmark, and can't find
> where IBM has hidden the page . . . :-(
>
> Tom
>
Hallo,

I am not sure that this licence modell is true for any RS6000 hardware
especially for the older models (before 43P-150, B50). That this information
about the conditions for licences are not placed on top of the IBM software
service pages might imply that it is not so clear actually. The only
information that might relate to this problem I know of is the rebook
abstract for the B50. There it says "[...] Agressive pricing and an included
AIX software license make the Model B50 the most affordable model in the
RS/6000 product line." So for this model there should be an AIX 4.3.2 or
4.3.3 licence included if it was delivered with this oslevel. This does not
mean that one holds a licence for 5.1 though to use with this machine. An
AIX licence will be about 350$ to 750$ approx. for a three year period for
one single processor depending on the conditions IBM grants you (bigger
customers get higher rebates). Additional software service (that grants you
to use any supported oslevel) will cost slightly above 2000$ for a three
year period per CPU. This does include that every new AIX media is sent to
you but I doubt that these prices are affordable if you do not earn money
with your server(s).
Cut a long story short: if you don't get it in writing, that you ow a
licence, you better do not boast in public that you have one.

Regards,
Andreas

On 2004-02-25, TomK <namffuak@NO.skyenet.SPAM.net> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, no. It was in one of IBM's announcement letters back in the
> early AIX 4.3 time period (about 3 years ago). IIRC, it was about the same
> time they quit charging a multi-user fee (AIX 4.2 and earlier supported 2
> users for the basic fee and there was an add-on charge to expand the user
> count).
>
> Best bet would be to search IBM's Infolink for the anouncements. And I'm
> home recovering from surgery, don't have the bookmark, and can't find
> where IBM has hidden the page . . . :-(

Interestingly enough, *any* agreement with IBM appears to be very sensitive to
the time in which you entered the agreement with IBM. The first RS/6000s I
ever had were bought used, and I bought my AIX licenses from a company that
was going out of business (who were end-users of AIX, not resellers). When I
contacted IBM to register the transfer of ownership of the licenses I got flak
from the sales rep that licenses were not transferrable. I had the AIX
documentation, however, which included a license agreement that said that it
was. I was able to prevail based on that.

Since seeing this thread, however, I decided to look at the license agreement
that accompanied a new 4.3.3 media kit that I recieved for my hardware last
year. That one specifically omits any mention of rights to transfer. So,
even 4.3.3 has changed the end-user's rights at least once. I suspect that if
were to examine the difference in the electronice licenses of 5L from ML to
ML, there will probably be changes there as well.

I think the lesson here is NEVER THROW OUT YOUR DOCS!!!! You may end up with
less than what you originally paid for.

--Arthur Corliss
Bolverk's Lair -- http://arthur.corlissfamily.org/
Digital Mages -- http://www.digitalmages.com/
"Live Free or Die, the Only Way to Live" -- NH State Motto