After learning that Sun has an unbundled produce called the "Account Resource Manager" (ARM) which supports "enhanced passwd security features", such as passwd aging, account expiration, login disabling, etc, ie, all the things you'd EXPECT in a system, I decided to invent a fictitious pricebook for TLA Software, Inc. Enjoy. Item Price --------------------- 1 /bin/cat $1000 -v 250 -n 150 -b 125 -u 175 -s 150 -u 125 -e 100 -t 100 Or buy them all for just $2000 and receive a $175 discount! Note that all prices are per-user. Thus, if you want 5 users to be able to use these, multiply by 5. If you want merely N concurrent users, you want floating licenses, there's a 25% premium charge on being able to float the licences, so it would cost (N_users * base_price) * 1.25. Furthermore, cat remembers how many characters you read and write and charges you based on ho wmany kilocharacters you've catted: /bin/cat 0-1000 kchars/month $.005/kchar 1000-5000 kchars/month $.004/kchar 5000-10000 kchars/month $.002/kchar 10000+ kchars/month $.001/kchar Item Price --------------------- 2 sendmail $5000 w/DNS 2500 w/YP 1500 w/DBM 1000 +security bug fixes 8000 This is to handle up to 100 messages a day. For 101-500 messages, add 20%, for 501-1000 messages, add 40% to the previous 120%, for 1001-5000 messages, add 60% to the previous 168%, and for infinite message delivery, it's just 11% over the previous 268.8%, or 300% the base price. Alternatively, if the per-message fee structure is unattractive, a per-kchar price structure at 5x the /bin/cat rate is also available. (The increased price per kbyte is because mail is much more important that merely catted data.) Item Price --------------------- 3 passwd $4000 add on price feature decription 3000 shadow passwords 2000 password qualification 1750 password aging 1500 DBM 1250 account expiration/activation 1250 disable login after invalid attempts 750 autologout 500 autolockscreen 500 dialpass and portpass passwords 500 access hours Or get the whole package for just $15000, a $2000 discount! Note that this is only for 0-50 users. For more users, you must pay a premium as follows: Users Multiplier 0-50 1 51-100 1.25 101-200 1.5 201-500 2 501-1000 3 1001+ 5 (Note that the DBM option is required for all packages over 200 users) Furthermore, there is minimal charge ($0.05) each time the crypt(3) call is run. This makes password crackers pay to crack your passwords. -- Tom Christiansen tchrist@convex.com convex!tchrist
(From the "Rest" of RHF)