"The beefier your Windows Server license the less copies you'll need for running Microsoft's operating system in virtualized environments."

Argh!

If they are countable, we say there are fewer of them. If it is uncountable, we say there is less of it.

For example:

"There are fewer ducks on the lake today."

"There is less water in the lake today."

It is a very simple rule. Please get it right.

Frankly, that is rubbish. Windows is the desktop OS on more than 90% of all PCs. With that kind of market share, it is not possible to implement complicated license rules concerning CPUs - MS would waste a whole department of lawyers to try and keep track of all the possible variations.

No, per CPU licensing seems the only choice, and too bad if Open-Source movements have already adopted that same choice. As far as managing the situation, there simply is no other solution that is as easy to implement and control.

And yet the antonym of both words is "more", which vexes me more than it should.

On the plus side, I'm not that bothered about Virtual Server licensing.

I have to admit, I was glad when the changes were announced when R2 showed up and we suddenly went from being pretty sure (but not quite) we were in violation of our licenses, to being 100% covered. The whole announcement over a new calculator might be a bit overkill though. (Unless the numbers have changed slightly, I don't remember for sure.)

"If they are countable, we say there are fewer of them. If it is uncountable, we say there is less of it."

Only in British English, since the author is based in San Francisco that doesn't apply. Would you expect to be corrected on your grammar if you posted on an American website?

You fail to realize that The Reg targets the IT sector, which tends to consist largely of people with Grammar Nazi tendencies, no matter what country we are talking about.

I, for one, was grateful for the brief grammar lesson. That particular rule is one I was unfamiliar with, though it makes logical sense.

Less than a hundred people.

Ten items or less.

There are less Grammar Nazi's in non-IT communities.

It's a rule which is never actually enforced except in the utmost formal situations of British English writing, and is particularly common in American writing. A line must be drawn or they'll be people complaining that virtualization is spelled with a "z" next.

Do you really perceive a lack of comprehension on my part of the tendencies towards the correction of grammar within the IT sector? Remember that my post was correcting someone on their correction of grammar, based on the geographic location of the author of the original article.