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the Microsoft Academic Alliance (MSAA)

Actually, it's the MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDNAA), and I got XP, Vista, and Visual Studio 2005 back when I was in college... of course, they don't give you Word. You have to pay for Word...

Speaking from experience: Microsoft site licenses for its products for academic institution cost $0. What's not available for free with MSDNAA

is negotiated to be as if it were.

Any discussion starting with licensing costs in academic environments will be shot down on these grounds.

The OP probably needs to find something in OSS that's qualitatively better (it will be tough).

I see nothing in that EULA that prohibits benchmarks against Java.

Bullshit, and this pisses me off to no end.

My link and several others: http://www.msdnaa.net/EULA/EMEA/English.aspx


2.6 Benchmark Testing. You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of Server Software (as defined below in Section 4.1) or the .NET Framework component of the Software to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval. The foregoing does not, however, apply to the Server Software for Windows Server or Exchange Server.


Your Link has stipulations:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnnetdep/html/redisteula.asp

*You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework component of the OS Components (".NET Component"). You may disclose the results of any benchmark test of the .NET Component, provided that you comply with the following terms: (1)


Go read the compliance of terms.
Enjoy,

I don't know Nice, so I could be wrong scanning through here, but the referred page says that 'parametric types' are supported as are functions "manipulated as first class expressions [sic]". At the same time, though, we're told "[v]alues of primitive type (int, float, ...) can be used in polymorphic code" - should we assume that functions cannot? In which case we don't have anything like a functional language (correct me if I'm wrong) because we can't even write the 'map' function!

As for as 'languages for the Java VM', I remember that people were working on ML over JVM, but the VM doesn't provided for sharing the 'nice' higher-order features (which I believe is one of the aims in http://docs.msdnaa.net/ark/Webfiles/whitepapers.ht m#babel01)

MSDNAA works too.

I'm using an MSDNAA version of windows XP, and it came with a serial and an activation code. So I can pretty much update anything I want through windows update.

MSDNAA

$799 (USD) annual membership fee per department

What is the MSDN Academic Alliance?

The MSDN Academic Alliance is an annual membership program for technical departments in the area of Computer Science, Engineering, and Information Systems. As a member, a department receives an MSDNAA subscription that Microsoft platform, servers, and developer tools software. This software may be installed on any number of departmental lab machines. The software must be used for instructional and research purposes, it may not be used to run the infrastructure of the department. In addition, the department's faculty and students may check-out or download the software to install on their personal computers.

MSDN Academic Alliance has some articles on progress being made on using functional languages on the CLI. Microsoft seems to be aware that there is value here, but they are moving cautiously.

I will say that I'm a little annoyed that you chose to fly off the handle like you did. So, rather than get into a shouting match with you, here is a paper for you and the folks here to check out on the JVM and CLR. Note that they are both largly stack machines but the CLR from MS made some design improvements. Please also note (if you are familiar with large scale NUMA-type number chuggers) that neither machine language is built very well to JIT down to that architechuture. If you aren't familiar with Non-Uniform Memory Access machines, google around. They are very cool and you don't have to know alot about them to realize the a stack machine isn't the best model for tight-looped matrix math.

Again, I hope this is helpful and please chill for a few minutes before you blast me. :-P

The pricing my school gets is obscene - I have made the pitch to the head of technology about open source - then he showed me in real dollars what we pay for the entire campus for MS products - think everything but servers for a 500 seat computer set up - $14000 a year. Oh, and we are looking into it, but it probably includes free student versions of VS.Net for any student enroled in a .net class.

Here are a few links to get you started
For programming stuff

For OS agreements w/MS

At the College where I work, our CS department uses the MSDN-AA agreement. Basically, students can get any MS product that we teach, and a lot not taught, at no cost.

The problem is the product keys. The student needs to get a different product key every time the OS, program, etc is re-installed. So, say they're working on a Server 2003 build, and screw it up totally when setting up an Active Directory. They need to re-log into Microsofts MSDN-AA site, request another Key, etc...

All in all it's a great Academic program for the Microsoft crowd. If I was a MS type, I'm sure I'd use it more (staff can take any MS product we have, install at home, etc...).

-J

Unfortunately, Microsoft has this thing called the MSDN Academic Alliance.

Students and staff of associated educational facilities get Microsoft software for the "price of media and shipping."

That means all programming students can get Visual Studio Pro for $5, and CIS students (and maybe others) can get WinXP for just as cheap.

The college where I'm a student worker has signed up for it. We're teaching C#, Visual C++, and VB.net, all through Visual Studio. All computers on campus run WinXP Pro. (Except for some machines in IT, which run Novell on Linux)

I'm make everyone I know aware of RHCT and RHCE, to try to get more UNIX around, but I'm afraid I'm not in any position to push. Write an email to them and tout further Linux curriculum and usage, will ya?

This info is specific to Visual C++ 2002/2003, but it might be relevant to GCC too, I really don't know. Look at the "best practices" portion at the bottom in particular.

Microsoft has been buying off students as well as the universities and departments for a while now. Check out the MSDNAA where Microsoft provides free development tools to certain educational institutions. At my university any student who takes at least one CS course is eligible. They may download ANY Microsoft operating system as well as any number of Microsoft development tools.

Also, within the past year Microsoft began selling their current desktop operating system and office suites to all students at significantly reduced prices - at $70 and below. Both of these methods of obtaining software will greatly increase the proliferation of Microsoft in academia.

All of this is discounting the huge amount of "pirated" software, particularly new versions of Microsoft operating systems and office suites, that are installed on students computers in college. A few students who know the tricks of the trade ("pirating") distribute copies to a huge amount of people on campus, especially since students hardly want to pay for music, let alone software.

You can register to attend one of these events (if you're a student)here. I registered for the one in Philly.

Sure, here and there a rabid OSS person will show it to all of their friends, and that's a Good Thing.

Exactly. And it all depends on how many "friends" you have. I teach computer science and webmastering at a largish high school near the "Silicon Hills" of Austin, TX. I've got over 100 students in my classes. And there are over 2000 in the school.

You can bet as soon as I get the ISO downloaded ("ETA: 14:27") I'm going to burn a dozen copies or so and make them available to my students. Especially if I encourage them to burn copies for their friends, too. There's a "healthy" warez scene at my school, so they know how to do that, at least.

My students influence their less-technical friends, influence their less-technical parents who will then influence their coworkers, and will soon influence their classmates when they go to college. It all starts somewhere.

This is the same reason I keep copies of the latest RedHat on hand which I loan out for students to copy/install. I collect a $5 "ransom", which they get back if they return the CD.

And as Apple learned in the 80s and Microsoft knows right now, making cheap products available to computer students can grow up a generation of people who may pirate now, but will probably pay for your product when they grow up and start getting paid.

MSDN Academic Alliance

Sounds like the MSDN academic alliance program.

It's actually a pretty sweet deal if you teach courses using MS dev tools. $800 US per year gets you license for virtually everything remotely related to software development (compilers, Project, Visio, the os, but not Office) provided that it's only used for nonprofit research or educational purposes.

That's for one department, not an institution, but it licenses you for lab machines, faculty, *and* any student who is taking at least one credit course.

You do still need regular licenses for software used for infrastructure purposes (hosting the departmental website, etc). And of course, if you're not already using MS dev tools, gcc is the perfect starving student compiler :)

Qualified Educational User shall cease loading, permitting access to or otherwise distributing the Product to any Faculty, Staff or Student who ceases its association with Qualified Educational User. In the event Microsoft notifies Qualified Educational User or Qualified Educational User learns that any Faculty, Staff or Student is in violation of the terms and conditions of the EULA and/or this Amendment, Qualified Educational User shall cease permitting access to the Product by such individuals and Qualified Educational User shall further use its best efforts to demand immediate return of or confirm destruction of any Product in the possession or under the control of such Student, staff or Faculty.

To me that just says that if you're no longer a student you don't get any more free stuff. It says nothing about having to erase it unless you violate the other terms.

Combined with the blatent FAQ on Microsoft's own website, I think Yale either didn't read the EULA themselves or are trying to pull a fast one on their students.

But maybe I'm wrong. In any case, you might want to consider working on your anger management there. I just pointed out a discrepency for Christ's sake. Relax; you'll live longer.

MS does give out copies of their development software. Here is something which caught my attention when they took out a full page ad in the school newpaper to announce they would be giving away copies of WindowsXP professional (among other things) to attendees. http://www.msdnaa.net/vslaunch/

The documentation features provided with Visual Studio .NET Academic support use at both faculty and student levels. The faculty documentation describes the teaching tools and instructions for deploying Visual Studio .NET Academic in computer science laboratory settings. The student documentation includes walk-throughs for creating console applications and using the debugger, as well as a rich student reference for Visual Studio.

MS is hosting an event here at Miami University (Ohio) in conjucntion with the CS department to celebrate the rollout of Visual Studio .NET tomorrow. "All attendees will receive the full version of Visual Studio .NET Academic, a full version of Windows XP Professional, and other valuable items. Join us for an overview of the .NET Framework and a live demonstration of Visual Studio .NET." That's about $1700 (retail) of software that they're giving away. My suitemate and I are both Linux junkies, but we're both going for the software and out of curiosity. They giving out free food & even have a band scheduled to play. The notice is on MS's website here. They're also giving away an Xbox, Microsoft Press Books, $500 American Express Gift Certificates, MP3 Players, "and more!" MS is definetly pulling out all of the stops to try and hook the next generation (big surprise). I'm interested to see how it will go...

If they were still referring to win9x then even if you set it up right you're still going to get a BSOD at LEAST once every other day. NT admitedly is more stable. I can't say I'm a big fan of 4.0, but 2000 server and 2000 pro were great, they were definately a step in the right direction.

I just upgraded to winXP pro and I like a lot of things about it, i DON'T like how they tried to make it all pretty and bubbly...i had to revert the appearance back to win2k standards. I also had to change most of the settings so that I could choose what I wanted instead of windows doing it automatically for me. Good OS, once you go through all the settings, but otherwise its just really dumbed down. And damn that MSN Messenger!! Luckily my roommate found a way to get rid of that Here

and for anyone who is faculty/staff or student at a university check this out, get a free copy of XP, and a free copy of Visual Studio .NET