Red Hat Proposes Alternative Settlement To MSFT

cwsulliv writes "Red Hat, Inc. has proposed an alternative settlement to the Microsoft class-action lawsuit in Maryland. Microsoft originally proposed supplying a limited number of poorer school districts in the US with PC hardware and limited-license Microsoft software. The alternative proposal submitted by Red Hat would have Microsoft supply NO software but dramatically increase the number of school districts receiving hardware. Red Hat in turn would supply ALL the software (Open Source) and unlimited support via their Red hat Network. "

Comments

Free Beer

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that the governments will like all this free beer being installed in classrooms. And the government won't like all the liberty being installed either!

Touche

[ThymePuns]

And when Microsoft viciously declines, it will give more fuel to their anti-competetive practices.

Re:Touche

[Reality Master 101]

And when Microsoft viciously declines, it will give more fuel to their anti-competetive practices.

They won't have to. The schools themselves will viciously decline. Why anyone thinks that schools are just begging for Linux is beyond my comprehension. Does it occur to anyone that if they wanted it, they can install it anytime they want?

Re:Touche

[zeno_2]

And why would giving software licenses away to schools remedy a class-action antitrust lawsuit?

Re:Touche

[jmv]

The schools themselves will viciously decline.

I'm not that sure. They'll have to choose between 20 PC's with MS software on them or 100 PC's with Free Software on them. Not to mention that with the MS deal, they end up in 5 years with 20 PC and NO software at all.

Re:Touche

[Craig Davison]

For the cost of 20 PCs with software you can get 100 PCs with Free software? So 80% of the cost of a Windows PC is the software? Hey, you're horribly wrong.

Re:Touche

[Reikk]

If microsoft really wanted to hurt linux, the best thing they could do is accept this deal. Then supply hardware that linux can't run on. This would make redhat look really bad and be a major victory for microsoft.

Re:Touche

[jmv]

Yes, that's because MS proposes to install not only Windows, but expensive versions of Office and lots of stuff like that. I think the hardware ended up as less than 20% of the total cost (including software, "support", ...).

Re:Touche

[ArsonSmith]

Does it occur to anyone that if they wanted it, they can install it anytime they want?

Yes and they do regularly. This would only give them free support that would have normally cost them around $50 per installation, or they would have to do without if they used the typical free install.

I can only think back to the days of when I was in grade school and we had all Tandy trs80s in many classes. Linux is no more difficult to use than one of these machines, and it is much more powerfull. Even in Highschool we had all dos based 386s. yes 14 years old and useing a command line just like everyone else in our school. This was a regular public school as well, no high paid privite school teachers or special computer support staff. Just the underpaid public school teachers and the students to support everything.

Re:Touche

[Anonymous Coward]

its easy for linux to run on any hardware. redhat employs alan cox and a few days of porting to the hardware it doesnt run on would allow it to run fine.

Re:Touche

[fiftyfly]

Hmmm, I would think that the idea of getting more hardware for the money might be a usefull bargining point. Though if Red hat were really serious about presenting something usefull to the American school system I would think they'd have to offer the one thing that would cost them $ - "value added services". I have two services in mind: 1)Tech support. The distro's are already free so offering them free isn't particularily constructive. Offering the services required to get free software _running_ - for _free_ would be something. 2)Curriculum development. With all the talk of needing to be comp literate, the clash of poor/useless certificates, & cash strapped school systems as a "captive aduience" it seems a little odd that no one (M$, RH or otherwise) have stepped forward to say: "Hey, punish M$ & make'm buy computers for every school in America (even better, say, 1 comp for every 5 students). We'll put our OS & software (guaranteed to be free & there'll never be charges for upgrades). To help with this massive influs of technology we'll fund and (partially) develope a comprehensive K12 curriculum to be streamed in over the next 15 years (2 years lead time & for deployment of basic "all ages" intro's, with a new grade to be added every year). We will promise to do this for little or no cost & will make all materials subject to an unbiased public review. We will do this because we know there is nothing else that could ever hope to increase our market share by such leaps & bounds." The only tricky part would be, assuming such a "beneficiary" wasn't, say, Larry Ellison, assuring that the provider would be able to wait 10-15 years for their "market share investment" to pay off. OTOH, while companies with open source based business plans would have a tougher time living out the next 10-15 years under such a burden they do have somewhat more to gain. A closed source firm would merely gain market share & "legitimacy" an open source firm also gains a large new chunk of developers.

Re:Touche

[Jeremi]

Does it occur to anyone that if [schools] wanted [Linux], they can install it anytime they want?

Eh? Been in a school lately? I have, and I can safely say that the number of people there with the technical knowledge and/or self-confidence necessary to install an OS on to a computer is vanishingly small. They literally cannot install Linux (or anything else) if they want to, or if they can, they aren't allowed to because management is too worried about "messing stuff up". That's why support would be the critical piece of Red Hat's proposal... they would need to send out people to help install/convert the computers. Hmm, I wonder if Red Hat could use volunteers for this? I'd do it...

Re:Touche

[5coredump8]

"They won't have to. The schools themselves will viciously decline. Why anyone thinks that schools are just begging for Linux is beyond my comprehension. Does it occur to anyone that if they wanted it, they can install it anytime they want?"

You honestly must be a fucking idiot. the public school system in my district(seattle) does not allow any other os besides windblows even if the staff want it on their machines.

Not only that but they will not allow any other other hardware besides dells.

Example:
The "sysadmin" (pointy clicky MS "admin") wanted to purchase a $1500 IBM server for the school site. However the district claimed that it could "run their software" and forced him to spend his entire buget purchasing a $5500 Dell poweredge that was only slighlty better.

The whole school district is completely FUBAR and has underpaid retarded staff buring money on useless crap. Money is not the problem retarded admistration is.

At this time the district perfectly capable of accopmlishing great things with their buget but they are stuck in a vicous cycle thanks to MSFT, Dell and partialy Cisco.

I fucking hate all this its for the children crap!

Re:Touche

[Ed Bailey]

Hmm, I wonder if Red Hat could use volunteers for this? I'd do it...

Really? How many people would be interested in volunteering for something like this? I can look into arranging something if there's sufficient interest...

Ed

Re:Touche

[TeraCo]

Yes and they do regularly.

Do you have any examples of schools actually using linux enmass? [ie: not planning to, or having a trial, but actually having deployed say 100+ linux PC's?]

Most of the schools I know use a mix of 98, NT and Macs because this is where all of the educational software lives.

Things like encarta and 'maths blaster' which I used in my childhood are simply not available for linux.

Re:Touche

[Eric E. Coe]

Yeah, I would, for a reasonably local school.

(Note: I would have a good reason anyway, since my own kids are attending grade school now.)

Re:Touche

[nil_null]

Hmmm... Well I know that colleges love Linux and dislike Windows, especially the computer departments. At least mine did (Univ of Florida). I had professors ragging on Microsoft all the time, it was great. Microsoft donated a lab full of PCs with NT installed for OS-learning and they ended up installing Linux on them after wiping NT off, needless to say MSFT was pissed about that. You can't learn about operating systems on something closed like NT. Most NT machines were setup to dual boot to Linux. Of course I spent most of my time using Solaris for my projects. But that was college, K-12 is different. But Linux would have been welcome in my high school, no doubt about that, I did some adminning for them. We ran Win3.11 on all those machines (excluding the Mac's of course), and everyone hated it. Also take note that schools get donated a lot of crap hardware--we got a boat load of 486s (with old-ass NICs in 'em) when the Pentium 75 and 90's with Win95 were starting to saturate the school. A nice little FreeBSD or Linux lab could have been formed from that.

Re:Touche

[lupetto]

If this were true, why couldn't Alan Cox spend one day writing a driver to get winmodems to work?

Re:Touche

[m0nkyman]

Microsoft is a monopoly. Legally speaking they are not only a monopoly, they are abusing that status. Schools are funded by the government. Punishing Microsoft by extending their monopoly further is a bad idea.

Pushing a government funded institution into helping break that monopoly is a good idea.

As far as whether the schools would install it themselves if they wanted to, that option doesn't even show up on their radar 99.99% of the time. That is the power of a monopoly.

I've also seen a lot of comments about how there isn't any educational software fo linux. To that I call bullshit. Given any subject there is something out there that some geek has whipped together, and it may not be produced by Mattel or Disney, but Linux is a much better tool for actually instilling the ability to learn than Windows.

I think this is a great publicity stunt by RedHat, and it won't go anywhere, but I'd love to see Linux in more schools. Yes I said more. There are quite a few schools that are already using it. do a google search for 'Linux education schools'

some useful(Karma Whoring) links:
http://www.seul.org/edu/
http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/
http://scnc.holt.k12.mi.us/techplan/index.html

Re:Touche

[biohazard99]

I think if Redhat asked, we would finally see how strong the Linux community is.

At the moment, we exist in three places, largely. As users groups, out in public view for demo days 1-12 times a year at a bookstore or student union. On /., which is a site targeted for the geek community, with very little reason for joe sixpack to come and visit. And on mailing list and web boards that joe sixpack isn't going to participate in, no interest in watching the LKML or phpbuilder unless they have some background or use for the topics being discused. However, if we are in their schools, helping their kids use linux, we might be able to drum up some support.

I myself am active with my younger sister's student technology leadership program, but even as a 5th grader, she has already had 5 years of exposure to M$FT software, their tools are already there, and to top it off, sometime their favorite websites don't display properly or at all unless on an IE platform.

I have talked with school board members about why they are NT based and only received blank stares when mentioning anything but mac's, which they equate to the ancient apple iie's we ran when I was in elementary school. The school district tech coordinator is frankly overworked and underpaid, and unix admin's in my neck of the woods are few and far between, so bringing in a *nix person would be way out of their budget.

This post has been long, but hear me out, even if this settlement goes through as M$FT plans, get out in your communities, lest we have another generation who never access a unix machine until they enter college.

Re:Touche

[mmol_6453]

Another test for how strong the Linux community is:

How low of a salary would you accept, if it meant you would be spreading Linux to a more receptive age group?

Re:Touche

[mmol_6453]

Which winmodems are you referring to? Different winmodems have different hardware, therefore different interfaces...

Not to mention the palpable distaste for using CPU time to compute audio on a phone line I get from most of the *nix friends I have.

Re:Touche

[FuegoFuerte]

This was a regular public school as well, no high paid privite school teachers or special computer support staff. Just the underpaid public school teachers and the students to support everything.

High paid private school teachers? And what would you be smoking? I've gone to both public and private schools, and let me tell you... Just because a private school costs a bit of money out of the parent's pocket doesn't mean they're wealthy. The teachers at my private schools were there primarily because they cared about the students and having the freedom to educate students by their own methods, not to mention little freedoms like being able to talk openly about God and other religious subjects without so much fear of offending some brat with an overpaid underworked lawyer. The computers at the private schools were also about 10 years old. At my public high school, on the other hand, the teachers were paid at least relatively well (still not high-paid by any means, but better than the private school teachers). We also had a bit newer computers (they were only 3-5 years old, instead of 10) and we DID have a "special computer support staff" to keep the network running, etc. The only network the private school ever had while I was there was a sneakernet. My public school district had (if I recall correctly) 1 or 2 T3 lines into the district offices, and 3 or 4 T1 lines to most of the schools from there.

Re:Touche

[FuegoFuerte]

How low of a salary would you accept, if it meant you would be spreading Linux to a more receptive age group?

If it's more than $5.65/hr, it'd beat what I'm making now... $5.65 as "Student Network Assistant." Not a bad job at all, but it wouldn't be too hard to lure me elsewhere for a few dollars more. Course, that's right now while I'm in school. In a few years, there's no way in heck I'd work for that little.

Re:Touche

[talldark]

I know Im going to be flamed to hell for saying this, but probably 95% of the people will have Microsoft windows at home, probably MS office at home and wont want to change their working practices, particularly teachers. I asked a teacher friend of mine if he would like it if he would rather have Windows with office in his school, or a Linux with something like staroffice, and he instantly said he'd rather have the windows software, as it is easier and more familiar and overall less hassle for him. He doesnt want to learn another OS. He knows windows - why should he change. Face it, windows wins on the familiarity front and thats not going to change.
BTW - before I am flamed away to hell :), I use two debian linux machines and a NT box as my everyday work machines, and heavily work on the debian boxes and would not trust the NT for my work in any situation. I have been using *ix platforms for more years than I can remember and prefer it as a working environment for my job. But remember, horses for courses.

Re:Touche

[webgiant]

When I heard about this "punishment", "inflicted" on Microsoft by the DOJ, I wondered when the tobacco companies would call for an identical "punishment" for themselves: being required to provide free cigarettes to schools for the next five years.

Re:Touche

[dagmatic]

Would be anxiuos to help in and San Francisco Bay area School

Re:Touche

[sallen]

I know Im going to be flamed to hell for saying this, but probably 95% of the people will have Microsoft windows at home, probably MS office at home and wont want to change their working practices, particularly teachers.

I'm not going to flame, but guessing the percentage is way off. If you look at the demographics of those schools who will be getting the hardware/software, it's likely, especially from the student standpoint, that many/most don't have computers at home. The teachers probably don't have the 'extra' cost items such as Office either. It's also bothersome that after a very limited number of years that these same poorer districts then have to find the funds for upgrading and maintenance, something they don't have.

Most of these school systems need a LOT more basic things in their classrooms. A settlement directed toward schools vs. $10 to each class individual may be appropriate, but who says it has to or should be hardware/software??? (And the 'value' of the software? Is that considered 'retail' for determining the amount of the settlement? That wouldn't seem appropriate in any case. Same as hardware, it should be actual not costs involved in any case.)

Re:Touche

[layingMantis]

cared about the students and having the freedom to educate students by their own methods, not to mention little freedoms like being able to talk openly about God and other religious subjects without so much fear of offending some brat with an overpaid underworked lawyer

personally I'd rather not hear my Algebra teacher blather on about God or anything else religious. Teachers who care about their students do their best to teach them the relevant information in an unbiased, objective fashion, to the extent that that is possible.

i do like those private school uniforms though....mmmmmmm

.sig

Re:Touche

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be willing to help as well. Where can we get more information if this deal does go through?

Re:Touche

[Sevillista]

The question is do we want a country full of little hackers, or mindless drooling Microsoft users?

Re:Touche

[cduffy]

I already provide some support for the Linux systems used as file servers here at Chico Unified School District; I'd be glad to provide further support should additional local installations occur.

Re:Touche

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is coming in a bit late, but I hope it'll be read anyway...

Just ask for volunteers local to wherever you do the install. Double benefit if you offer to train the teachers how to install Linux - but volunteers only, don't let it get communicated to them (even by their administrators) as "you must". (Most of them will think it's complex, until you walk them through the install and show that installation is only minimally skilled labor, providing one knows what hardware one has and the install script correctly recognizes it all. In this case, where you're dealing with 100 of the same computer with the same hardware, figure it out for one and they can do the other 99. Heck, they can even have the *kids* do some of the other 99...)

WOW!!!! This has got to go through!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading the details of the original MS proposal... it would seem to me that MS really didn't get the point of the original Lawsuit.....
GO REDHAT!!!!

Re:WOW!!!! This has got to go through!!!

[Dix_sw]

Yep, reading the original proposal you think "but... wasn't that suposed to be a punishment? :P"

You might like or not Red Hat, but this way at least M$ is loosing something (pay for all the hard an, even worse, the competition installing the soft). The other way, they where just doing what they allways do, even easier...

./tted

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Wow!

Mid-day on Thanksgiving, and RedHat gets Slashdotted in less than 3 minutes!

Re:./tted

[jeriqo]

https://redhat1.rgc2.net/servlet/cc3?mw1'%2B.9%7Ch ljssvi_kmv~%7B1mm1%7Cpr9K9.A

The 's' in https explains all.

Hemos should have linked to this URL:

http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2001/press _usschools.html

-J

Re:./tted

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you mean "/.tted" not "dot-slash-tted" (./tted) :-P

my 2 cents

Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[saforrest]

Not that I don't think this is a generous offer on Red Hat's part, but it'll be interesting to see if all the posters who ranted at Microsoft's arrogance yesterday say the same thing today about Redhat.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[TheABomb]

Red Hat's not being arrogant (or at least self-serving). Microsoft's deal would bring them money in the long run (five years from now when they hold a gun to the schools' heads), but Red Hat stands to profit absolutely nothing. In fact, by offering free support, Red Hat is actually giving away what they could make money from.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[scott1853]

Absolutely. It's not like the first thought of Red Hat's execs were "what can we do to help the children".

If the offer was sincere, they'd help the schools no matter what, now wouldn't they? It's not like Red Hat's a charity organization. They're trying to make money, and I don't think they'd object to being as rich as MS.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[levik]

Well, as far as being self serving, I doubt you would be seeing this move on the part of RedHat if the antagonist in question was a company not as prominent as Microsoft. Also I wonder if the fact that there is no chance in hell MS will go for the deal had any role in the offer.

In any case, this is a briliant PR/Marketing move on the part of RedHat, that will result in great publicity reguardless of Microsoft's answer.

Whoever came up witht this at RH is definitely earning their pay.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[13013dobbs]

The do 'profit' is some way. The same way people were howling about in the MS offer. RedHat will get a nice tax write-off. Despite how nice everyone thinks RedHat is, they are still a company. They want to make money. RedHat isn't dong this for the children any more than MS is.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[dark_panda]

They do stand to gain something out of the deal, though -- a generation of kids brought up using Red Hat Linux instead of Microsoft Windows would definitely help them out in the long run.

The five-years from now is nothing. When we're talking long run, we should be looking over the next 30, 40, 50 years. Nobody's looking for any money in 5 years, they're all thinking, "how can we get these kids hooked on our products so that for the rest of their lives, they're buying from us?" It's what every advertising agency is trying to do when it advertises to kids and teens -- it tries to hook them on a product for the rest of their consuming days.

Not much difference here, but at least Red Hat is an alternative to the beast.

To think they stand to gain nothing in the long run is foolish.

J

J

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[morcego]

Actually, they are making money.
First, they are disrupting a very important user base M$ has. Second, these are the people that will recomend RedHat.
On a last note, doesn't it get them some kind of tax deduction ?

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Decimal]

Nobody's looking for any money in 5 years

Hm, no, that's exactly what Microsoft was looking for in it's "you have to purchase any new software after 5 years" clause. (And yeah, it helps them in the long run, too.)

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right the Red Hat did this no more out of altruism than Microsoft did. But there is a crucial distinction: this is supposed to be a PUNISHMENT for Microsoft for illegal misdeeds; that doesn't apply to Red Hat.

Red Hat's proposal, whether adopted or not (and it almost certainly won't be) just highlights that the original proposal was not only not a punishment, it was a boon to Microsoft.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[imrdkl]

Clearly, the defendent (MS) has motivation here. I also think redhat is being more than just a friend of the court... there must be something to gain for them. But to dismiss their gesture as purely profit-mongering is perhaps a bit too strong. I want to believe otherwise, anyways.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

"I also think redhat is being more than just a friend of the court... there must be something to gain for them."

They are battling for the hearts and minds of America's youth. And hurting a competitor in the process while getting a tax writeoff. Anyways I still agree with your sentiment.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[13013dobbs]

Well, according to a NYTimes quote in this post. The MS money could be used for any computer/OS. I don't see that in the RedHat proposal. I hope RedHat is doing this for a good cause, but since they are a company, I doubt that is the case.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Alpha State]

On the other hand, shouldn't it tell the DOJ / attourneys etc. something if another company is willing to do the same thing as Microsoft's punishment for free? Like maybe it's not a punishment? Like maybe BillG and pals are cackling evilly and toasting each other as soon as they get out of the coutroom as they are "punished" by further extending their power while at the same time looking like goody 2-shoes?

We should thank anyone who is willing to provide free stuff to schools (tobacco companies excluded), but MS was supposed to be being punished. It pisses people off to see them suggesting their own punishment and then refusing anything else. Its a double standard and displays the lack of integrity of the US justice system.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[ideut]

Fucking retard. They won't turn a profit from the tax deduction. Jesus.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they will get no tax "write off". Microsoft WILL get a write off under tax laws due to computer hardware is itemizable by IRS standards. Software is not covered as a taxable gift/donation due to its extremely low cost in duplication which may or may not consist of any physical state (ie CD or diskette).

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[dark_panda]

But which do you think Microsoft is more concerned with -- getting a bit of money in five years or getting a lot of moneyo ver the course of the next couple of decades?

That's what I was getting at. It's the long, long run that's important here, not five years down the line.

J

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[packetgeek]

I'm sure that is what Red Hat would like but I'm also sure they know how well its worked in the past. How many of you remember when Apple filled classrooms with free computers/software back in the 80's. Everyone I know was taught to program in AppleBasic and LOGO, and we're so hooked on Apple that... Look, MS stands to kill the school budgets in 5 years with licensing fees. RH can only hope that MAYBE some of the kids that use RH at school will like it enough to use it later on. And unlike MS if the kids do get good at using the software, they are LESS likely to find themselves 1.) Forced into upgrades 2.) Paying huge licensing fees 3.) locked into using ANY particular companies products (software or hardware). I say good for Red Hat, it's pretty rare that buisness gets a chance to do good works without making shareholders nervous.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, shouldn't it tell the DOJ / attourneys etc. something if another company is willing to do the same thing as Microsoft's punishment for free?

This is not a punishment by the DOJ. This is a settlement in private suits that states have filed against Microsoft. Microsoft and the states worked out this deal, the DOJ had nothing to do with it. Microsoft was not convicted of anything by any states, this is an out of court settlement. Do you see the difference? Two totally different trials, there wasn't even a trial for the states. The states thought they were overcharging for software, so they are giving a bunch away to schools for free. That is called a settlement. This was not mandated by any government or justice agency. This was a deal worked out by MS and states, a contract of sorts. There was no case, no conviction, no one was found guilty of anything. The US Justice system has nothing to do with this, there was no double standard. There was no loss of integrity. Please understand the basics of law before addressing this matter in future posts. Thank you.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Colin Bayer]

> The MS money could be used for any computer/OS. I don't see that in the RedHat proposal.

Oh, come on... we all *know* what the M$ money would purchase software-wise; either Macs (with the absurdly expensive OfficeXP for Mac) or PCs (with the almost-equally expensive WindowsXP in addition to the absurdly expensive office software).

RedHat can't *afford* to give out any product but its own; Microsoft has billions of dollars in the bank and this would be a drop in the bucket.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[13013dobbs]

Oh, come on... we all *know* what the M$ money would purchase software-wise; either Macs (with the absurdly expensive OfficeXP for Mac) or PCs (with the almost-equally expensive WindowsXP in addition to the absurdly expensive office software).
Well, if that is what the schools want to buy, who are we to tell them otherwise? OSS advocates need to show these schools that RedHat (or whatever distro)is a better product for education. If the schools are shown that it is in fact better they will opt for those. If they are forced to use RedHat, lots of those computer may never be used. I feel that some sort of split between MS, Linux, and Mac would be best for the children, IMHO.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[ludopudo]

the president of the region I live in, flanders - dutch speaking part of belgium - has made this great deal with bill gates, schools can get their microsoft software cheaper, wonder why Bill agreed to that,

I teach teachers on how to build a school-LAN, 50% of the schools I work with are working on second hand pentium I machines, last week I networked 5 486-s, wonder where their budget went to

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[jeremyhu]

MS's proposal is no doubt an attempt to extend their monopoly, and I'm sure they'll have a huge celebration if they get their way. On the other hand, Red Hat is taking a huge gamble with this move. This can potentially cause paying schools to take a second look at the lower cost of Red Hat systems to replace the old Macs and Win9x/NT boxes, but I think it has a huge risk of backfireing as many (if not all) of these lower income schools lack the technical staff to maintain the machines. On the other hand, some children are really quick to learn linux, and it may be that the children will in the end help with the maintainance of the machines and take the burden off of Red Hat. Can you say "Susie got 3 gold stars for sysadmin skills"?

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Ed Bailey]

Despite how nice everyone thinks RedHat is, they are still a company. They want to make money. RedHat isn't dong this for the children any more than MS is.

The first two points of yours that I've quoted are certainly true. However, after seeing the efforts made -- at all levels of the company -- to help make technology available to the poorer schools in the US, I can tell you that your last statement is false. We've had the OS:N: section on our website for some time now, and have helped the k12ltsp project in both exposure (at a recent educational show in NC), and in technology (helping to package the k12ltsp software so that it'll install cleanly and easily on Red Hat Linux).

The k12ltsp project is especially cool, because it makes it relatively easy to set up a group of diskless workstations for student use; since we're talking about Linux, those workstations don't have to be high-end machines, making it possible to do more with less (always a favorite approach with under-funded school systems).

So sure, our suggested approach to Microsoft's settlement certainly wouldn't hurt us, but if you think it's a completely self-serving action, you're missing a large part of the story...

Ed

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[beable]

It's about time somebody released a new Linux distribution:
"VeggieLinux: The easy to use desktop Linux that administers itself!".

After all, if Apple can get a bunch of Mac-lovin' frootloops to accept a BSD system, and somehow worked out a way that it can keep running, there's really no excuse for Linux to not have an easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain distribution especially designed for novice desktop use.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[mmol_6453]

I'll say this before I get modded down: I love Linux.

"how can we get these kids hooked on our products so that for the rest of their lives, they're buying from us?"

That strongly reminds me of cigarette manufacturers...

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[mmol_6453]

(Before I get modded down: I love Linux)

1.) Forced into upgrades

The only difference between Linux and Windows in this respect is who chooses to upgrade: You or the OS. In Linux, you're pretty much forced into upgrading, anyway.

To compile just about any recent piece of software, you have to have the latest (g)libc, the latest gtk, the latest glib, the latest QT, whatever.

In Debian (which I use) you have the choice of three sets of software: potato/stable(old stuff), woody/testing(recent stuff) or sid/unstable(bleeding edge).

If you're running potato, you can pretty much forget about using anything but the most fundamental and/or barely-recent-enough-to-be-used stuff, but you don't have to upgrade all that often, and you'll find yourself often downloading and compiling those more recent apps you want.

If you're running woody(as am I), you'll find yourself updating about once a week, at anywhere between 30-60MB continuous downloading, and you'll still occasionally be manually installing things occasionally.

If you're running sid, you'll find yourself with a hefty download every couple of days, with things occasionally breaking during install. (case in point: remember when the perl package broke? Debconf was killed, and that made it a real PITA to try to continue installing the remaining packages, not to mention installing additional ones.)

About the only thing you're not absolutely required to update at every version release is Linux itself. I know an ISP who still has their DNS server running on a 2.0.x kernel.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[nil_null]

Imagine a generation of children growing up on Linux. I think that's what RedHat is envisioning, and I say "rock on." Children have an amazing ability to learn, through the good stuff at them early.

I wish someone had taken that DOS prompt away from me and replaced it with a UNIX prompt when I started out, though my beginning learning experience was good nonetheless. From ages 8-12 I went from DOS to BASIC to C to ASM (though ASM was a huge challenge for me, I could've learned better with the right guidance) and onwards... Good times.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[jeremyhu]

He wasn't saying that they will turn a profit from tax deductions.

Basically, they will not have to pay taxes on the money used for this purpose... in other words, you're kinda getting Uncle Sam to pitch in when you give to a non-profit

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

how interested are you really? Or are you
paid to lurk here?
get a life

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Shelled]

That makes no sense. It's a gamble that we'll be using PC's in 30 years, much more so that Linux (or Windows or Mac) will still be around (or remembered.) Fifty years is an epoc in technology time. Think of what giving schools free DOS in 1990 would have meant in 2040.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[mmol_6453]

If Microsoft was concerned more with far-future profits than near-future ones, their PR department would behave a lot differently...

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Malcontent]

nevertheless the question remains. Why would the states settle in terms that massively favor MS? What was promised to whom? How much you want to bet lawyers and politicians were bribed immensely in order for MS to get this gift.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Lunastorm]

I disagree that people are forced to upgrade in Linux. Unless the schools want to remain on the bleeding edge of technology, I think they would be content with the programs they have that although old, would be sufficient for their usage. If schools used Debian and Potato was too outdated, they could stick with one version of Woody for awhile until that Woody can no longer stand, prompting them to upgrade to the next testing install of Debian. It might have some problems, but I'm sure it'd still be better than Windows. :P

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not talking about cigarettes here

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Colin Bayer]

Well, if that is what the schools want to buy, who are we to tell them otherwise?

I'm not saying that the schools will want it, but they'll get it anyway. Microsoft will send marketroids to any dissenting school districts by the dozen preaching about the perceived advantages of Microsoft software. Since these are, by and large, school districts that are severely lacking in technology (and qualified professionals to run it, by the same logic), they will fall for it hook, line, and sinker. In addition, Microsoft has a lot of "wiggle room" (for lack of a better phrase) with which to offer, shall we say, special incentives (free software). As long as they're not doing this to large numbers of school districts, the "donation" goes off as planned, and they gain valuable mindshare, PR fodder, etc.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Tony-A]

What's with all this technical staff to maintain the machines?
With about a half-assed setup (you don't really need bind and lpr, do you?) it's pretty close to zero-maintenance for the stuff you need. If someone manages to really screw it up, you can easily reinstall (might put /home on its own filesystem)

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

When Redhat is donating 200000 computers for free, then it will be doing the same. And MS-donation is NOT a punishmet, it's a settlement.

And BTW, no-one is stopping Redhat - they can donate ALL they want to the schools. Do you see them doing it ? Or even proposing to do it - unless they can use it to snap at MS. Nope.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[dark_panda]

It's the brand name here that's important, not so much the product. Companies change with the times. In 30 years, we might not be using PCs, but odds are Microsoft, IBM et al. will still be around, selling something else, banking on their brand name, not the product itself. They're not just going to remain static and simply push one product. When PCs die, they'll be there with something else.

50 years might be an epoch in technological terms, to huge businesses like Microsoft, IBM, etc., it's not all that much. I would bet they'll still be around in 2040, and they'll still be recognied by their brand name, while their original products (Windows, PCs, etc.) will likely be forgotten. But that won't matter, 'causepeople will be hooked on the brand name, not the product itself, which is much more valuable.

As for Red Hat, who knows. Odds are, they won't be exclusive to Linux for their entire existance, and while I'd be somewhat surprised if they made it to 2040, if they did, yeah, linux would be long gone, but they'd just be selling something else. Maybe red hats, who knows.

J

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[webgiant]

A generation of kids using RedHat Linux won't necessarily help RedHat specifically. RedHat is not all of Linux like Micro$oft is all of Windoze. Raise a generation on Linux, and the next distro to be better at Linux than RedHat will get them all. After all, isn't Mandrake based on RedHat?

Secondly, there is a substantial difference between raising children on a closed-source (and closed-practically-everything-else) OS and raising them on an Open Source OS.

A Closed OS produces children who know how to do things within the limited information provided by the Closed OS provider.

An Open Source OS, on the other hand, produces children who aren't discouraged from learning the innards of the OS. There are children out there trying to achieve this level using the Closed OS, such as the teenager I read of recently who was A+, Network+, and i-Net+ certified already at 16. If the company making their OS wasn't actively trying to limit their educations, we'd fix our IT professional shortage through the High School Summer Jobs Program! :)

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[Anonymous Coward]

> They do stand to gain something out of the
> deal, though -- a generation of kids brought
> up using Red Hat Linux instead of Microsoft
> Windows would definitely help them out in the
> long run.

for that matter, the kids will be helped out as well, since there will be more kids getting computer experience under the Red Hat plan, and it will be unix (linux) experience, which will be more marketable.

which experience would you rather have for your children:
(1) microsoft office experience, so they can work as an office clerk; or,
(2) unix experience, so they can possibly learn system administration?

of course, they probably won't let the kids use a term anyways, and I doubt microsoft will be donating copies of office, so maybe it won't matter *which* deal is approved...

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[packetgeek]

I understand and agree with you that to run a *current software set* you need to do it as a whole system. Keep in mind however that next November when MS ceases support for Win95 and WinNT, any users (corporate or otherwise) will be forced to choose between a wholesale upgrade of their Operating System and many of its applications (especially considering that MS will not sell them licenses for Win2K but rather they will have to leapfrog over it to XP) or accept the fact that NO patches will be written for security vulnerabilities, programming errors or any other reason. With Linux you can succesfully choose to run a 0.9x kernel if your programming skills are sufficient or you are willing to pay someone to write the necessary changes. As it is, even now, MS is no longer writing service packs for NT. Imagine if you had a system that was doing everything you wanted it too yet you had to pay for new licenses for your O.S. and many of your applications, go through the testing required for new software, writing new training materials, training the users and actually upgrading all of the involved systems. Just because new flaws will occasionaly be exposed and you have no way to compensate. I still maintain that MS forces upgrades and Linux does not. Also, I too love Linux but this topic goes beyond those feelings and reaches into the ability of a person being allowed to run their system as they choose to.

Re:Red Hat will Settle For The Children

[mmol_6453]

I agree completely.

But now I wonder...with so many companies being forced to change their OS, with profits being low due to a bad economy, does that suggest that they'll try Linux + GNOME/KDE in an effort to cut costs?

They'll have to train their employees in using Linux (unless they use some wm that looks a lot like the Windows interface), of course.

The question is, will they use Linux and pay the cost of training,

or

will they rent WindowsXP and hope their profits are higher when the rent's due next?

Linux is obviously the better choice for long-term, especially when you consider its growing support and its monetary cost. But there's also business politics.

mwahaha

[wrinkledshirt]

At least Red Hat sees what's going on: Microsoft's "punishment" is hardly a punishment, instead it's just an expanded advertising campaign that can lay the groundwork for a MS-addiction of enormous proportions once this phase of the punishment runs out.

What's too bad, though, is that MS had the foresight to see what a golden opportunity this sort of punishment was, and Red Hat is only seeing it now that MS has suggested it (and frantically scrambling to make sure it doesn't go through). I was livid when I heard about what a cop-out this whole thing turned out to be, but I was also a little peeved that none of the Linux vendors realized what a potentially important market this could be to invest in.

Have to hand it to Microsoft. Satan himself runs the show, but Satan is no dummy.

Re:mwahaha

[_ph1ux_]

welp if we're gunna blame anyone for addicting us to windows it should be the game industry. Thats right Carmack - its all your fault. If you hadnt released them games, I wouldnt have had to have spent all my money on new computer parts and games. And most of us may have had a chance at a social life - instead we spend many many hours sitting in dark little rooms staring into the screen shouting "WTF!! I HAD YOU!!!"

Re:mwahaha

[Trepalium]

Lets be honest. This entire settlement has very little to do with Linux. In fact, I'd wager that this settlement has more to do with the fact that Microsoft would like to break into Apple's other big niche -- schools. Apple has a huge installed base in the school system, and those computers that are there aren't moving out anytime soon. Microsoft says they're willing to supply Macintosh software, but what do you want to bet the PC alternative (shipped with Windows, of course) will be cheaper or more systems for fewer "dollars". If an educator had to choose between 7 macintoshes or 10 PCs with Windows, what do you think they'd choose? Apple should be the one stinging from this more than anyone else -- not only has Microsoft potentially reduced their sales for the next years, they've also increased their installed base, and come out of the entire anti-trust lawsuit smelling like a rose.

More info.

[exceed]

There is an article that deals with this same issue that was released a day or two ago over at The Register

Click.

Never happen.

[rde]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who sniggered when I read this. I'm also probably not the only one who doubts it'll happen.
The question is: why? When Microsoft get their way, this move is merely an investment for a few years down the road, when every donated OS will need to be upgraded at great expense. So how is the Justice Department going to justify not accepting Red Hat's offer?

Re:Never happen.

[flacco]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who sniggered when I read this. I'm also probably not the only one who doubts it'll happen.

I'm sure Red Hat knows it'll never happen, but the publicity is priceless. It reminds me of Taco Bell putting out that 40-foot-square target in the middle of the ocean and offering something to somebody if the space station plummeting to earth hit it: never happen, but it sure got them on a lot of news broadcasts.

Re:Never happen.

[Reality Master 101]

So how is the Justice Department going to justify not accepting Red Hat's offer?

Sheesh, perhaps because Linux is useless for classrooms, and the schools don't want it?

Screw what the schools actually want, we'll just force Linux down their throat and make them like it, right?

Re:Never happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

uuh..how bout the students want it but the schools dont ? i know i would have killed to have a linux box in my school when i was there.
gcc+gasm+pico+make+jdk+X/MOTIF+TeX+pine+netscape /m oz=yummy.
i know i coulda used it all had i got it. instead i got access to this crummy winnt boxes with no dev tools and just a web browser. worse than useless.

Re:Never happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get an anxiety attack, little troll. Your world will not end yet.

Re:Never happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell makes you think that all of that crap will be installed? Like they're going to have you compiling exploits on a school machine...

Re:Never happen.

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

A free taco for everyone in America, I believe (USA, or the two continents of America, I wonder?)

Re:Never happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

its a redhat box. all that and more is installed by default.

Re:Never happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Screw what the schools actually want, we'll just force Linux down their throat and make them like it, right?"

Screw what the schools actually want, we'll just force Microsoft software down their throat and make them like it, right?

You stupid flaming idiot.

Re:Never happen.

[The Grey Mouser]

Sheesh, perhaps because Linux is useless for classrooms, and the schools don't want it?

Why so? Just about every software function available under Windows is also available under Linux. Web browsers, office suites, mathematics programs like Octave and PDL, photo and image creation/manipulation. Really, what's missing? Even knowledge of the command line is not strictly necessary, with a properly configured GUI (and presumably the Red Hat ladz will do a proper job with this, given its visibility). And even if they had to learn a bit of the command line; well, it is a school after all, so an argument that choosing Windows because it's more familiar or "easier" is perhaps a bit specious---it may be the wrong choice for precisely those reasons.

Screw what the schools actually want, we'll just force Linux down their throat and make them like it, right?

I think you're badly misrepresenting what is going on here. The schools in question have few or no computers now. They are in poor districts, and would welcome any influx of computer resources, and literally cannot afford to be OS-bigots as you can. If Red Hat's offer (whatever its real intent) will allow them to field several times more computers than they could if obliged to use Microsoft's "donations", that seems like a very good solution indeed. And given that the source code is accessible, it might even make the perfect learning tool for some poor, bright children who are looking for a challenge. There's a much greater capacity for tinkering with an OS like Linux or *BSD. The tools are there, the code is there, waiting to be discovered by some clever, slightly bored kid. I just don't see Windows offering that same spark (are they planning on including development tools in this package?)

Regards,

Michael

Re:Never happen.

[damiam]

Why so? Just about every software function available under Windows is also available under Linux.

Linux doesn't have any of the cheesy educational games. Fractionoids, Math/Spell Dodger, Math Blaster, Classworks, etc. are't available for Linux. Now, in my opinion, almost all educational games are stupid and don't help kids learn. But the schols will still want them, and Linux will never be accepted in middle and elementary schools until it has better educational software (high schools are the exception, because Linux is very useful for CS classes).

Re:Never happen.

[swv3752]

My understanding is most of those games work just fine under WINE. Besides if this actually went through, you would probably be seeing some Educational Software Companies actually produce for Linux. The number of new computers will be huge and the ripple effect will be great.

Re:Never happen.

[mmol_6453]

...what's missing?

I've been doing research on this, trying to put together a plan to get my HS to run Linux.

Can't find my list ATM, but here's what I remember off the top of my head:

* Grade tracking software
* class/student scheduler w/ dynamic adds and subtracts

My school uses Groupwise for email, announcements and local newsgroups (though none of the staff know how to use the last).

I've been able to find pretty much everything else that teachers use.

I'm taking Journalism (yet again...cause I like it) next semester, and it looks like I'll be a weekly columnist in the school paper. I plan on asking what teachers and administrators use their computers for.

Re:Never happen.

[Micah]

Have you checked out the SEUL Edu Project? I know at leas two guys from there were working on grade software a long time ago. I would immagine they have something by now. And probably other tracking software as well. Contact them if you haven't yet!

Re:Never happen.

[biohazard99]

One thing that just occured to me, is there a QuarkXpress clone for *nix, from quark's page all they support is Mac and Windows, so for say Journalism courses, they could need some professional grade typesetting without learning TeX.

Re:Never happen.

[damiam]

My understanding is most of those games work just fine under WINE.

My understanding is that most of these games are for Macs and therefore don't run under Wine.

Besides if this actually went through, you would probably be seeing some Educational Software Companies actually produce for Linux.

Good point.

It's ingenious

[Scoria]

Introduce the kids at an early age to Linux so that they'll demand it on their parents' machines! What a diabolical scheme! *calls the tabloids*

I guess they learned from the best. (Microsoft)

:)

Re:It's ingenious

[iomud]

Introduce the kids at an early age to Linux so that they'll demand it on their parents' machines! What a diabolical scheme! *calls the tabloids*

That didn't really work out for Apple did it? What makes us think it will work for Linux? Granted it's not an apples to apples comparison but there is a parallel that can be drawn. I just hope we aren't comprimising an ethics model to make a smart business decision.

Re:It's ingenious

[Scoria]

Sure it worked for Apple. It made the kids want a pretty little sticker with the Apple logo on it. At least, from what I observed.

Perhaps it didn't work as intended...

:)

Re:It's ingenious

[Anonymous Coward]

linux is shit. red hat is shit.. long live microsoft.

Re:It's ingenious

[mmol_6453]

It wasn't an Apples to Apples comparison then, either. It was Apples to PCs. :)

Deja vu

[FTL]

Sorry Hemos, Michael beat you to it in the update to this story.

Re:Deja vu

[Judas96']

Am I the only one that is starting get the feeling posters are browsing the archives of /. just to find 'new' stories to submit?

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, as George Carlin might say, vu da je.

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's "vu ja de", and it has no bearing on this story. Why? As George puts it, it's the unescapable feeling that none of this has ever happened before.

Re:Deja vu

[destiney]

Actually it's

vu-ja-dé - The inescapable feeling that you've never done anything even remotely like this in your entire fucking life.

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

i have a smegging idea. why doesnt the slashdot team sit down every day and have a meeting. i dont care if its over a phone, a computer, or just all in the same room. in this meeting they can suggest stories to post and discuss them.

how is this beneficial?

1. it would eliminate ALL OF THESE ANNOYING DUPES

2. it might add some integrity to the operation

3. we can pre-filter the jon katz articles that are total trash from the partial trash ones

4. it might encourage them to actually find good stories to post.... higher quality would be goood.

dont ignore me as a troll, what good am i for complaining about dupes if i dont make suggestions on how to solve the problem.

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

"3. we can pre-filter the jon katz articles that are total trash from the partial trash ones"

there are no partial trash jon katz articles,just complete trash ones. and you can already filter him out anyway.

tongue-in-cheek?

[naughtynative]

... it wouldn't be if US lawmakers had a clue.

Great! And then what?

[NetJunkie]

What will the kids run? What educational software is there for Linux? I mean REALLY? Sure, there is some, but it's not even close to what is available for Windows.

Let's not forget, these are students and teachers. These aren't Unix geeks running this stuff. Do we really expect them to run and get around in Linux? Anyone else remember how well the computers were supported in school? Almost not at all. If it wasn't spelled out in a book word for word they couldn't do it.

Also, The Red Hat Network is nice..but it's not what I'd call full support. Microsoft's support would go further than Windows Update, which is the equivelant of RHN.

Nice marketing ploy though..doubt it'll see much press.

I am thankful today for...

[SbooX]

...duplicate postings! ;)

That and turkey! Lotsa turkey coming my way!

Nice idea

[snoozerdss]

Nice idea and all but it'll never happen. I can hear Bill Gates Laughing now.

Why not let the schools choose?

[13013dobbs]

How is this going to help the kids? People don't want MS to give the software cause it is a tax write-off and will force kids to learn Windows based OSes. It seems that RedHat wants the same thing: a tax break and to force kids to learn RedHat based OSes (Linux). Why not let the schools decide what would be best for their kids to learn? I think it will look bad for the OSS community to force schools to use OSS. Maybe a 50/50 split? This way kids can learn Windows (which is a valuable skill, despite what some people think of MS) and will learn Linux (which is an equaly valuable skill, despite what some people think of Linux).

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[brad3378]

&gt Why not let the schools decide what would be best for their kids to learn? I think it will look bad for the OSS community to force schools to use OSS. Maybe a 50/50 split

Are you proposing that we get VMware invloved also?

;)

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[imrdkl]

Maybe a 50/50 split?

Why not install dual boot and MS gives away their cdroms too?

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[13013dobbs]

Could do that, but I would guess that those dual-boot systems would mostly be booted into Windows. And that brings up the question: "Do schools want Linux?" If the schools can't/don't use the Linux boxes, it is kind of a waste. If we are going to push for Linux boxes to be part of the settlement, we had better make sure that there is usable educational software for the boxes.

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[imrdkl]

Hmm, wouldn't a single installer CD with both, uh, distros be doable? Further, with a sensible choice of window manager and a clean UI which will resist pranksters while allowing experimentation and increased "rights" for the students that want to learn more on the Linux side, I cant see a real problem with it.

The real "goldmine" here is in the website portal, after all. Yes?

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[13013dobbs]

It depends on what these computers are going to be used for. If they are for CS type learning, then your idea would work. If they are going to be used to 'teach' math or reading, or spelling, or anything non-CS related, you are going to need software for that. In those cases the teachers/students will be using aps, not an OS. If there are no usable educational aps, those Linux boxes are just going to be used as door stops or paper weights.

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[imrdkl]

Yea, maybe so. But I guess there are alot of educational software programs that only require a browser. Hell, you can get a degree on the web, nowadays. The students boot into the OS they want to use, ideally. Once they get past the browser, they really mostly need the word-processor. At this tender age, m$word has not yet been ingrained on the brain either. Perhaps that would make a linux package more natural to learn. In fact, I bet Sun would be happy to throw in their Star Office, even.

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it will look bad for the OSS community to force schools to use OSS.

Get a fucking grip. This has nothing to do with how people view Open Source community.

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[Anonymous Coward]

So Red Hat offering to let them use OSS software is forcing, but MS offering software is good? Your full of shit you stupid Microsoft troll. Microsoft should be forced to give to schools FOREVER, whatever the schools need. They should not be able to right it off and every infraction of the agreement should be a 1 billion dollar fine. Bill Gates should be forced to go to school to finish his degree and pay for it by working a part time job so he knows what a majority of the people have to go through in this world. He is nothing but a self-centered bastard rich boy.

Re:Why not let the schools choose?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. This would help kids by teaching them the same basic skills that they would learn under Windows but also *so much more*! They could actually learn the basic ideas underneath the glossy but crappy software that is Windows/Office/MS.

2. It's not about the tax write-off. Software is somewhat unique in that once the product exists, it costs the manufacturer next to nothing to produce. Producing a copy of Office and Windows for every school in America would cost Microsoft a relatively small amount of money. Hardware is a much different story.

3. As others have pointed out, this is supposed to be a punishment for illegal business practices. This is not even a slap on the wrist!

Microsoft Hardware.

[x136]

Sounds good, but Microsoft donating hardware?

Microsoft mice and Sidewinders for all! (Microsoft CP/M cards for schools still using Apple IIs of course)

Wheew!

[joebp]

The money freed by removing Microsoft's software from the settlement equation is enough to buy one million PCs, instead of the 200,000 proposed by Microsoft, Red Hat says.

Jesus, that is quite a few PCs.

I for one hope this happens. I find it kinda amusing that Microsoft's proposed settlement includes extending their monopoly into schools, tying a generation or two to Microsoft products.

Judge: For the unlawful shooting of a Police Officer, I sentance you to be thrown in jail for 3 years!
Microsoft: I've got a better idea, why don't I kill 3 more? Then you can let me off!!1

More at The Register

Re:Wheew!

[ekrout]

Brilliant comment! If only the justices had your intelligence...

Better

[denzo]

I think this is a better proposal, particularly because it doesn't allow Microsoft to advertise itself as much. Think about it, Microsoft giving away its operating system (with a computer) for free to schools is basically advertising; they're paying the school (in-directly) to use their software, where the payment is a free computer and license for Windows. How is this supposed to be an acceptable settlement for those opposing Microsoft's illegal monopoly?

If Microsoft gave something tangible away such as hardware with no strings attached to what operating system must be installed on them, then I think the settlement would be more fair to competition such as RedHat. Microsoft needs to prove that competition can viably exist, not the other way around, in order to achieve a settlement.

Now, I'm not sure that RedHat should be the only company in on the agreement. This smells of opportunism. Like I said, whomever gets this deal is effectively advertising to the school children and teachers. What about making Microsoft pay for some iMacs too?

What idiocy

[Reality Master 101]

Does Red Hat think the schools just sit around and take whatever people give? In order for this Red Hat deal to mean anything, the schools have to WANT Linux. Why would they want it? What educational software that they use is going to be work on it?

Once again, it has to be pointed out: People use applications, not operating systems.

People can whine all they want about Microsoft, but it doesn't change the fact that Windows is the industry standard operating system. Schools are a lot better off having something useful, than some empty political gesture that will gather dust in the corner.

Re:What idiocy

[bstadil]

The school takes whatever they are told to TAKE! Most teachers are not very computer litterate and can typically only use a few simple apps. The diminishing benefits of MS Office's latest functionality is of little consequence or value. They can use StarOffice, KDE office etc. just fine, and spend more money on whatever else the school needs.

Re:What idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

What educational software that they use is going to be work on it?

Exactly!
None. Period. No educational software will run on it. Just like no educational software runs on windows.
Think about it, and try not to hurt your head.
If you've ever been even remotely associated with the public school system, student or otherwise, you would know that the computers are not loaded up with "educational" software.
Computer classes is the school system are designed to teach you how to use a word processor, spreadsheet, and maybe a graphics program like MacPaint. Some even have internet connections that allow you to do research, or find proxy holes to get some porn.

The point is, that "educational" software is something that parents buy from Best Buy's "educational" software section to make them feel better about themselves. The kids think its boring, don't learn shit from it, and would rather play shoot 'em up video games.

I think redhat's idea is an excellent one. KDE, star office, gimp, and some compilers would be everthing a school would need for their computer classes.

What is disgusting is how microsoft can take the government's slap on the wrist and turn it into an investment.

Re:What idiocy

[Asic Eng]

What educational software that they use is going to be work on it?

Admittedly I don't know what educational software schools use. On the other hand, I imagine schools might want to teach skills like wordprocesssing, spreadsheets, provide internet access, teach programming. Linux gives you all that, and updates for the foreseable future free of charge.

I'm sure there is other stuff which won't run, but if you want to learn about computers you can get such a wealth of programming languages and tools free for linux. Whereas whatever is not included in the MS package the schools would have to actually buy. Since those are poor schools, it would basically mean it's unavailable.

I imagine keeping an MS environment in a school virus free is a major challenge, too.

Re:What idiocy

[Lumpy]

Simple, the schools dont care what they run on the computers. they dont know ther are alternatives.
If you show them that their computer lab of 100 pc's costs them 10,000 every 2 years with the microsoft tax, and their CS class costs them another $20,000 in costs for the Development software plus the yearly $4000.00 per MCSE to keep the certification and training up, the service agreements with the consulting firm.. etc.. and you can wipe that cost in 1/2 or more.

They'll want.... they'll want it pretty dang bad.
Dollars run your school... not what software is best for them.. look at the really crappy apps they have teachers using, and the non-extiant security.

Re:What idiocy

[Virtex]

What educational software that they use is going to be work on it?

It's been a while since I was in school, but some of the things I remember them teaching were:

1. Typing: This is usually done with any program that students can type with, like a word processor. Yes, Linux has this.
2. Computer Literacy: Linux can be used to learn how to boot a system, log in, and run various programs. It's not difficult to do little things like change the background image, setup screensavers, create files and directories, etc. It is also quite capable of browsing the web. These are the types of things taught in computer literacy, and Linux can do them all.
3. Office Suites: Word processing and speadsheets. Schools are supposed to teach concepts, so which program they choose has little relevance. Even if they use MS Office, by the time these kids get into the real world, MS will have released a new version, with different layout. Yes, Linux has office suites.
4. Programming: Linux has a full suite of programming languages, including C, C++, and Java, which seem to be so popular in schools these days.
5. HTML: Linux has web servers, and supports advanced features like CGI programming and embedded languages. I would even say that Linux is superior to Windows in this area.

There may be some specialized cases where Linux doesn't have the right software, but for the majority of cases, I'd say it's more than capable of serving the role.

Way to go Redhat!

[hackel]

Many people seem to be ignoring that the offer of unlimited support from Redhat is considerable. They are basically donating their support services for nothing in return. It is a really wonderful gesture, regardless of whether it is "combating Microsoft" or anything like that. I must applaud them for the announcement.

Now, if only Redhat would support Debian instead of their own software, they'd really be great. ;-)

Article (-1 Redundant)

[Hobart]

Yo Jeff --

• This was already mentioned in Michael's followup to Jamie's article
• You posted an ssl (https) link to the front page of slashdot? Helping Red Hat beta-test their new crypto accelerator or something? ;-)
• 
  
  Happy holidays anyhow ;-)
  
  

Re:Article (-1 Redundant)

[thesolo]

Well, maybe he wanted to open a dedicated discussion to the topic. His update was made very late in that previous topic, so only the last few comments mentioned anything about it.

Interesting idea

[cadfael]

Okay, this is a VERY good PR move by someone who could actually be around to provide support for a longer time. It would give their business much needed positive exposure to other customers and make them more attractive. It would also force the Open Source community to prove that the software is ready for prime time (and where it isn't, it would point out where the work needs doing).

So, we all probably doubt that M$ will go for it, but I would love to see this at least receive consideration in the press.

Re:Interesting idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why MS has to go for anything... they're supposed to be PUNISHED, they're not supposed to be the ones who decide how that happens.

Well done Red Hat

[Delifisek]

I like this idea:)

In both condition. Its superior.

If M$ agrees, Red Hat and Linux Wins. M$ loose
If M$ disagrees, M$ loose again.

In any condition thats wery good idea. :)

Ah ah ah. M$, this time you had nowhere to escape.

Great strategy.

That seems a bit strange.

[Lord Hugh Toppingham]

Since redhat software is free, and in no way suitable for education. Our kids need to learn the tools of business, and I am sorry Redhat, but that means Windows, and Word.

I hope the Maryland authorities do not get taken in by this shameless publicity stunt from Redhat.

And all you linux zealots out there, moderating this as a troll does not make it any less true.

Linux is still not quite ready for prime time. Will it ever be ?

Re:That seems a bit strange.

[bc90021]

When was the last time you even used Linux? What do you mean "not suitable for education"? Software that encourages people to learn what makes it run isn't suitable for education?

Have you seen KDE? Have you seen GNOME? By any chance, have you tried the new GNOME desktop?

And what about StarOffice 6 Beta?

Frankly, before you knock something, you really should try it.

I am willing to bet that within two years, Linux et al. will have M$ on the run.

Re:That seems a bit strange.

[AzrealAO]

No, it's not, unless the children are being taught classes on what makes Linux run. The computers are usually used as productivity tools and for research prior to highschool, not as the subject of the lessons themselves, so "learning what makes Linux work" has questionable educational value. They need the computers to work to run their other software, which is used in support of their lessons.

Re:That seems a bit strange.

[chromatic]

Our kids need to learn the tools of business, and I am sorry Redhat, but that means Windows, and Word.

Let's make this a little more ridiculous. "Our kids need to learn the language of business, and I am sorry francophones, but that means English and not French. That means no German, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, Portugese, Arabic, Farsi, Latin, or Greek."

Perhaps those children who grow up to be scientists or researchers will start submitting journal papers in Word format instead of TeX? For what it's worth, I wrote a book, and didn't touch Word once. (Admittedly disingenuous on my part, as most of the publishing industry *does* expect authors to use Word. vim + DocBook worked for me, though.)

Re:That seems a bit strange.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but you should know that more businesses are moving over from Windows to Linux than the other way around. Also the StarOffice suite is nearly identical in functionality to MS Office...you learn to use one, you can use the other. So the educational value is there.

Linux IS ready for prime time. The revolution has already begun.

Re:That seems a bit strange.

[smcv]

I did clerical work in a completely MS-dependent company over the summer. The database front-end I spent 90% of my time in was written in-house anyway (probably attached to an Access DB, but I didn't need to know that), so no advantage in me knowing MS software there.

Interestingly, their multi-line phone system ran on a Unix box (I don't know which Unix, could be Linux, or not), which they could access from a couple of retired, too-slow-for-Office Win95 PCs running Exceed (an X implementation for Windows). The staff there seemed to cope fine with what looked (to me) suspiciously like twm and Tk...

IMO, in an ideal world schools would have at least Macs, some sort of Unix, and Windows (yes, I know this is unrealistic from an admin point of view, I'm talking hypothetically here). It's easy to fall into the trap of "because it's not the same as Windows, it's wrong" if Windows is too ubiqutous. As I remember, when I was at primary and secondary school, we didn't get too confused moving from BBC Micros to Acorn Archimedes to Windows PCs (and yes, my secondary school did just about have all those in active use by pupils, simultaneously!)

Re:That seems a bit strange.

[yomegaman]

more businesses are moving over from Windows to Linux than the other way around

Yeah, and more people are moving from life to death than the other way around, too.

Re:That seems a bit strange.

[bc90021]

Well, I don't know what kind of teachers you had, but the ones we had not only taught us to use tools, but how those tools worked as well. They also taught us *why* certain tools were used, instead of others - ie, what made Tool X useful for solving Problem Y.

Maybe the problem that you're suggesting is with the educational system, and not the software... ;)

Well played.

[EndersGame]

This is a styme on Microsoft as they are probably depending on accounting for the full cost of the licencing on the software that they will provide to come up with a huge number for the settlement.

Each machine is probably around $1000, but they will get them for significantly cheaper, but they can install $1000 worth of software on those systems for almost free.

I like RedHat's point. I'd really like to see the actual numbers on this, e.g. the percentage of the settlement that results from hardware versus software expenses. Also, the limited licences are a scam.

They won't for a number of reasons

[Das Fink]

We won't get much anti Red Hat from this for a number of reasons.
1. This is red hat here and not M$, Red Hat rarely gets bashed here.
2.Red Hat isn't trying to cop out of punishment for abusing a monopoly.
3. I think most people see this for what it is. It is a grab for publicity by calling M$'s bluff on giving money "to the Children". This puts M$ in an uncomfortable position of exposing their true intentions or blowing off the Red Hat deal alltogether.
I would like to see this come together, but I know it won't

Here's my proposed solution

[tcd004]

My Plan for MS

tcd004

great idea!

[Niksie3]

Damn good Idea... having MS give away Windoze isn't going to help fix up their monopoly! I think Microsoft should pay RedHat for the support + software.

Nico

Re:great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the problems is that M$ is going to claim full retail value for the stuff that they are going to "give away". Their marginal cost of producing this stuff is nil. Their forgone sales will be nil. As usual, M$ keeps up their deceptive practices even when trying to negotiate the settlement to their earlier deceptive practices. No small wonder Judge Jackson was ballistic at them. After all, he was the guy who replaced Pozner in the earlier settlement... Make them pay an penalty at the very least. For a company that pays no corporate income taxes, they have a lot of nerve to wave the flag.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Kaz Kylheku]

I didn't see anything in the proposal about Microsoft not being allowed to provide their software, only that they also allow a competitor to provide software.

It's not a proposal for *only* Red Hat to provide the software, but for Red Hat to *also* provide software.

If competitors are excluded from the action, then it can hardly be called restitution for anti-competitive behavior!

almost good

[Krimsen]

I think more of a 60/40 or 70/30 (in RedHat's favor) is better. Windows is so prevalent that kids are bound to come in contact with it somewhere along the line. They are not too likely to come across Linux, which is why it should be more prevalent in the school. I agree though, having a percentage of Windows boxes would be a good idea.

Re:almost good

[Molt]

This doesn't make sense at all to me, if education is to be based on this then schools should teach something like Sumerian as a first language since English is so prevalent that kids are bound to come in contact with it somewhere along the line.
Schools don't want to run two operating systems, they want one so they only need support staff for that one. Looking at the world they're preparing the kids for they see that Windows, rightly or wrongly, is almost universally prevalent except in a few tech-centric/design areas. They want to prepare their students to go out into this world, and so they'll choose Windows.

Re:Great! And then what?

[TheABomb]

What will the kids run? What educational software is there for Linux? I mean REALLY? Sure, there is some, but it's not even close to what is available for Windows.

Well, if I remember back to my high school days (which were only a few years ago)--and pondering the current predicament of my college days--the "educational software" for Windows consisted of Internet Explorer, Word, PowerPoint, QBasic, and Visual Studio. On top of an NT server, not only does this provide for absolute zero stability, but the exceptional bugginess gets absolutely zero education done. Give me StarOffice or KOffice, Konqueror, Perl, and gcc, and I'll get infinitely more accomplished, and infinitely more education.

Re:Great! And then what?

[flacco]

What will the kids run? What educational software is there for Linux? I mean REALLY? Sure, there is some, but it's not even close to what is available for Windows.

Well, if you're learning about computers, EVERY program on a Linux box is educational!

umm....huh?

[linuxpng]

Explain how giving away a "limited" license for software that already monopolizes the desktop so that the schools can, presumably, buy a full featured license harms MS? Is giving Windows to schools really doing much of anything? It sounds like a pay off. I mean politicians can now say "we bullied MS into benefiting education." I must have missed this definition of justice.

Thank You

[LoRider]

I just heard about this "settlement" that MS would give schools more MS software. How is this punishment for MS? So MS gives a bunch of schools Windows XP or whatever, now they just ensure these schools continue to work in a MS environment making it harder for the school to justify going with an Open Source alternative.

The only punishment that makes sense to me would be for MS to give lots and lots of money and hardware if its hardware that works with non-MS software.

How much does it really cost MS to give out a few licences? How many people feel that Microsoft's goal is always been about gaining market share pure and simple (I know that's obvious). They really haven't been that concerned with people installing illegal copies of windows in the past. Their future is going to be making money off of services and leasing software that is controlled through Windows. Windows is merely a tool for MS to push more products and services, like the AOL software you get in the mail. AOL doesn't make money of the software, just the service.

Granted the new WinXP has some activation thing in it, but I don't know how that fits into my thought process because I don't yet understand what it does if you don't activate it after 30 days.

I'm done now.

Re:Thank You

[ZxCv]

If you don't activate it after 30 days, you can't login to the system. When logging in, it gives you the opportunity to activate, but if you don't it puts you right back at the login screen.

Go Redhat!

[brad3378]

Okay, at first I admit I was thinkin'
"Oh Geez Bob!" All software should be from Redhat distributions? - Big ego!

But then I started reading between the lines....

We all know that this is an attempt for M$ to please the government while expanding marketshare/advertising/"Philantropy image".

But what is brilliant about Bob's Plan is that if it were disputed, it would only add fuel to the microsoft monopoly argument. If Microsoft turns down this proposal (and I'm sure they will) it will prove that their intentions aren't as noble as they would have you to believe.

Re:Go Redhat!

[SirSlud]

Noble intentions? It's not like they woke up one morning, and offered what they did out of the goodness of their hearts. It's being proposed as a punishment, and everyone knows it.

MS and Bill Gates, despite their business practices, are still fairly active in the charity community, however, so I don't think you can paint this one black and white.

All I know, is that, if I were a teacher in a poor school, I'd be livid that it takes a mammoth corperation to engage in anti-competative business practices, in order to receive new equipment. I guess we really have forgotten what the government and taxes are for ..

I really don't think anyone needs to be sold a 'nice' image of Microsoft. Microsoft is successful because their software is the best at helping the computer illiterate at actually accomplishing some tasks (and/or making them think it is), in the same way that Titanic and Ammargeddon were successful because those movies are good at helping the culturally illiterate sit through a movie.

If you don't know what questions to ask, you'll probably be satisfied with whatever answer is thrown at you. Anything more, that might cause you to re-evaluate your own motives and tasks you wish to accomplish (or culture and values with respect to movies) will drive away people en masse.

Re:Go Redhat!

[AzrealAO]

This has nothing to do with the Government, this is a result of the Private Class Action Lawsuits brought against them, NOT The DoJ Anti-Trust Trial.
This proposal put forward by one of the Plaintiff 's Lawyers, NOT Microsoft as so many people here seem to think it was.
Here are relevant quotes from the Wired Article:
Michael Hausfeld, representing a group of private plaintiffs in Washington, D.C., said he thought of the unorthodox settlement idea about nine months ago after realizing that each of the 65 million computer buyers eligible to gain from a $1 billion settlement would receive little more than $10.
Hausfeld and other lawyers consulted with academics and other education experts, then worked with Microsoft to hammer out final terms of the deal, he said.
So again, this "deal" was proposed by the Plaintiff's Lawyers, not Microsoft, and it pertains to the Private Class Action Lawsuits, NOT The DoJ Anti-Trust Trial.

great..

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, let's expose kids to a distro that's hard to install (hardware detection isn't too great), ships with a buggy compiler (gcc 2.96, STILL, while real distros like SuSE ship with 2.95 and 3.0), and is only slightly more user friendly than Debian.

Re:great..

[Anonymous Coward]

and thats worse than an operating system that ships with no compiler at all, has bugs which make the system crash and pushes a monopoly ?
yeah right.

SHUT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

You heard me, if you havent a nice fantasy to impose on facts, dont say anything about Linux at all; you'll scare the adult children on this site.

This is one bit of news

[imrdkl]

That you probably wont see on the major news websites anytime soon. heh.

But I hope they prove me wrong.

Otoh, maybe the administrators will request dual-boot systems. I bet Redhat would still be ok with that.

Don't you read your own site?

[SumDeusExMachina]

This story is a glaring repeat of a story that was posted here just two days ago. Honestly, shouldn't you be taking Ritalin or something?

Re:Don't you read your own site?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not a glaring repeat.

The first story is about the settlement proposed by MSFT.

This story is about Redhat's reaction and counter settlement proposal.

2 different, albeit related, stories.

Go and ask your mummy for your next dose of Ritalin.

Re:Don't you read your own site?

[AzrealAO]

The settlement wasn't proposed by Microsoft. Read the goddamn articles. It was proposed by one of the Plaintiff's Lawyers, and they consulted with educators and microsoft to come up with a suitable settlement.

From the Wired Article on this subject:

Michael Hausfeld, representing a group of private plaintiffs in Washington, D.C., said he thought of the unorthodox settlement idea about nine months ago after realizing that each of the 65 million computer buyers eligible to gain from a $1 billion settlement would receive little more than $10.

Hausfeld and other lawyers consulted with academics and other education experts, then worked with Microsoft to hammer out final terms of the deal, he said.

Re:Don't you read your own site?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your a prick,little smug FU POS.

This would be the death of Red Hat

[JMZero]

$1 billion = 1 million PC's

Red Hat is going to support 1 million PC's for free. How much would that cost? How many do they currently support? Do they realize the beating these machines take? Do they think that school teachers and librarians (who usually do the first line support) have any computer knowledge?

Red hat is going to support 1 million installations of RED HAT LINUX for free.

This is insane. It's just a PR stunt.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[SumDeusExMachina]

I think you misplaced a zero there. Given the current cost of PCs and considering the kind of hardware most schools need, they will probably buying machines in the $500 range rather than the $100 range. That's 500,000, not 1 millionn.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[JMZero]

No. One billion divided by $1000 per box is one million boxes. The original settlement called for 200,000 boxes (for a nominal $50) and the remainder in software.

Here's a quote from The Register:

"The money freed by removing Microsoft's software from the settlement equation is enough to buy one million PCs, instead of the 200,000 proposed by Microsoft, Red Hat says. "

Of course, I can't actually read the article on redhat, as their server has been slashdotted for a while...

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[sporty]

Depends on how you think of it. You are thinking, ok, 1million broken installations. But, you should really think of it on a per site basis. If a school has 1000 computers... identical computers, if something doesn't work, its more likely not to work across the entire batch than just one. Linux does have a good diverse driver set, but in this case, it has to support a single set (disk, video, sound, etc).

Problems will more likely be either stupid tech support questions, i.e. "How do I add a user" or more complicated ones that involve 1 single server, and a single client. Once you know how to set up both, you can duplicate the product as many times as you want. Whether or not people will duplicate in an intelligent manner is a different kettle of fish, but its not hard even by doing fresh installs.

I do agree, its a lot of sites to support. Just not as many as 1M (1m? heh)

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing DOS for IBM was a stunt too.. Paul Allen didn't think they'd pull it off.. People tend to rise to the challenge if the goal is worthwhile.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

not when the support bankrupts them :)

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow what better way a to kill off a competitor. Let Redhat take on their 'offer' - the support costs for redhat would kill them rather quickly. MS could then step back in with the 'free' MS software (on a larger number of PC's) and look like a saviour.

How much is MS prepared to spend to kill a competitor ??

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[inKubus]

Give them 10 good programmers and they can put together a RedHat Distro for educational use. Put some nice learning tools (maybe build some custom ones), staroffice, a web browser, you're set. And after the schools love it, other richer school districts WILL pay money for it. And the development is actually done. This is a brilliant idea, if you ask me. The multimedia PC is dead. It's all web based now, so what does it matter what the browser runs under. And you could set them up as Xterms so every student could have their own desktop. With a large investment in time, a small investment in money, you could have a real nice educational system. Shit, windows comes with a bunch of junk that you don't need. Sorry for the malformed reply but i'm a little drunk. It's thanksgiving.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Tarkwyn]

Linux does have a good diverse driver set, but in this case, it has to support a single set (disk, video, sound, etc).

Remember that these aren't going to be brand new hardware-cloned PCs. According to the article MS are providing "200,000 reconditioned computers and laptop computers".

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're a drunk fuck

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[sporty]

If they are from various distributors (dell, ibm), they can easily be batched and moved around so the hardware is homogeneous enough that support would be minimal.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Curt Cox]

How much is MS prepared to spend to kill a competitor ??

As much as it takes. They've got $36 billion.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[omega9]

There are tools to help with these exact situations.

Our NOC has a dedicated ImageCast IC3 image server. If one of our lab machines develops a problem that will take to much time to fix we pop in an IC3 client boot floppy and re-image it across the network. All we have to do is rename it when it's done and it's ready to go, like it was just installed.

ImageCast (in current stable versions) does not support Linux filesystems, but there are other product that do. It would be trivial for RedHat to perfect an "educational" distro and turn one of the machines per location into an image server. If anything should go tits up it's much easier to re-image a machine then send tech support out.

Also, if changes need to be made to the distro, you could make them and create a new image. Distribute the improved image to your machines and everyone is up to date. You could probably even have the image server at each location poll the RedHat network to check for updated images.

It's a system like this that allows only me and my office mate to support ~500 computers 24/7 with no stress. Just remember that there are few ways of getting around hardware problems.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[anothy]

i think you're absolutely right. and, much as the Linux crowd here's going to hate me for suggesting it, i see exactly one alternative. who does have the ability to absorb 1M additional users into their existing support base without getting killed by the weight? two OS vendors: M$ and Apple. Apple's also got a significant leg up on Linux in the educational field, so it wouldn't be nearly as much of a stretch for the people who have to make these boxes run.
in addition, the point here, as someone earlier noted, is to penalize M$. the best way to do that, aside from short-term punative damages in cash (which is also a good idea) is to create or encourage a viable long-term alternative. and, sorry, guys, but Apple's got a better shot at that.
further, if the penalty has to benefit someone, it should be those people M$'s abusive monopoly most hurt, and Apple's been taking M$'s abuse for much longer than Linux has been a factor.
and that says nothing of the comparative qualities of the OSs...:-)

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[10Ghz]

"Writing DOS for IBM was a stunt too.. Paul Allen didn't think they'd pull it off..."

And they didn't. Microsoft bought DOS from another company.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Colin Bayer]

There are some problems with your argument, albeit ones that are easy to make.

Red Hat is going to support 1 million PC's for free. How much would that cost?

All of which will be on standardized software and in groups of 70 or so per school. To support 70 identical PCs is no different from supporting 1 PC; the additional cost is only 69 more records in the database.

Do they realize the beating these machines take? Do they think that school teachers and librarians (who usually do the first line support) have any computer knowledge?

(Keep in mind, I don't work for RedHat, and don't even live in the same state as their offices)

I personally happen to be using RedHat now (7.1; I haven't taken the time to get 7.2 yet), and RedHat Network is a very high-class support scheme, possibly falling second only to Microsoft's omnipotent and ubiquitous Windows Update (which is only good because you're talking about a homogenized, monolithic OS, with an update program you can't escape). I prolly have about 100-150 non-standard packages installed on my computer (many being very, very alpha) and RHN keeps track of what's there well enough so that I can keep my system up to date.

Any school district worth its salt will have at least one technology professional. Even if they have to admin 700 boxen, all of the boxen are identical, so it can be made largely a "set-and-forget" affair with RHN.

This is insane. It's just a PR stunt.

IMHO, it isn't necessarily suicide. Consider the following:

1) This counterproposal most likely caught Microsoft off guard, and with the holiday season here, they may not have an official statement for a while.

2) This offer hasn't gotten much press (not even on the local news; I live near Seattle, btw) due to the events in Afghanistan.

3) If M$ accepts the counteroffer, they lose approximately 5 kids per computer per year that the computer is in operation... that's 5 kids who won't use Microsoft software times 1,000,000 boxen times maybe 3 or 4 years (at the least) that the boxen will be up.

All M$ will win back is the runoff, so to speak; the kids who grew up with Linux, hated it, and have now become Luddites. These children will require extensive hand-holding and support in the future when they are forced to use M$ products, which means their boxen will cost *far* more to maintain than those in a closed school environment.

4) If M$ declines the counteroffer, this whole mess is revealed to be nothing but some shady back-room dealing by Microsoft in an effort to escape monetary losses. This will leave them holding the bag for:

- 1 million personal computers
- Software to outfit these computers
- and, likely, the same case as before, as public outrage would prompt massive backlash at M$ *and* the DoJ

This will offend all school administrators offered these computers, not to mention pretty much every technology-informed person on Earth, or at least those who can put 1 and 1 together.

5) If their official statement comes after the Afghanistan situation cools down somewhat, then M$ will also lose every non-informed consumer who has access to a media outlet.

In summary:

- If M$ accepts the counteroffer, they lose 20 million prospective customers. RedHat gains every OS manufacturer's dream: a million boxen, running on standardized configurations, and all in the hands of children. *Big* PR boost; Linux cause furthered; pays back big dividends, even if they have to take loans out.

- If M$ declines, they lose a damn sight more than 20 million customers, not to mention lost revenues from *giving away* their own software. They'll prolly still be stuck with the case, and the DoJ won't take it easy on them this time.

Once again, RH gains a big PR boost (amongst those who can read between the lines, at least), doubts are planted in the minds of loyal Microdrones as to the actual practices of Microsoft, but this is a lesser victory, as any gained customers will be in non-controlled environments, meaning total maintenance cost is through the roof. OTOH, they are the same customers who don't know how to do anything but click buttons and look at pretty colors, so they sell big volumes of boxed sets, and all the How-To guides sell off store shelves.

Hope this post provides useful info. ;)

-- Colin

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Lumpy]

Only an idiot would install RH on each machine.

They set up terminal servers.

Student blows up his/her machine? reset his account and reboot..

Voila it's fixed... something the janitor can do.
the server maintaince can be done part time by the CS teacher or by a maintaince firm .

managing 100 redhat boxen in a terminal server arrangement can be done by someone with very little computer knowlege.... like a MCSE for example... (Sorry for the stab... but it was begging for it.)

.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Red Hat Linux already has that facility. It's called kickstart. When set up with all the bells and whistles you just boot with a floppy that gets an IP by dhcp and a filename, that file contains instructions for the install.

Or you can have the file on a floppy.

You just put a floppy near every computer, set it up not to wipe partitions you want to keep across re-installs and tell the user to 'insert the magic floppy and reboot' if it's broken. I prefer to keep the kickstart file on a server, makes them easy to maintain.

I'd post a link, but either the site or my connection is dead slow a the moment.

And yes, I am affiliated with RH, but this is posted privately. These are my feet and I put them in my mouth all on my own ;-)

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Anonymous Coward]

$chown us base

Wouldn't that be " chown -R us base* " ???

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[JMZero]

I agree that with good management, the effective number of boxes can become much lower. However, it's still going to be a signficant drain. Whatever solution, no matter how fancy, is going to require a lot of outside help to get going. Maybe not in school districts with amazingly competent staff (but in these cases, why don't they have Linux running already?)

It would be good for Linux in general to have this user base - but what's good for Linux in the long term is not necessarily what's good for a Red Hat right now (surely they can't have too much cash on hand right now).

In summary: if the Red Hat proposal ever worked out (and it's not MS's decision!), the support would either be

A: Minimal - bad enough that school districts would end up buying support/another OS

or

B: Very expensive, not within Red Hat's ability to provide on current cash

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Col. Panic]

Yeah, except that I don't think M$ offered the software for "free." The software cost is part of the settlement. Having settled that suit by purchasing hardware they would be within their rights to charge for all the licenses (on, as you noted - a larger number of PC's). Scary thought.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[Col. Panic]

So ok, make M$ buy all Apple hardware and let schools choose which OS'es they want - OS X, Linux PPC, Yellow Dog Linux ...

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[pressman]

$1 billion = 1,251,564 entry level iMacs with OS 9 AND OS X on them. UNIX and Classic and the ability to put Windows AND Linux on them. Throw in some OS X servers and netboot the suckers. The kids can learn pretty much everything about computers from one platform. UNIX and linux for how the computer really works, Mac OS for the educational and multimedia software and Windows for learning about the blue screen of death.

Re:This would be the death of Red Hat

[pressman]

NetBSD, SuSe, Mandrake, FreeBSD, Redhat via Virtual PC and Windows via same. Mac's can run so much software on different OS's it's unbelievable. The children would benefit immensely.

Microsoft hardware?

[jeriqo]

Microsoft selling hardware? you mean, X-box ?

Buy Apple hardware?

[lwdupont]

Why not make Microsoft purchase Apple hardware for schools? That way the 90% monopoly MS has outside of schools can start to get broken down starting inside the school system, by teaching kids Apple hardware and OS X is just as good as intel hardware and Unix.

Re:Buy Apple hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

good idea.. then instead of one million computers they can donate 50 to the schools. I just love those competitive apple prices.

Re:Buy Apple hardware?

[EvilStein]

Excuse me, you clueless git. Have you ever heard of educational pricing? In a circumstance like this, Apple would be more than willing to give a substantial discount to the schools (they already do give an education discount - up to 50% on some products)

I am so f$@#$@ing SICK of hearing "Macs are tooo expensive.."
It's going to cost me 1/2 the price of a new G4 (with my educational discount) to get my Windows PC up to the point where I can install Windows 2000 (not even talkin' XP...)

With PC trash, you just spend your money in smaller chunks, but you're still paying quite a bit.

Re:Buy Apple hardware?

[pressman]

those $799 iMacs are just prohibitively expensive aren't they? What decade are you living in? This isn't the late 80's any more! Get with it, dude.

there's always wine !

[spd_rcr]

redhat can offer the OS, a number of office suites that're more than adequate for school work (staroffice, koffice, etc..) .. there's a ton of educational/scientific software available already + wine for those windows based multimedia apps.
what's the worry ? i don't see apple offering to sell microsoft discounted hardware to make the deal really interesting ...
an extra million young linux users could do some amazing things for the OS ! games would be ported, applications written, it'd be outrageous !

Re:there's always wine !

[fiftyfly]

Or here's a thought - Why not make M$ actively fund & develope WINE?

Re:there's always wine !

[sydb]

Great, then wine can faithfully reproduce all those windows inovations like the blue screen of death and the paperclip. Thanks.

Re:there's always wine !

[Anonymous Coward]

That's kind of a dumb ass reply, eh?
if M$ is forced to give better access to api doc's & such required for a project like WINE the OS community has better access. That's it. We're under no obligation to accept anything they give, we'd just have a court ordered right to request it. Gawd - how knee jerk/stupid are you?

Re:there's always wine !

[sydb]

Yes, AC, it was a dumb reply because it was meant in humour - a sense of which you clearly lack.

Damn clever

[ScottMaxwell]

This is a brilliant move by Red Hat to subvert this joke of a settlement offer. The existence of their counter-proposal helps show Microsoft's original proposal for the self-serving move it really is. It's nice to see Microsoft outmaneuvered here.

And it's good PR for Red Hat. Nobody will take them up on the offer (though it would mean serious money for Red Hat in the long run if they did), and they get to look like they're even more strongly "for the children" than Microsoft. Nicely played!

Re:Damn clever

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a brilliant move by Red Hat to subvert this joke of a settlement offer.

It's more than an offer. It's a done deal.

I invested everything I had in Microsoft and Big Tobacco when it looked like Bush was headed for the whitehouse, and I may be retiring this year!

The only thing holding me back is waiting for buddy Bush to go ahead and rid us of the capital gains tax so I can take this all as profit!

Wow...

[jonfromspace]

Fantastic Idea, but with the amount of Windows boxen out there... is it ok to be teaching kids to use Linux? I mean really... how many of them are going to run into that platform in the workplace...

I am sure to be modded down for trolling, but I think this is a valid point.

Re:Wow...

[Kerg]

Yeah, I'm sure after they know how to get around a Linux system, trying to learn the sugar candy of Windows XP will prove a monumental learning task for them.

Re:Wow...

[rseuhs]

Fantastic Idea, but with the amount of Windows boxen out there... is it ok to be teaching kids to use Linux? I mean really... how many of them are going to run into that platform in the workplace...

Oh my god, clicking on a KDE-icon is soooo different than clicking on a Windows-icon.

It depends on what the children shall learn:

Is it word-processing/spreadsheet etc, then MS Office and StarOffice are equally adequate since in a couple of years, the difference between the versions will be greater than the difference between SO and MSO.

Is it programming (which was the ONLY thing I was ever taught in the computer lab, BTW.), then Linux is a lot better because it offers much deeper insights.

In general, the "We must use Windows because it's the standard" argument is moot for schools because Windows changes very fast. What does Win3.11 knowledge help you with WinXP?

I am sure to be modded down for trolling, but I think this is a valid point.

No, this is slashdot, and the Microsoft-apologists have taken over. I've even seen a couple modded-up-to-5 posts of "RedHat isn't doing that for the kids, just for themselves" - as if RedHat was the company that lied in court, forged evidence, destroyed competition and blackmailed computer-makers and needs to be punished.

In fact RedHat said they would love to be "punished" like Microsoft.

Re:Wow...

[jonfromspace]

Well, I think you are forgetting that probably ~90% of those kids will NEVER use a computer for anything other than e-mail and web surfing. In a programming class - Linux all the way, but when trying to teach kids PRACTICAL skills, then Windows, MSO, and IE are what they should be learning. I don't like it any more than you, and I am NOT an MS appologist, but I am a realist, and reality (unfortunatly) is currently windows-centric.

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. They should learn to use a Web Browser, an e-mail client and so on, but not a particular program.

Really, can you really argue that someone who's learned Netscape cannot use Internet Explorer? That someone who learned e-mail on Sylpheed or KMail cannot use Outlook Express? Except for a few bells and whistles, all of these programs are practically IDENTICAL in the way they are used. Same goes for MSOffice/StarOffice/KOffice.

Re:Wow...

[Kwil]

The reality is whatever people learn to use and like, they'll tend to stick with as they move on in life.

This works given two caveats:
1) What they work with early on has a good ratio of cost to activities performed
2) What they work on is reasonably available

Linux fits into both of these reasonably well.

Re:Wow...

[Asic Eng]

Let's say you were to teach them how to use Staroffice. Admittingly that's somewhat different from the current version of MS Office. However, three years down the road when these kids enter the workplace there'll be a new version of MS Office, too.

So their knowledge would date from an old version of MS Office or StarOffice, depending what they learned. Judging from the way things have been going in the past, making the transition from either of those is probably the same amount of effort.

Re:Wow...

[rseuhs]

Well, I think you are forgetting that probably ~90% of those kids will NEVER use a computer for anything other than e-mail and web surfing.

Maybe. 10 years ago few people would have predicted that something like websurfing would become important.

But let's assume that the computing needs will stay as they are now forever:

In a programming class - Linux all the way, but when trying to teach kids PRACTICAL skills, then Windows, MSO, and IE are what they should be learning.

Can you please tell me how IE differs in usage to Mozilla or Konqueror? StarOffice and MS Office?
How does manipulating windows or running programs in KDE and Windows differ?

Exactly these skills can also be taught with Linux without problems whatever.

BTW, 5 years ago, Netscape was the "standard". IE won't stay on top forever. Just in case you've been sleeping under a rock: Linux is already the "standard" on embedded devices and with embedded devices pushing on the net, the portable Mozilla is more likely to be the "standard" in 10 years than the x86-only Windows-only IE. (No the Mac version does not count)

I don't like it any more than you, and I am NOT an MS appologist, but I am a realist, and reality (unfortunatly) is currently windows-centric.

Yes, currently. But Windows is also changing. It does not matter if you "learned" on Win3.11 or fvwm, today. It won't matter if you "learn" KDE or WinXP in a couple of years.

BTW, just like the proprietary hardware-platforms, the proprietary software platforms are doomed in the end. It's just a matter of time.

In the early 90's, Microsoft smashed several competitors and took over the Office market and now gets nearly half the revenue out of it.

In the late 90's, Microsoft had to GIVE AWAY Internet Explorer and had to use blackmail, lies and a lot of money to crush a SMALL STARTUP COMPANY with only a handful of employees. IE does not create any revenue for Microsoft, it's not the great victory, MS-marketing wants us to think.
Microsoft is already on the decline and they know it.

Re:Wow...

[Ed Bailey]

Well, I think you are forgetting that probably ~90% of those kids will NEVER use a computer for anything other than e-mail and web surfing. ... but when trying to teach kids PRACTICAL skills, then Windows, MSO, and IE are what they should be learning.

So, uh, Mozilla and IE are so different that learning one provides no benefit to a person needing to learn the other?

My wife currently uses an NT box at home; her machine is getting old and unreliable, and because she's sick of hearing me always complain about how I hate fixing her machine, she wants to move to Linux. She reads mail, does some web browsing, and word processing.

Last week, she took a three-day course that we're just starting to run on desktop Linux use. By the end of the course she was certain that Linux could do everything that she needs it to do. To use your logic, she should be having a hell of a time making such a move. But she's not.

Likewise, I don't think people using Linux for these kinds of tasks will find themselves at that much of a disadvantage should they find themselves faced with a Windows box.

But here's hoping that they never have to... ;-)

Ed

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT HAND

Re:Wow...

[PlaysWithMatches]

I mean really... how many of them are going to run into that platform in the workplace...

Well, if everything goes according to the One True And Grand Plan(tm), Linux will have taken over the world by the time they graduate, so it'll be a non-issue. ;)

I like the no MS software part...

[pinqkandi]

If MS is forced to give software in the settlement, that'll just increase our reliance on their monopoly. With giving hardware, they'll have to pay up and not be increasing their installed base. Giving out free software would probably be a benefit to them in the long run - kids telling their parents they need to get Windows, "it's what the school uses!".

Not sure on the Red Hat part... but I'm mostly saying that because I'm a Mac shill :-) Red Hat is damn good too though, and definetly better than Winblows!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Re:I like the no MS software part...

[Anonymous Coward]

*teehee* It's funny because he called it "Winblows" instead of "windows" *snicker*

Teach the kids Esperanto

[dstone]

Teach the kids on Linux rather than Windows. It's a better OS, though the real world generally uses a crappier one.

Teach the kids Esperanto rather than English. It's a better language, though the real world generally uses a crappier one.

Re:Teach the kids Esperanto

[Anonymous Coward]

kids are tomorrow's real world.

Re:Teach the kids Esperanto

[drsquare]

We're talking about OSes here, not languages. If you think learning languages is even SLIGHTLY similar to OSes, then you must be severely mentally disabled.

Re:Teach the kids Esperanto

[Anonymous Coward]

So we should all speak English, then?

Mange donc d'la marde mon ostie d'impérialiste. Continue de faire des analogies à la con, je suis sur que Bill va t'envoyer un beau nanane!

Re:Teach the kids Esperanto

[jaavaaguru]

> Teach the kids on Linux rather than Windows.
> It's a better OS, though the real world generally
> uses a crappier one.

And why do you think the real world uses the crappier one? Because all the yound people using it now were brought up with it at school.
If you were in favour of the whole world using the better OS, then you'd be in favour of it being used extensively in schools (note that I didn't say exclusively), since the school-leavers will eventually dictate what the rest of the world does.

Re:Teach the kids Esperanto

[Hektor_Troy]

Ja, jeg siger sgu også mange tak til den skide imperialist. Han skal da bare fortsætte med den fair analogi, så Bill kan tage på en rejse i en banan?

Hvad fanden betyder "Mange donc d'la marde mon ostie d'impérialiste. Continue de faire des analogies à la con, je suis sur que Bill va t'envoyer un beau nanane!" egentligt?

Would someone please translate "Mange donc d'la marde mon ostie d'impérialiste. Continue de faire des analogies à la con, je suis sur que Bill va t'envoyer un beau nanane!" into english?

Re:Teach the kids Esperanto

[kisak]

Teach the kids Windows, it is the OS used by most people. Linux gives more knowledge needed everyday when working with computers, but lest be blinded by numbers instead. Teach the kids Chinese, it is the language used by most people. English gives more knowledge needed everyday in an english speaking country, but lets be blinded by numbers instead.

Re:Teach the kids Esperanto

[Peter Harris]

By all means teach the kids Esperanto. It's a clean stripped-down version of a generic European language, with no frills. Once you have learned Esperanto (a couple of days for grammar plus however long for vocabulary) you are well prepared not just to speak Esperanto (you may never have to) but to study any language now that you have a basic grounding in linguistics.

If you can't see the parallel to Linux and Computer Science then I won't bother to explain.

By the way, there are no licensing costs for teaching a human language, and nobody is suggesting that the USA should be punished for its clumsy international interference by providing free English lessons!

A burning question

[SumDeusExMachina]

Why does everyone here think that schools everywhere are just burning to install Linux on all their computers? It's not like there has been something like paying for a site license that was standing in the way of them installing it before.

In other words, if they had wanted to install Linux for education (thereby crippling the majority of children who would have to go on and work with MS software in their jobs anyway), wouldn't they have done so already?

Re:A burning question

[Anonymous Coward]

once you use linux windows is EASY. its trivial in fact. no ones going to be crippled. i bet the students will learn more than they ever would with NT+a web browser.

Re:A burning question

[rseuhs]

In other words, if they had wanted to install Linux for education (thereby crippling the majority of children who would have to go on and work with MS software in their jobs anyway), wouldn't they have done so already?

Could you please elaborate why pupils who have used KDE/Linux would be crippled if they would have to use Windows later at work?

Because the start-button has a different color? Because some button in StarOffice looks a bit different than in MS Office?

Oh my, the color of the start button just changed with WinXP, so according to your logic all the Windows-education over the years went to hell, right?

The fundamental concepts (moving the mouse, clicking on icons, manipulating windows, etc.) are the same and the differences among Win3.11/Win95/WinXP are as big as between Win and KDE.

article w/o MS influence...

[jeriqo]

... at wired: http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,48543,0 0.html

Brilliantly written...

[deggy]

In a way that would make it very, very difficult to refuse the offer and leave M$ executives forcing the fakest of grins while they hand over the dollars for the computers and don't get to extend their monopoly!

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. i didnt know that all there is to learn is in computers (and the world too!) could be learned through the linux command line.

Re:Great! And then what?

[EvlPenguin]

Especially /usr/bin/fortune. Let's see...

evilpenguin@paladin:~$ fortune
Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance.

Exactly.

The idiocy is all yours.

[Kaz Kylheku]

You can run some Windows applications on Linux, using various methods. Chances are that at least some of the educational software will run.

Have you investigated what educational software does or does not run under the various solutions for running Windows apps on Linux?

Microsoft doesn't care about providing a platform for educational software; they want the kids to be hooked on their proprietary operating system and applications. Mass indoctrination of future Microserfs is the key to their survival. So this action can hardly be called an act of restitution for anti-competitive behavior.

Re:The idiocy is all yours.

[Reality Master 101]

Have you investigated what educational software does or does not run under the various solutions for running Windows apps on Linux?

That's totally irrelevent. Whatever the software is, it's going to run better on Windows.

Microsoft doesn't care about providing a platform for educational software; they want the kids to be hooked on their proprietary operating system and applications.

Well, duh. Microsoft cares about providing a product that people want. Red Hat cares about providing a product that people want. McDonalds cares about providing a product that people want. Ford cares about providing a product that people want. If you want to characterize "creating something that people want" as attempting to "hook" them on it, that's your choice, but it's ludicrous.

So this action can hardly be called an act of restitution for anti-competitive behavior.

Considering it costs them a huge amount of money and provides something useful to a large number of people, I would say it is an act of restitution. Yes, even software costs them money, because a great majority of these schools would have had to purchase Windows.

The point is that the schools WANT Windows, and don't want Linux. God forbid that Microsoft supply them what they want, rather than what a bunch of zealots think they should have.

Re:The idiocy is all yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how well you can change this without affecting the point you're trying to make:

'The point is that the schools WANT Windows, and don't want Linux. God forbid that Microsoft supply them what they want, rather than what a bunch of zealots think they should have.'

or

'The point is that the schools WANT Linux, and don't want Windows. God forbid that RedHat supply them what they want, rather than what a bunch of zealots think they should have.'

IMHO both aren't true, but I still think helping Microsoft to put out another zillion copies of Windows is more like the opposite of a punishment for misuse of their monopoly.

That said, I think schools would benefit most if Microsoft donated hardware, RedHat supplied them with their software, and some third party would try to make the applications that only run on Windows work with Linux (funded with Microsoft fines). This would probably only a few, since most software is already available (WWW,mail,word processing,imaging,math tools,programming tools...)

Re:The idiocy is all yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are that at least some of the educational software will run

What a great slogan: switch to Linux, at least some of your sofware will run!

Re:The idiocy is all yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you are, but what am I

Think of all the new script kiddies...

[imrdkl]

It'd be a whole new generation of 'em.

Wonder if this bunch will less spoiled... :{)

Re:Think of all the new script kiddies...

[jaavaaguru]

This isn't intended to be flaimbait - it's a valid response to the growing amount of script kiddies who just use their root-kit and don't REALLY know how anything works...

If the people who turn into script kiddies gain a lot of UNIX/Linux experience at school, they will have a better understanding from an early age about how people are able to exploit security flaws in popular products. If all children who grow up to be programmers have had experience at school of stuff like this, dontcha think that the software they produce might not be subject to so many security flaws as some of the crap that passes as "good software" today?

Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[lukegalea1234]

Great idea.. but perhaps Red Hat is missing the points. I can't believe that even the largest supporter of linux would think that a child could use linux.

Even windows is too complicated for most kids, prompting those weird kiddy front-ends that simulate a classroom.. But is RedHat willing to develop that as well? Or are we talking about kindergarden kids running gnome??

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

i was coding Z80 assembly on a ZX Spectrum when i was 9. so fuck off you righteous asshole. kids are intelligent if you give them half a chance to be so. GNOME frontends are easy compared to Z80 assembly.

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

in my day instead of clicking that icon you had to type: load "application" ,8 ,1 or load $ ,8

kids will work it out np :)

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[rseuhs]

Even windows is too complicated for most kids, prompting those weird kiddy front-ends that simulate a classroom..

Why does everyone silently assume that Windows is easier than KDE?

Have you seen a REAL NEWBIE struggling with Windows?

I have and believe me, they don't know where to double-click and where to single-click.

For real newbies, KDE is far easier to use than Windows.

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[beefstu01]

I was using a Mac, and quite well, when I was about 6. I was surfing the net by 7. Everybody is a newbie when they start anything. What Red Hat wants to do here is to be able to teach kids how to use Linux instead of Windows. Have you ever seen a REAL GOOD (snicker) Windows user try to use Linux...

I have, and believe me, they don't know how to do jack (its even worse if you don't have a graphical login..."Whats up with this Linux deal, its just like DOS, no graphics").

I tell ya, this exposes kids to a whole different world of OS's. I'm willing to bet if you force these kids to use Linux, they will learn how to use it, and pretty proficiently.

Actually, let me ask you this- If we don't show kids linux in the school, then when will they learn? I got into it when my dad showed me when Red Hat 5.0 came out, but I was lucky. My father teaches EE at Cornell, and all that dept uses is Linux, but most of the students there haven't heard of it, much less used the OS before they got there. The real reason why Linux doesn't have much developed for it is because not enough people know about it, and I think that if we were to incorporate Linux into schools, we might see a different trend in software development.

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally think a 9 year old could handle linux. When I was younger than that, I learned to use unix on a dumb terminal hooked to a sun box, and besides when I was nine, they had mac classics in every room and I saw kindergarteners using them just fine without the cutsie front-ends.

The problem is today so called computer-literacy education involves showing high-school age kids how to turn on a computer and clicking on the pretty picture of the blue e on the desktop. That and most of the computer teachers that I've seen are incompentent, one school I remember the computer teacher did not know how to plug a computer into a upc! Another school, the computer teacher needed step-by-step instructions written to a five year old's reading level in order to configure a windows box and assign it an ip address. I could go on and on, but I'm too damned tired to finish this comment

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was younger than that, I learned to use unix on a dumb terminal hooked to a sun box

Heh, yeah, sure.

Another school, the computer teacher needed step-by-step instructions written to a five year old's reading level in order to configure a windows box and assign it an ip address.

Where the hell did you go to school? Mississippi?

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

YEAH, RIGHT! My daughter has been using Linux for the past two years (she's only 8 now). Kids can use a gui with no problem, and KDE and Gnome are totally fine for kids.

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[jaavaaguru]

When I was a lad...

... Windows wasn't something I had heard of, and I got on quite happily learning to program with a command prompt and a BASIC interpreter. If a 5 year-old can use these tools, then I see them having no problem using a Linux console... and naturally progressing to running Gnome, KDE or whatever within X. You're only thinking they won't manage it, because from your perspective changing permanently to Linux would be a huge change whereas for a kid, there's no change. It would be just like learning Windows :-)

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[lukegalea1234]

Good point.

I suppose that from my perspective, there was much less to an O/S when I was a kid. There wasn't much to learn about using a TSR-80..

I think a lot of people are missing the fact that these computers need to be accessible by the average kid who isn't overly interested in computers. It's not fair to compare ourselves as kids ( who ended up being IT professionals in most cases ) to other kids.

I suppose as long as an operating system allows casual users to function without learning the nitty-gritty it should be fine.. and yes.. I suppose Gnome or KDE are good for that.

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[flipper28]

I think we're all a little biased here - everyone hates microsoft - that's a given. I think children, given the time would figure out linux, but I'm not sure what application they would want to use. Children don't always want to write software, develop databases and configure networks - when I was a child, I wrote programs in BASIC because there was nothing to do on a computer and it was a the in thing (next to the Atari console, which my parents did not buy). I would personally buy my children a system that let them be children and at the same time let them understand how computers work. Those of you who are die hard linux fans at any cost, even at the sake of children, should maybe look at it in a different light - no said that they had to use Windows. Why do we always have to knee jerk like the first post, and end up looking like idiots - BTW, I'm sure the folk at microsoft wouldn't act that way.

Re:Ya right.. 9 yr olds using Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one thing you're forgetting, kids pick things up ALOT faster than us old farts. I'll bet if you had a kid using Linux since they were small they would become somewhat proficient at it on their own through experimentation.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, infinitely more accomplished then zero. I guess it would nice to have kids learn undefined number amounts of knowledge. :) I'd agree on everything but StarOffice (Which I have to use at work). StarOffice just plain sucks on so many levels. ick. Don't pretend its any good :)

Nothing in return?

[13013dobbs]

RedHat is going to use that donation as a big tax write-off. A tax write-off of that size would be wonderful for a company in RedHat's position.

Re:Nothing in return?

[Anonymous Coward]

Redhat (RHAT) lost 0.76$/share last year...

They pay no taxes. They do not need writeoffs.

Not good for the children...

[Xanderkryo]

I have no qualms with Microsoft or RedHat (or any Linux distributor for that matter), but putting Linux on 1 millions machines is not going to help the children. Windows-based products will still be on the majority of computers in businesses when these kids get out of school. Knowing Linux, but not knowing Microsoft products isn't going to help them one bit. Granted, I've never used Linux (Windows works just fine for my games, FTP server, etc. Don't screw with settings and you're fine. It is when you start tinkering with the settings and forget what originally was there is when you have problems. Why people can't understand this, I'll never know.). I doubt that any software suites for Linux are 100% like Microsoft's products. What we need for the schools is a universal system (and one where the kernel doesn't need recompiled daily.) that can be easily used.

Re:Not good for the children...

[SirSlud]

Hah! Everyone who knows Linux should have NO problem learning Windows.

BTW, isn't that the message in every single goddamn ad for Windows? Ie, "So easy to use, even if you're a freaking moron who fell asleep in the middle ages and just woke up, you'll be emailing movies to your grandson in no time."

To that end, thats the argument Redhat should take to court. "If windows is so easy to use, whats the benifit of putting kids on them so early on?" At least that'd force MS to actually admit that using an operating system (tho I suppose they'd use the euphamism "computer") requires some learning and training.

But like I said, knowing Linux forces you to know computers. And knowing computers, its pretty easy to pick up Windows at your own leisure. The reverse is not true, as one of the main purposes and selling points of windows is that it allows people who don't have a clue about hardware and software to email, surf the web, and use word processing.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir are nothing more than a Microsoft troll. Not only do you spout fud (the kernel does not need recompiled daily you stupid idiot), but you make false assumptions. Why does every software suite have to work like a Microsoft product you fool. Every person I've met who knows Linux has no problem with using any other computer software package on any operating system. This is not the same for Windows-centeric users. Every windows-centeric person I've met needs to be hand held to do even the most basic thing in other operating system. Please tell me your IP address so I can reduce your windows box to a useless piece of crap.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Xanderkryo]

I'm one of the "Windows-centric" people you describe, yet I do not need my hand held to do basic functions on one of my roommates Macs. The reason I think software suites need to work like a Microsoft product is because those Microsoft products are in the workplace. Granted, most people might not have a problem converting from Linux to Windows, but what for the handful (perhaps larger) that can't. Do we just toss them off to do something else like? Not their fault they came from the shallow end of the gene pool.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Xanderkryo]

It seems as though you've made my point for me. Windows is easy, so a Kindergarten age child can load a program and learn his/her ABCs. All I'm for is letting children have a basic knowledge of computers. If they go into a field that involves greater knowledge, more power to them. But until they make that decision, let them use computers with an OS their parents are likely to have on their home computer and entry-level positions are likely to have on workstations.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt if they're that unlucky in the gene pool that knowing microsoft office will be a problem. Most likely they'll need to memorize the phrase "Do you want fries with that?"

Re:Not good for the children...

[Kerg]

What software suites are being used in schools is pretty irrelevant. Once these kids get on the job market the tools in use will be different anyway.

It benefits the students in the long run if they know how to use a wider range of software. The software evolves constantly and being able to learn how to use new tools, regardless what is used at the work place, is most important.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Anonymous Coward]

Software does not evolve. It is only patched. Look at some of the latest software and you will see remains of older software. Learning new tools is great, when it is viable. Sometimes the oldest method works the best.

Re:Not good for the children...

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

If RedHat were actually called upon to do this thing, I wouldn't be surprised to see an "educational" distribution show up, that required a lot less knowledge of the behind-the-scenes stuff...I mean, you can already configure RedHat to start in KDE with fully-functional internet, office suite, etc. It wouldn't take much to remove the more complicated bits from the desktop and menus (system config stuff) so that that sort of thing would have to be done through the command-line. Add in a a couple of tools to create easy-to-use menus, and RedHat would be able to look just as dumbed-down as the common educational systems you see today.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Kerg]

You're right. Let's give them a bunch of machines with MS-DOS installed only.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how I started learning about computers. Good ol' command lines only. Makes it a lot easier without all the pretty colors and whatnot.

Re:Not good for the children...

[SirSlud]

Actually, I havn't really figured out what age group we're talkin about here, but for kindergarten, I'm actually against computers in the classroom. Kindergarten may be where you learn your ABCs, but it's also a crucial environment in so far as developing your social values and how you communicate and interact. I think computers at this age would only imbed a value along the lines of: "It takes a computer to learn." Obviously, the only true way to learn is either through teaching yourself, or communication with someone else that has that knowledge and is aware of the best way to communicate it to you. (For instance, what about kids with special needs? Can you see a day where kids will not seek help from people, but rather from off-white boxes that are, at best, a clumsy interface for learning?) I'd hate for anyone to believe that computers are /solutions/ to problems. Scientists (or artists, or sales managers) use computers because the amount of data or the complexity of the problems requires a computer, for all practical purposes. ABCs do not.

Once you get into, say, grade 5 or 6, computers can become useful in order to provide a means of illustrating the abstractions of math, or to provide easier access to things like maps for geography, etc. But thats also around the age where the computer saavy start their tinkering (or some of them, at least). Which leads me to believe that it's a good age where kids can start to understand what a computer is, what software is, etc ... do poor schools actually NEED computers to teach ABCs? I was under the impression that it was for the specific purpose of teaching kids how to USE a computer, in which case, it's best to start with material thats as close to the source as possible. Don't forget, everyone can afford a calculator, but we still value teaching long hand devision, because one day, that tool that makes it easy might not be available; in the same way that one day, that windows partition may be corrupted. If the kids know what a partition is, like people generally know what a transmission is, they'll know what questions to ask, and how to go about either solving the problem or seeking someone who can.

> let them use computers with an OS their parents are likely to have on their home computer

Considering this is for poor schools, this is a glaring example of how you're projecting your situation or values on another demographic. These schools, and likely the parents of the kids who go there, don't, and may likely never be able to afford a computer. Best to reserve your input until you've reformed it within the social and material context of the situation. IE, we've got a clean slate here .. why not take advantage of it; humans have incredible abilities to learn provided they are taught at a young age (religious fanatics are keenly aware of this), so why not go above and beyond what the market currently dictates and prepare them for a future we cannot predict? And if they want to learn windows, well ... lets just say that despite the fact that most people who live in the mountains of nepal havn't the foggiest idea how to use a telephone, our kids know how to use it without being sent to "Telephone class".

BTW, what happens in 5 years, when everyone has upgraded? It's unlikely these schools will suddenly have license money .. so you'd end up teaching 3 years of 'cutting edge' 'office environment' software, and 15 years of outdated software until MS has a chance to be punished for being anti-competative again. With OS, this would not be an issue, and, in fact, it's likely these schools would be captable of supporting infrastructure even more advanced that some of their financially off sibling schools who run Windows. I came from a middle class arts school, and while our photog teacher was very pro-tech, and kept the school first in line for technology grants from the school board, we still had Mac Plus'es in our library in 1997.

However, there is one factor in your favor: it's unlikely the teachers at these schools will know how to handle Linux any better than the kids, should RedHat get deployed, so I'm not entirely sure that OS software is a practical solution. Of course, if RedHat provides on-site admins and such, then, problem solved. And finally, as a parting shot, don't forget, if you're a truely tech-helpless student, KDE offers a very very very similar experience to Windows .. so much so that the transition later in life, should it need to be made, would be fairly transparent for the non-tech crowd.

All I know is that the most important institutions in our world, ie schools, general hospitals (exluding specialty wings, wards, etc), etc are the ones most often strapped for cash and lagged behind current technology, due to price. Socialist values are on the decline, so why the hell should we pour less money into taxes, and then turn around and demand those institutions run what (in many cases) only the private sector can afford?

Re:Not good for the children...

[slyall]

Saying that children learning on Linux systems will be at a disadvantage in an all-Microsoft world is totally wrong.

First the pace of computers is such that any system you learn on now will be out of date by the time you leave school. When I was at school (late 80s) I used Apple IIs, When I was at University (early 90s) I used Windows 2 and Macs. These days I use Linux or Recent Windows versions.

Current Linux software like Redhat are offering will cover the Word processing, Spreadsheets, Email and Web browsing that is what 95% of students need. The other 5% will have the option of learning web design, System administration and the like. Using Microsoft software on the machines will just cost more money without adding any functionability.

Even if the Students are graduating into a 100% Microsoft based workplace they will be able to quickly (minutes/hours/days) convert to using what their job requires. Most likely any company they are working for will be using the latest software anyway rather than whatever version of Windows they the school would have had 5 years previously.

Re:Not good for the children...

[dvNull]

Okay I'll bite ..

Why exactly is non-microsoft software so scary in a workplace? Cause it isnt Microsoft ? Jeezus are we back to the If you buy IBM you dont get fired days ?

What does an average person use at his/her workplace? Most of the companies I have worked at it was Office. And for most of the work required StarOffice, WordPerfect will work fine. At the past 4 companies I worked at there were maybe a total of 5 documents which used MS Office centric Macros. When you open an Excel document in StarOffice you do preserve the look'n'feel and all the formulae. With Word you keep the formatting and embedded pictures etc when you open it in WP or StarWriter. Agreed filters *could* improve more but its getting there.

The last company I worked at was a total Microsoft shop, with myself and a few ppl using Linux with Star Office 5.1. We were able to do all of our work w/o any incompatibilities. The whole myth that if you dont use Microsoft products can make your workplace miserable is total crap.

The reason Linux would be great for the schools is that more schools will get more benefits through money saved from licensing etc.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they may end up being exposed to more than one operating system while being educated.

Horror of horrors! Can you imagine if the schools also taught, say, French or Spanish in addition to English?? Do we really want to expose our children to variety?

No I say. And stop this nonsense of teaching "world" history in addition to American history too. It'll just confuse the poor children if they find out there's more than one way to do things.

PS: Xanderkryo, I hope you never have kids.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Bert64]

//you'd end up teaching 3 years of 'cutting edge' 'office environment' software

Isn`t Microsoft proposing to supply reconditioned PC`s ? Older machines would have trouble running the `cutting edge` microsoft software, and in 5 years time that would be even more true.

Re:Not good for the children...

[rseuhs]

Granted, I've never used Linux .... What we need for the schools is a universal system (and one where the kernel doesn't need recompiled daily.) that can be easily used.

So you've never used Linux, yet you think that you have to recompile the kernel daily? I haven't recompiled a kernel on my desktop machine for over 2 years now.

I doubt that any software suites for Linux are 100% like Microsoft's products.

I doubt that in a couple of years, any Microsoft products are 100% like today's Microsoft products.

Re:Not good for the children...

[rseuhs]

But like I said, knowing Linux forces you to know computers.

This is the greatest nonsense I've read for a long time.

I've installed SuSE 7.3 for a friend and he knows absolutely zero about computers (don't know the difference between USB and parport printers - he even called me to plug in his printer because he did not want to do it himself!)

He has absolutely no problems using KDE and StarOffice.

Linux ALLOWS you to learn more about computers but it does not FORCE you (anymore).

Re:Not good for the children...

[SirSlud]

well said and point taken :)

Re:Not good for the children...

[Xanderkryo]

Sorry... I took it as what a former roommate did constantly. Recompile a kernel or 2... reformat a hard drive. I always laughed when one of my programs hiccupped under Win2K (now WinXP Pro) and I never had a problem.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Nailer]

I doubt that any software suites for Linux are 100% like Microsoft's products.

My school (and many others) uses Apple products, and the Microsoft products on those are as different from their Windows versions as StarOffice 6 is from MS Office. Windows 95 was more different from Windows 3.1 than 2000 is from KDE. Windows, icons, a menu and a pointer don't change. Kids pick these skills up and take them anywhere

What we need for the schools is a universal system (and one where the kernel doesn't need recompiled daily.)

If you think that the kernel EVER needs to be recompiled on a desktop system you're simply wrong.

People recompile kernels because they want to.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Xanderkryo]

Unfortunately you lack to see what I truly meant. Take any educator you'd like ask them which they prefer; a new operating system for them to learn and hassle over or new computers with the same software they've always used. I have dealt with teachers and their technology for the 4 years I was in high school and now in college I still go back home to help the technology coordinator with problems. My school district would more than likely be one of many that could benefit from this settlement. Teachers are willing to use computers in the classroom. My mother is a kindergarten teacher (which is why I used that as an example earlier). Every day, a fifth of her class (6 students a day) go with an aide to use the elementary school's computers. They have programs like Reader Rabbit, Franklin Learns Math, etc. My mother has noticed a difference in the children's education (an inprovement no less) since computers were added to the curriculum. The children are still able to interact with each other because it is only for a short time (roughly 30 minutes) that the children use the computer. What this boils down to is that Microsoft was large enough, powerful enough, and smart enough to actually gain a monopoly. I see nothing wrong with this. Survival of the fittest and all. Until a better product comes along that is widely accepted, we'll have to live with it. PS: I don't see why we even have history as a course of study. The past is just that, past. PPS: I hope I never had kids too. My nieces are my children. It is sad when they tell me that they wish they could stay with me in my cramped apartment than live with their parents. I show all children I meet love and attention. Most people I am very agreeable with. And I certainly have more than enough tact to never tell someone I hope they never have kids. Understand the person (not just his comments) before you pass judgement.

Re:Not good for the children...

[Asic Eng]

Don't screw with settings and you're fine.

Except you will have to change the settings to protect yourself from viruses etc.

Re:Not good for the children...

[praxim]

"So easy to use, even if you're a freaking moron who fell asleep in the middle ages and just woke up, you'll be emailing movies to your grandson in no time."

I'd be quiet about this idea, unless you want to see it pop up on the TV with a little primary-colored butterfly buzzing around.

Re:Not good for the children...

[rseuhs]

Sorry... I took it as what a former roommate did constantly. Recompile a kernel or 2... reformat a hard drive. I always laughed when one of my programs hiccupped under Win2K (now WinXP Pro) and I never had a problem.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, blah, blah.

Why don't you go out and find out for yourself that Linux is already easier to install and use than Windows?

Just put the SuSE 7.3 DVD in the drive and within less than an hour you get not only some naked operating system, but an office suite, ICQ/AIM clients, mp3 players, napster client, a superior GUI and a lot more.

Oh and did I mention that SuSE automatically detected my K7V onboard-sound, my Netgear LAN adapter and my Matrox G400 while on Windows 9x I had to install all 3 with vendor CDs/diskettes?

Re:Not good for the children...

[Otik2]

That would be a very good idea. It would make things much easier for many students who don't like computers at all to get started using RedHat, which might of course make them start to use it outside of school as well.

But what about doing somethign like this outside of this MS/school deal? It would be dumbing things down a little bit, but if Linux were easier to use it could gain lots more people.

Re:Not good for the children...

[elflord]

Software does not evolve. It is only patched. Look at some of the latest software and you will see remains of older software.

Over a long period of time, it does indeed change. When I was in elementary school, I used a computer. Its memory was 32k. The "word processor" was a text editor, and you sent formating characters to the printer by reading the printer users manual, and using a special "markup" command to send that sequence to the printer. Between now and the time todays elementary school kids are enterring the job market, computers and computer software will change. The only question is "how".

Re:Not good for the children...

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

I'm in. Wanna start a dist? :-)

Re:Not good for the children...

[elflord]

PS: I don't see why we even have history as a course of study. The past is just that, past.

Wrong wrong wrong. Politicals, religion, philosophy, law, art, and economics are all founded upon precedent.

Why do we have capitalism, and is it a good thing ? Why do we need a bill of rights, and do we know that it will be honored ? By what rules do you compose beautiful music ? And why should/should you not adhere to such rules ? Why do we have public corporations and a stock market, isn't it all "a bit artificial" ? Is there a god ? What role can/should religion play in society ?

These questions aren't easy to answer, but a bit of historical perspective certainly provides some fascinating insights into all of them.

Re:Not good for the children...

[An Onerous Coward]

Hmm. . . You're running an FTP server on a Windows box, and haven't "screwed with the default settings?" m4y 1 h4v3 y00r 1P 4dd4355 p133z???

At the elementary school level, the vast majority of kids aren't going to see any difference between Linux and Windows. Web browsing? Mozilla has a very similar look and feel to IE, even down to most of the same hotkeys. Word processing? Anyone who has used Wordpad will intuitively grok AbiWord, and vice versa.

In high school, most students will be in precisely the same situation. They'll end up double-clicking on a pretty icon and get to work. For the geekily inclined, Linux is vastly superior, precisely because it lets you explore the inner workings of the computer.

Operating systems today are like different martial arts styles: the basics are all the same. It's all double-clicking, dragging and dropping, and having some idea what the funny underlined text means.

The only disadvantage I see is that, until Linux gaming gets more competitive, kids aren't going to be able to install their favorite FPS on the systems, and hence will have no motivation to learn computers at all.

Already Posted...

[dytin]

I was pretty sure that I had alreay read this article, then I remembered where, I had read it from slashdot! This is the article, I guess it was only an update to an article, but it still was already on slashdot. Well, maybe it was just so important, that someone thought it warrented a revisiting.

Sorry.

[mindstrm]

Niether settlement is good in my books.

First, Redhat is just piggybacking on it. I do not thinking giving redhat a big boost this way is 'fair' to others, OR to Microsoft.

Second, Microsoft getting off the hook at all by simply donating some stuff does not address the issue.

We simply need to ensure that microsoft can't stay on the top by bullying people with their size. If they want to stay on top with good software, let them.

Kids wont have a problem with Linux

[sweatyboatman]

one of the problems I have using Linux is that I grew up using Windowsy stuff. Linux is VERY different. You need to think about things differently because the OS operates in a very different way.

If kids start with Linux they will A) have no problem learning it and B) be more sophisticated about how computers work. And, most people would agree, they'll have no problem working in Windows. On top of this, Linux offers a sophisticated development environment where kids can learn about programming. Without paying $500 per seat for Visual C++

children learn new things very easily, regardless of how complex they are. Look at how quickly they pick up languages for an example.

Re:Kids wont have a problem with Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

10 year olds were learning basic when they had C64s in the house..

why? because it was neat to make your own game.. and because you grew up looking at it so when you hit 10-12 you could figure it out a bit easier..

frankly, educational software, today, is the cheapest built software on the market.. its buggy, its quickly made with macromedia, etc.. probably very easy to port if a company really wanted to do it.

if they are going into highschools then they dont even need educational software.. all highschools teach nowadays are spreadsheets and the rare school that has a C or basic class..

Re:Kids wont have a problem with Linux

[Bert64]

Very true, I didn`t learn about computers at school.. We didn`t have any, i learnt about them on my very own Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum, 2 computers with an inbuilt programming language, no gui, and atleast a minimal number of hand typed commands required to start a game. Plus all the BASIC programming manuals and technical documentation which came with the machines. If i had started out with an easy to use gui, i would just have played my games and never bothered to learn anything more.

Re:Kids wont have a problem with Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can teach C to 7 year olds, and they can understand it.

When I was in fourth grade they taught us to use logo to draw shapes and stuff. And I could code in basic by the time I was 10.

For a first computer language though, I would reccomend something like logo instead of C because it's more visual and also builds math skills (geometry and so on).

Re:Kids wont have a problem with Linux

[binner1]

It all comes back to the major philosophy of the OS.

Unix: Everything is a file or a process.
Windows: We think you're dumb, so we'll try to do it for you.

The Windows bit is a joke...does the Windows platform actually have a philosophy? Anyway, once people understand the Unix philosophy, everything else about the system becomes much clearer. The first thing ever taught to me about Unix was the philosophy, and I'm much better off for it.

-Ben

Re:Kids wont have a problem with Linux

[Col. Panic]

the major philosophy of the OS.

Unix: Everything is a file or a process

<nitpick>I think this is more like the concept of the OS rather than the philosophy. The philosophy of UNIX is to use small tools that each do one thing extremely well.</nitpick>

Re:Great! And then what?

[RAVasquez]

Back when I was in high school, all we had were Apple IIs. The software we didn't have, we made -- hand-coded with AppleSoft BASIC. That was quite a learning experience, though I doubt it rubbed off on that many potential programmers.

Using emulation to maximize compatitbility

[t0qer]

Hopefully that subject got some attention.

Educational softare allways has been, and probably will remain geared towards Apple for the most part. I still see schools using IIE's wired together on an appletalk network, using an ascend appletalk router to connect it to the rest of the world. It's obvious school's are in a dire need for new hardware based on just MTBF's. These things are bound to die.

Also the number of quality .edu software vendors has decreased DRAMATICALLY over the years. I know CCC has closed shop here in Sunnyvale, not sure if it was from a lack of sales or rising rent costs. Either way they laid off 3 of my buddies and closed the entire 6 building campus.

So if the M$ deal goes through, schools will be left with less choice for .edu software. They will be tied down to one o/s, who probably would try and sneak a way to dictate what the schools use for educational software. (i'm seeing lots of learn to use word, windows, blah classes in my head right now)

With RH, I could run wine, I could run any number of mac and IIE emulators out there. If RH is really going to offer support, why not build a .edu distro made to handle this stuff? Is this in the RH equation at all? Emulation would provide the schools a way to never have to worry about their software going obsolete again because the O/S changes every 2 years.

Teaching ghetto kids how to use linux is pretty scary, I can see the number of website defacements on the rise in 15 years if this RH deal goes through. Good in the long run because it will get PPL to lock down their machines better.

Let's not forget

[mattdm]

This isn't about helping the kids. This is about punishing Microsoft for illegal acts of which they've been convicted. They're proposing their own slap-on-the-wrist punishment couched in "helping the kids" rhetoric, but really what they want to do is escape having to actually really pay for anything. Microsoft's allegedly 1.1 billion dollar plan actualy consists mostly of donated software, which in real terms costs them nothing. Red Hat is just calling them on this bluff -- if MS had to buy hardware, they'd actually have to spend real money. Of course, even then, 1.1 billion is nothing to a company with 36 billion in the bank.

Re:Let's not forget

[13013dobbs]

RedHat is doing the same. They just want a tax write-off for all that support they are donating. You don't really thing RedHat is doing this for the kids and/or just to bash MS?

Re:Let's not forget

[dhogaza]

No, RedHat is *not* doing the same thing. They're not trying to transform a major lawsuit against them into a tax writeoff and marketing opportunity (the sale of support/upgrade licenses in five years).

RedHat's not the company being sued for using their monopoly on the desktop as a lever for overcharging their customers, nor is RedHat the company that's worried that they may be fined much more heavily if they don't settle.

Re:Let's not forget

[13013dobbs]

Do you think RedHat is going to pass-up the chance to write all that off on their taxes? They would also have tens of thousands of kids that would be forced to use RedHat's OS. RedHat is a company, they are doing this for themselves, and no one else. Plus, what if the schools don't want Linux? Those boxes will be worthless.

Re:Let's not forget

[Li0n]

Still, that's preferred to "punishing" MS for monopoly by granting them the ability to introduce their software in the market even more.

Let's not demonize RH just for the sake of it.

Re:Let's not forget

[Jeremi]

RedHat is a company, they are doing this for themselves, and no one else.

No doubt there is an element of self interest there. On the other hand, giving away a billion dollars of software *and support* for free is a generous offer, considering that Red Hat isn't on the receiving end of any lawsuits and could just as easily do nothing, like every other company.
I personally don't think Red Hat has any expectation of being taken up on this offer, and that they only made it as a way of demonstrating to the public how self-serving MIcrosoft's "settlement" really is.

Plus, what if the schools don't want Linux? Those boxes will be worthless.

This is a potential problem. A solution would be this: Divide up the total money evenly between all the schools, and then for each school demonstrate both Windows and Red Hat systems to the school officials, so that the officials are well informed about the pros and cons of each. Then allow the officials to spend their allotment of money on either type of system (e.g. they can buy 50 Windows workstations or 100 Red Hat workstations with their money).

Or hell, if Microsoft really wants to help the schools, why not make every PC a dual-boot system? Then the schools can decide what to run any time they boot the PC, instead of being forced to make the choice in advance.

Re:Let's not forget

[mattdm]

Well, sure, Red Hat would be happy for a tax write off, and I'm sure they're amused to smear Microsoft a bit -- but again, that's not the point because the circumstances are different. Microsoft is trying to weasel their way out of a large number of potentially very expensive court cases. Red Hat obviously would stand to gain if taken up on the offer, but not in the same way at all.

Re:Let's not forget

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are we using the children for this battle ground?

Do the children care about punishing Microsoft? Hell, according to the articles these are kids in neighborhoods who are more worried about whether they will have food on the table when they get home from school.

It's amazing how your perceptions get all out of whack when you have nothing you need, but only what you want.

Re:Let's not forget

[Ed Bailey]

Do you think RedHat is going to pass-up the chance to write all that off on their taxes? They would also have tens of thousands of kids that would be forced to use RedHat's OS. RedHat is a company, they are doing this for themselves, and no one else. Plus, what if the schools don't want Linux? Those boxes will be worthless.

Sure, if there's a write-off, I'm sure our accountants will take it. Last I heard that wasn't illegal or unethical.

And don't forget, whether Red Hat Linux is your preferred distribution or not, it is Linux. Surely getting more people to learn and use Linux isn't a bad thing, is it? Yes, if it's Red Hat Linux in all those schools, it certainly doesn't hurt us, but keep in mind that the effort to migrate from Red Hat Linux to (for instance) Debian is a lot less than the effort to move to a completely different operating system. I don't see an MS-style lock-in here...

Yes, as a company we have our own interests in mind, but those interests do not preclude trying to help others. I look at this as a "win-win-win" situation; it doesn't hurt Red Hat, it helps promote the use of free software, and it gets schools badly-needed hardware and software.

Ed

Re:Let's not forget

[abumarie]

Its very simple, M$ is doing the "lets do it for the children trip". If you are against this settlement then obviously you hate children... If I were the judge here I would do a slapdown on them for this (M$) totally cynical manipulative attempt. Besides this offer is empty since it really does not cost M$ anything serious.

Re:Let's not forget

[mattdm]

If *I* were the judge, I'd say: "Hmm, that's a great idea. Except, let's make it $11 billion instead of 1.1, and let's not let Microsoft software count as part of that."

Re:Let's not forget

[13013dobbs]

And don't forget, whether Red Hat Linux is your preferred distribution or not, it is Linux. Surely getting more people to learn and use Linux isn't a bad thing, is it?
It depends on what the scholls want to use the computers for. If they want to teach CS type stuff, then I think RH (of any *nix) would be wonderful. But, I don't think there is that much 'educational' software for Linux. (Please, correct me if I am incorrect) From what i have read of MS's version of the settlement, schools could pick what hardware/software they wanted. Why not propose that you all (MS, and Linux distro, *BSD, Be, and Apple) make presentations to these schools and let them choose what is best? Maybe a split between the groups? Despite what people here on Slashdot think of MS, knowing MS is just as valuable as knowing Linux in the world.

The idea of making a software company pay with

[Vicegrip]

it's own software is so patently ridiculous... even more amazing is the limitless gall Microsoft has in presenting this "remedy".

I'd be walking around with a paper bag over my face even if I was only remotely affiliated the the legal team persuing the settlement in this deal.

I wonder if I could convince my bank to accept in-lieu of hard cash this handy little program:
void main()
{
while(1)
printf("Look mom! A program!\n");
}
Yes yes.. I know this doesn't do much, but you will concede the loop closely models the average behavior of some MS software that comes to mind... like MS Outlook; in particular: it doesn't do anything particularly useful and uses up insane processor resources... also, I will counter argue that since you have the source, you can take some time to make it useful.

Re:The idea of making a software company pay with

[Vincy]

The idea of making a software company pay with it's own software is so patently ridiculous... even more amazing is the limitless gall Microsoft has in presenting this "remedy".

So, my dear Microsoft, you want to donate to schools? Surely you think it's reasonable that we take the revenues of your donation into account?

Alright then, let's say 90% of your ``donation'' comes back as revenue in 10 years time. We hereby declare that the 10% you really lose should be equal to the settlement we agree to. Therefore, the required donation will be multiplied by 10.

Thank you.

Re:The idea of making a software company pay with

[cowbutt]

I'd be walking around with a paper bag over my face even if I was only remotely affiliated the the legal team persuing the settlement in this deal.

Actually, their top lawyer has just stepped down.

Market Share

[PineHall]

It is all about market share. The plan as now stands means Microsoft will increase its market share. Red Hat does not want to see that and it wants to get a foothold on the desktop, so the proposal. The lack of educational software is the big negative with Red Hat's proposal though by putting this proposal out there is shows those involved that Microsoft actually benefits in the long run from the current proposal. Microsoft likes this current proposal because it increases its market share.

Uh huh.

[Ron Harwood]

Okay, I like RedHat, but that is completely self-serving. RH isn't even involved in this...

I'm not saying that M$ came up with a good settlement offer - and we sure as hell know they aren't going to do more than laugh at the RH offer.

That being said - cool idea...

Re:Great! And then what?

[Jason W]

What will the kids run? What educational software is there for Linux? I mean REALLY? Sure, there is some, but it's not even close to what is available for Windows.

Hrm, could this have a *little something* to do with the fact that Microsoft has had a monopoly in the schools. With 980,000 or so potential Linux computers in schools, software development companies might consider making their educational software cross-platform, or maybe even some Linux-specific offerings. Until now there was been no motivation for them to create education software for Linux, so a major ramification of going with RedHat's proposed settlement would be to get the ball rolling in this area. That is, of course, a very good effect of a punitive monopoly settlement, giving the competition a jump start.

Yahoo's version

[jeriqo]

Here is the press release from yahoo:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011120/202744_1.html

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we really expect them to run and get around in Linux?

Once upon a time the kids got around MS-DOS too. Linux can't be worse than that.

Red Hat for education. Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

% calculus
command not found
% clcls
command not found
% calcls
Usage: calcls [-diff eqstr] [-int eqstr]
% calccls -diff x*x
command not found
% calcls -diff x*x
Bad equation string
% calcls -diff x2
Bad equation string
% calcls -diff x^2
2x

Wow, I learned a lot!

Re:Red Hat for education. Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

man im_a_shithead
man calcls
man xcalc

Red Hat monopoly?

[dhopton]

Does this not equate to a RedHat mononopoly in much the same way as a microsoft monopoly? Surely schools should have a range of hetregenous systems - Max, Unix, Windows, etc

Re:Red Hat monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. But if opened source code software should ever survive being used on the same playing level field than Microsoft is playing out his dominance, then Red Hat doesn't even have a choice. It MUST become a monopoly itself as a open source code company.

If you want prevent companies from becoming monopolies, change the legal code, not the source code of the software. We want opened source code in schools, so that students can learn from the source code by *staring* at the code and understanding the logic of the program. That's the only thing, which really counts.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Chainsaw]

You can't sit kids down at a computer and yell at them that they better start learning to spell. As an educational tool, computers suck tremendously. Correctly used, ie for information retrieval and similar things, they are a great asset. Teaching is best to leave to the teachers.

they can choose

[buzzini]

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, the schools *can choose*. This from the NYTimes article:

Because the grants could be used for Macintoshes and competing software, Microsoft said, the settlement would not be intended to give the company an even greater advantage in the marketplace.

Re:they can choose

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Microsoft have extentions in Macintosh computers too? Microsoft has been the company that helped Macintosh out of trouble before. So Microsoft would probably be benefiting here too.

No pun intended, but...

[Trogre]

My hat goes off to Red Hat for coming up with a truely innovatave solution that could (if played out right) hugely benefit schools and the open source community alike.

Students might begin to learn concepts, such as identifying and solving problems, and choose what tool is best for the task at hand rather than learning how to use one tool one way. I know too many people who can "use Word", but if the "save" button is shifted slightly on the toolbar, or a particular shortcut key is remapped, they are totally lost. All because they haven't learned how to do word processing at all. They've just learned how to use MSWord.

I see this as a brilliant counter-move against Microsofts proposed joke of a settlement, which is really just another marketing campaign, aimed at tightening its monopoly. If MSFT had its way and 'gave' the software to these schools, what would happen once the licensing term was up? The school would have to *purchase* license updates, or find themselves in violation of the all-important EULA.

These days schools, or any other institution should not have to still recognise microsoft as a viable entity, now that they've been finally judged an illegal monopoly.

It is good to note that the Red Hat offer will still be available to schools, regardless of what Microsoft chooses to do.

Re:No pun intended, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree with you. What's more I can't understand why everybodies seriously discussing RH learning how to follow M$ or about whether kids will be able to get the apps they need.

This is a brilliant piece of counter-publicity/publicity on RH's behalf and as I read the proposal I sniggered quietly away. Yes it totally would benefit RH if it went through, but it would also hugely benefit Linux and O/S as well. And if it doesn't go through or M$ object, then it totally proves what the US Government doesn't have the balls to do: and that is to cut of M$'s balls!

When Elephants Battle The Grass Gets Trampled

[Carnage4Life]

The subject of my email is an African proverb that refers to the fact that when largeer than life entities do battle (e.g. kings at war), it's typically the little people in the middle who suffer the most. Having spent time as a mentor at a poor school in inner city Atlanta I think both proposals are self-serving, misguided and will provide less benefit than is being touted.

First of all about computers and software in schools. Studies have shown that the benefits of computers in school range from minor to non-existent especially when compared to tried and proven practices like increasing class sizes, upping teachers pay and engaging students in extracurricular activiteis like field trips. Secondly, in situations where computers proved to be beneficial it took an average of 3 years for the teacher to successfully integrate computers into the curricullum. Considering that the average lifespan of PC hardware is 3 - 5 years, this makes any push for computers in school a decision that should be weighed heavily before being taken.

As for having the students use Linux instead of Windows, I can't see how this is a good idea in either case. On the one hand, you have poor schools that are faced with having to find cash to pay for MSFT products after a certain time period expires and they have become used to using them and on the other you have places where middle school students struggle with concepts like "multiplication" (many teenage students I mentored did multiplications on their fingers) and "quadrilaterals" (and this was after repeated prepping by teachers in preparation for one of many standardized tests that students had to take) who are expected to learn how to use Linux. I hardly see that as Win-Win but instead Lose-Win where the winner is either Red Hat or Microsoft

Re:When Elephants Battle The Grass Gets Trampled

[pete-classic]

I really hope you meant decreased class size.

Have you any research (not teachers union funded) that indicates that teacher pay correlates with student achievement?

I think that the advantage of computers in schools is as a resource, not an element of the curriculum. IOW, allowing students to type papers, or use digital research materials (not the internet) is helpful. Plunking kids down in front of computers and expecting them to learn something is not.

-Peter

Re:When Elephants Battle The Grass Gets Trampled

[Anonymous Coward]

3-5 years is not the life span of hardware in a school system if used efficiently. Our school board still uses 486 dx4 100's running win95 for simple things like keyboarding and word processing. Every year we buy a new lab full of machines that go to the classes that will take full advantage of them (mainly graphics, and programming), then the other machines are passed down, with the lowest end models being retired. The board is responsible for buying machines for all schools, instead of each school being responsible for it's own computers like some boards do. This allows for some nice volume discounts.

more free beer than estimated !

[spd_rcr]

actually switching to redhat would mean an easy move to terminal/server setups meaning easier maintenance & a lot more terminals available for the same amount of $$ vs. computers ... existing computers could be used as terminals allowing whole districts to jump to a unified linux distribution .. just imagine the extra funds .. it's just a hope that the politicians are smart enough to go with linux, but not smart enough to understand the revolution they'd be starting...

teach C to 7 year olds?

[rebelcool]

Cmon little joey... surely you can optimize that algorithm better. What? GET YOUR VIRTUAL METHODS OUT OF SUZI'S HAIR!!

Re:they can choose (Please mod parent up!)

[13013dobbs]

So, RedHat's proposal is moot? Does RedHat's proposal have this in it?

Re:Great! And then what?

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

As others have mentioned, it's a great chance to learn about computing, because it helps to know about the guts.

As for educational programs - I don't recall my elementary school having anything more educational than the "Mr Potato Head" in every KMenu. Or maybe an emulator can be set up for the older educational programs at little cost.

Great! RHAT just exposes MS as "Indian giver..."

[aquarian]

Whether or not Redhat is serious about this, their aggressive offer just points out MS' arrogant opportunism. MS is being what my grandfather used to call an "Indian giver," ie, one who buys off ignorant people with something of little monetary value, or worse. Kind of like buying Manhattan with a few glass beads, or as in this case, an entire prairie state with a few barrels of booze. The marginal cost of providing software is practically zero! And in this case, all it does is raise another generation of stupid alcoholics, er, Windows users. If the government accepts this one, they all ought to be scalped!

what about cash

[lazyone]

this IS suppose to be a punishment. i'm sure somebody has proposed this, but what about cold hard cash. isn't that the way that civil legal matters are settled? its not really a punishment if just print your own money(in the case of giving software and hardware) and push it down the throats of the schools.

More idiocy.

[Kaz Kylheku]

What evidence do you have that the software is going to run better on Windows? What does it mean to run better on Windows? Can you cite an example of an educational software package that does run on Windows and Linux, but runs ``better'' on Windows? What experience do you have with this? Or are you just guessing again?

Secondly, you are backpedalling now. First you said that it's about the applications, such as educational applications.

Now you are saying that ``schools WANT Windows and don't want Linux''.

So which is it, educational applications? Or the operating systems?

Regarding what people want: how *can* they want any alternatives, when those alternatives are shut out from the market by a monopoly? Of course Windows is what many people want. You can't want what you haven't seen. That's a consequence of the monopolistic practices which are supposed to be *punished* here, remember?

Just Send the Money

[Anonymous Coward]

If MSFT really wanted to help out these schools they would just send the money. Surely the people that run these schools know more about what the kids need than Bill Gates does. Maybe what they really need are books, not some piece of shit celeron box and a software license. Hell, maybe what they really need is a lunch program.

1 billion dollars is 2,000,000 computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that a 1ghz Athlon is now $500 1 billion dollars is 2,000,000 computers. Lets remember this is assuming setup is nothing and there are no servers or wiring for these computers. Even if it was 1 million computers. Not bad at all.

-Tim

I meant it as a joke!

[glwtta]

Didn't think RedHat would actually pick the idea up. Can I sue somebody?

Don't assume kids can't use Linux yet.

[2Bits]

A lot of posters said:"Bull, this is just a PR stunt for RH. How's this going to help the kids? There's education softwares for Linux."

Hold on, why do you think kids nowadays need those stupid edu softwares? Kids I've seen have been doing really serious stuff, not just learning ABC on their computers.

At the risk of starting a flame war..

[Anal Surprise]

Is RedHat really a good idea? Sure, it's easy to install, but if history is any guide, it's pretty easy to own, too. Why not a more secure linux distribution, or even (ducking) FreeBSD?

Also, I don't think most parents would go for it, because their sprog won't be getting any computer (read: Microsoft) skills.

Re:At the risk of starting a flame war..

[mrpotato]

Is RedHat really a good idea? Sure, it's easy to install, but if history is any guide, it's pretty easy to own, too. Why not a more secure linux distribution, or even (ducking) FreeBSD?
Oh, yeah, you are right. Windows is so much more secure.

Seriously though, there is nothing such as a "secure linux distribution" other than a good install with all services turned off by default. I don't think you really know what you are talking about, though.
And still someone modded you up... It sure shows how clueless some moderators are.

Re:At the risk of starting a flame war..

[mickeyreznor]

what about debian? that's what my old high school is running.

Re:At the risk of starting a flame war..

[elflord]

Among other things, the Redhat install includes an easy (ipchains) firewall setup. Linux is linux is linux. Redhat with ipchains and no daemons is as secure as any other distribution with a similar setup.

Re:Great! And then what?

[big.ears]

What will the kids run? What educational software is there for Linux? I mean REALLY? Sure, there is some, but it's not even close to what is available for Windows.

I've been hearing this argument since the 80s, except then the status quo was the Apple II and the scary technical alternative was the PC. Then, 'everything' schools ran worked on their 10-year-old Apple 2s, and there was nothing running on Windows 3.1 or DOS that they were interested in. In reality, 'everything' was "The Oregon Trail", "Print Shop", and some crappy home-made software written in Basic. Now, the same attitude exists about Windows. What is all this 'educational' software, anyways? The crap book publishers "give" away to entice administrators to buy their book? The question isn't "what will the kids run if they have to use Linux", but "What are they running now that they need windows for?"

Maybe microsoft should accept..

[Anonymous Coward]

On one hand, I read all these people complaining that schools wouldn't want linux, so assume microsoft did pay for those machines. They may get a tax writeoff on it, though its part of a settlement so I'm not sure about that aspect. But on the other hand they would have to consider the schools would have one million machiens not running any microsoft products. So if they really don't want to run linux, who's software will they be purchasing? Microsoft could make up nearly all of the billion spent in a few years.

On other "solution" for Microsoft

[GerardM]

In the world of prescripion drugs, they are now going to implement a sysem where you pay based on the relative wealth of the country where you live. So a treatment of drugs would be very much more expensive in the USA than in Oeganda. With the upcoming .Net technology Microsoft could do this as well. Technologically speaking not a problem. Financially speaking not a problem as you can not pluck feathers from a frog. It would really "help" all these poor people when they pay relative to the money that they can spend in stead of the current all legal versions are cheapest in the USA.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Chundra]

No kidding. What more is really needed besides the web, usenet and email? Maybe IRC or an instant messaging program. Those are *the* killer apps for human interaction, and hence education.

Bad idea

[WildBeast]

MS should send thousands of Xbox machines to the schools instead of PC's. A few geeks, used to kill time in class by secretly reading such books as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc. but now MS can provide an alternative with the Xbox.

This would be good

[LinuxOnHal]

As a technical employee of a school district, I can say this would be a good thing, especially with the Unlimited support available to them. We have quite a bit of linux expertise, but if we were to ever have a staff turnover, and the higher-ups didn't hire Linux people, they would be in a world of hurt. This would increase Linux penetration, as well as help out significantly more schools.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been a teacher in a classroom with an internet connected student body, I can tell you that those programs were the greatest single obstruction to actual learning in the classroom :)

Maybe

[Lukumo]

Well, it is a great idea but I doubt that it will happend...because Microsoft is too strong and people will not change what they are used to. Linux is too different and it would take a very long time to persuade them that it might be worth a try.

Was Redhat even a party in this lawsuit?

[Saint Stephen]

If not, they just look stupid for butting their noses in when the *actual parties* had nothing to do with them.

bad marketing

[skawky]

This is pretty sad. This has nothing to do with red hat. Kids need to learn on the Windows platform. It prepares them for the real world. Linux isn't the real world. It's a geek infested land of technical lore. Althought it is a good recommendation economically, linux does not prepare the youth for the workplace. Preparation is the key to the school system; not big business trying to brainwash them into an alternative operating system.

Re:bad marketing

[DaCool42]

I suppose that the fact that the vast majority of network servers (webservers in particular) are running some kind of *nix has no bearing on what we should teach people to use?

Re:bad marketing

[Jeremi]

Kids need to learn on the Windows platform. It prepares them for the real world.

No, kids need to learn how to use computers. The differences between Windows and Linux (at least as far as the apps that kids would use) are miniscule. Netscape vs. IE, StarOffice vs. MS-Office... any kid could switch from one to the other in about 30 minutes. The main difference schools would see (IMHO) with Linux would be a sharp decrease in downtime and administrative overhead, since the Linux machines could provide some semblance of stability and security (as opposed to the virus-ridden, self-destructing, endless reinstall hell that is Windows)

Jeremy

Why would microsoft agree to this?

[gmplague]

Why would microsoft agree to this? It doesn't make any sense. They won't lose anything if they give out the software (they own it, it costs them next to nothing to duplicate). They will also be seen as in alliance with the open source people. They'll actually lose money if they have to buy all that extra hardware. Seems like RedHat is just trying to make borg look bad.

RedHat could be up to something

[Travoltus]

...but it wouldn't really be unprecedented.

They might be planning to supply the schools with a free RedHat OS and free support. The RedHat package they get will include free, RedHat-made commercial software, too - stuff which you pay for on the open market. (Let us name one such example "RedHat Office Pro 20xx".) Kinda like a 100% discount version of the college student discounts you find on software in campus computer stores.

There would be a catch - again, not without precedent: said discounted commercial software cannot be purchased or used by non students, and the student agrees to pay for a license upgrade once they graduate - or if they don't, then return it and uninstall it off their system.

Since these kids were hooked on RedHat Office Pro 20xx since they were wee lil tots or whatever, and RedHat has usurped Microsoft as the sole maker of industry-used word processors, databases and spreadsheets, etc., there'll be MS Office and RedHat Office Pro standing as giants in the office world, just like Apple & the PC (before Microsoft killed Apple). He will gladly pay for a copy of RH-Office Pro so he can have this necessary tool for his adult, employed life. (Just as many people went and bought the next version of MS Office at full price after they had graduated.)

RedHat could make RedHat Office 20xx a GPL'd thing at first, and then pull a VA Software, and fork it. And worse, they could cease doing any further development on the GPL'd RedHat Office. Everyone else would be free to take the source code and TRY and keep up with RH Office Pro via reverse engineering and what not. But it would be a road fraught with incompatibilities and missing features, to say the least. (See: MS Office vs Word Perfect 8 vs Star Office vs KOffice vs Abiword...)

RedHat seems to be saying they would not do that to us now, but with all the kids hooked on their software at a young age, and with the chance that they could rip half the market out of MS' hands (by properly exploiting this Macintosh-esque opportunity), they would have you over a barrel.

And of course when you graduate from college RedHat will make you pay for support.

And being a company that is publicly traded and not privately owned, they creditors - aka share holders - to answer to. You cannot ultimately predict what your creditors/share holders will demand, and as different people come and go who own large slices of RedHat debt (er, um stock), who knows what their agendas will be? I am sure Bob Young does not own 51% of his own debt/stocks. If he doesn't, his stockholders could forcibly usurp him by calling in the debt (selling their shares). Even if he has 51%, jeez, if angry stockholders sold their, say, 30%, Bob would be screwed bad.

My point is, RedHat COULD pull an Apple computer here, and make money off getting people hooked on them as kids, and while they are being altruistic now, RedHat has shareholders - and eventually the shareholders will not be so altruistic.

Re:RedHat could be up to something

[daniel_isaacs]

Methinks the minute ANYONE starts to infringe on the Office Monopoly, Microsoft releases their Linux version, and said ANYONE retreats back into anonymitity.

If we've learned anything, it's that these guy don't fuck around, and they'd eat their son to save their daughter.

Re:RedHat could be up to something

[Ed Bailey]

RedHat could be up to something ...but it wouldn't really be unprecedented.
...
My point is, RedHat COULD pull an Apple computer here, and make money off getting people hooked on them as kids, and while they are being altruistic now, RedHat has shareholders - and eventually the shareholders will not be so altruistic.

I'm torn as to how to respond to your post -- on the one hand, it's a sequence of events that has played out in the past, with other companies.

However, let's be upfront; you're doing a lot of speculation here. And without much checking of the facts. For instance, you might want to check our investor FAQ; this shows that the number of shares held by people outside the company is a small percentage of the company's total shares. There'll be no shareholder-led revolt anytime soon.

As to "pulling a VA Software", I know the executive team, and over and above the fact that they are committed to open source, they're simply smarter than to follow that particular path...

Ed

Re:RedHat could be up to something

[Travoltus]

Ed,

First of all, thank you very much for providing me with a direct and refreshingly civil response from a RedHat employee. My respect for the company has gone from neutral to decidedly positive.

I do speculate a lot. I consider myself an intellectual minuteman. I trust no corporation that isn't non profit, and few that are. To me, money and power will always supercede charity and good will, in any business interest. I have a similar attitude towards Government. (I love my country but I fear my Government.) I have held out hope in the past that RedHat was part of a gang of "rebels" who would have some part in undoing that mindset. That hope is certainly alive and well now.

Now, I did say it was unlikely that RH owned most of its own shares, and you've shown that they do. Mea culpa. Your company is far smarter and idealism-oriented than I gave it credit for, and you have my apologies here. I wouldn't have had any idea really where to check RH's investor info and it is probably information that would have bitten me if it were a snake.

But... while I do admire RedHat, I'll always keep one suspicious eye on any institution, private or public. Now I won't blame my ignorance re: RedHat, though, on "information overload". I learned a sort of basic life lesson, in this regard - the next time, it'll be the "DOES RedHat own most of its shares, or not?" approach and not "I doubt Bob Young blah blah" (though I already know the answer to THAT question now).

Again, thanks for your tempered and informative reply, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Re:RedHat could be up to something

[Anonymous Coward]

damn you sure know how to lick ass

Re:RedHat could be up to something

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you were an unfortunate child who was raised in the gutter and not in a stable home with sane parents, so I will put this nicely:

Civility is not ass licking.

You would be wise to check yourself into a finishing school and learn the value of something called manners. Thank you very much.

Re:RedHat could be up to something

[Ed Bailey]

Well, from what I've seen of some non-profits, I don't know that I'd consider them lily-white, either. :-)

Be that as it may, anyone that isn't a Red Hat employee can't have the same viewpoint that someone in my position has. I'm a minute's walk away from the bulk of our Linux development team. Our CEO,Matthew Szulik, is right there, too, in a cube between the guy heading up the installer team, and the person that works on our printing-related stuff. He's approachable, and is genuinely interested in doing the right thing, no matter what the situation.

Sure, Red Hat exists to make money. But that doesn't mean we have to become morally bankrupt to do so. I have the advantage of seeing the people in charge, day in and day out, working hard to ensure that our company does the right thing. So what I'm doing here is to try to show people that don't work at Meridian Parkway (or any of our other offices) what's going on inside Red Hat (and to help those inside know what's going on outside -- it's a two-way street, after all)...

Ed

Why teach them 'linux'

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not Unix, so then BSD, SCO, etc la all have a shot?

And, which VERSION of the 200+ linux distros are you going to suggest?

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear lots of people saying the schools don't want linux because there is no educational software available. You've got word processing, spreadsheets and a variety of scientific apps like scigraphica, matlab and octave(matlab like free software). And of course if there were 1 million machines running linux in schools we would soon see educational software that runs on linux. I don't see it as a problem. We are always doing engineering outreach to elementary schools, we could just as easy teach how to use gnome/kde/etc as make water rockets and potatoe batteries.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid Microsoft TROLL. The next thing you'll say is that they need to learn Microsoft Office in order to get a job. Microsoft Office isn't eductional software and you can learn more on Linux about computers and how they work then you could ever learn on a Windows system. Want to know how Windows uses virtual memory? Well you can't see the code, so what good is learning about computers on Windows.

I'm a Linux lamer but I am sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the kids have used RedHat, the switch to another distro [or even *bsd/other nixes] wont be all that bad... It's still Linux [or something pretty close]. As for just using the apps, the OS dosnt matter. If sufficient numbers of kids "get" the open source idea and are aware of alternatives to windoze, we could see a software revolution. Maybe. What about seeing your first BSOD after years of Linux? Yikes!

OK thats my £0.02 worth, start scribbling to the DOJ. :)

Ali [moc.nodnol@]

www.ali-d.abel.co.uk

RedHat takes a lesson or two from Microsoft

[BryanHughes]

Ok, it's a generous offer by RedHat. This sort of behavior does mimick Microsoft's practices in a way, though. Primarily, by giving redhat software to schools, RedHat is promoting its product in an educational environment. Once schools start hiring Linux sys admin's, why change over in the long run? It just wouldn't be financialy sane, so they will be more inclined to stick with Redhat. Secondly, as a previous poster pointed out, RedHat has complete control over these schools in the future. Sure, the current software is free, but what about the next release? Is RedHat really going to provide media and technical support infinitely? I seriously doubt it. Really, this is a win-win situation for RedHat, because even if they completely lose out on all future techniques to increase revenue from the educational sector with respect to the schools they are supplying the software to, they will increase their advertisement in the educational environment. Students will use RedHat at school, decide they want it on their home systems and run out and buy the $49.95 commercial copy. Other schools will see the positive financial impact of running redhat in labs, and run out and purchase the software for their schools as well. Or, at least this is probably what RedHat believes. The only problem with Linux is that it fails (IMO) to meet the demands of corporate users and inevitably schools. What decent office suite exists for Linux that will hold up against MS Office? StarOffice is the closest competitor I can think of, and IMO its not good enough to compete. StarOffice has memory issues and cross-compatibility issues. Another point I'd like to make is the fact that a majority of businesses in this country are using MS Office. In my high school, they made a point to drill lessons about MS Office into our heads. They knew that having the skills to use MS Office would be a deffinite plus in the work world. For these K-12 students, they won't have the oppurtunity to learn how to use Office, and thus may lack important skills. Even though it appears I have gone way off topic here, I think that we should recognize the importance of a very good office suite for Linux. I think that even if the suite was a commercial solution (possibly even closed-source) it would still make a major impact in the Linux world. If we open up doors for Linux in the coporate sector, we open up doors for Linux in the educational sector. This, in turn, would open up doors for Linux in the home use sector.

Oh, and one last off-topic point. Does anyone else find the lack of DRI support for Linux (i.e. a very limited base of supported chipsets) a problem? It's impossible to open up to gamers without serious 3D support with XF86. Just a thought.

Re:RedHat takes a lesson or two from Microsoft

[philipm]

ummm, no it doesn't, you troll.

The point about redhat is that it's NOT redhat. Its free SW that you can get from other companies - i.e. linux.

Redhat has very little actual product or identity, mainly they can only hope to do something in the embedded ecos world.

Someone mod this guy down.

Re:RedHat takes a lesson or two from Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

my nvidia card works fine, I beat unreal tournament for linux easily. I think the main problem is too many people expecting below average cards to do what higher end video cards do. Perhaps you should consider upgrading?

Re:RedHat takes a lesson or two from Microsoft

[BryanHughes]

someone should mod you down to -1. "ummm, no it doesn't, you troll." what are you refering to here? it? what is it? "Redhat has very little actual product or identity,..." Redhat's product is a Linux distribution. Their product may not be developed entirely by the company (no where near so), but it is a commercial product. That's what I'm refering to. "Its free SW that you can get from other companies - i.e. linux." Firstly, Linux isn't a company, nor is it developed solely by any company, nor is it owned by any one company or a series of companies. Linux is in NO way related to a company or companies. What are you talking about here? "...mainly [redhat] can only hope to do something in the embedded ecos world." Damn, if you are trying to argue pro-redhat here you shouldn't make such negative accusations. Beyond that, this is your opinion and is in no way a fact. Dude, if anyone is trolling here, it's you. I welcome anyone to refute my opinions, but you aren't making any sense. It seems to me that you are pissed off that I compared Redhat's move to Microsoft. What's the deal with that?

Settlement Agreement

[Mister Black]

Microsoft should be forced to spend that billion bucks on iMacs for the schools. That way MS can't profit on the OS upgrade cycle like they intend. Plus the kids can still run all the edutainment software.

Re:Great! And then what?

[RickHunter]

Yeah, but in case you haven't noticed, that would mean a settlement harmful to Microsoft. And that's one thing neither Microsoft nor its supporters want. Of course, a settlement like this would do that - as you said, it might encourage companies to start making software for Linux. It'd create some competition. And why isn't there any of that competition right now, despite all the advantages of Linux or Mac OS X? Because Microsoft has a monopoly.

Re:Great! And then what?

[pere]

What will the kids run?
Wolfenstein! Thats what I was running during my computer classes 10 years ago, and now it runs under Linux as well...

Seriously.. any computer in schools will mostly (My guess is at least 95 percent) be used for simple word processing and surfing. That you can do perfectly well under Linux.

The trick with publicly accessible computers in schools (with no support personell), is to get them to work most of the time. The standard configuration you use on your personal computer isnt really such an good idea. Take a look at projects like Linux Terminal Server Project for Schools.Its not perfect yet, but it is a much better aproach to the problem than simply installing WindowsXP on all the computers.

If RedHat was allowed to put their software in such a number of computer (of course, nobody seriously believes they ever will), I think they could come up with something OK.

clever strategy

[RestiffBard]

apple put itself in schools and captured a market that is still loyal to them. microsoft then came in and captured a bigger market. this won't go through the same way for Red Hat. reason being that the business world uses microsoft more than linux. and schools are these days more concerned with sedning out good workers that know how to use the software that the business world uses. the schools will refuse the linux software on the basis that is doesn't properly prepare the students. and the teachers don't know how to use linux or teach it.

Why not do something?

[inKubus]

You know, if 20 people volunteered to write some cheesy educational learning software that looks nice and runs on a Linux platform, this idea might actually work. How long would that take? a few days?

I mean, we can sit here all day and chat, but it's really in our best interests to see that this idea works.

And how fitting that this is the last fronteer for Microsoft, the poorest communities, a group that free software would actually make sense for.

Re:Why not do something?

[greenrd]

Or in Java. You could use Java. It's getting fullscreen mode and accelerated graphics soon.

This is good

[Ashcrow]

This is a good thing. Not only would there be a settlement, but there would be kids and schools benifiting and using Open Source software.

As for some people saying kids can't use Linux ... my Mom can use it, my Grandmother can use it, my kid sister san use it, why couldn't someone else?

This has all been done before

[Old Wolf]

This reminds me of the time when Red Hat released Service Pack 7 for NT 4 . Unfortunately I can't provide a link, as segfault.org is down (as it seems to be 50% of the time)

Linux geeks should offer free support anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

I volunteer to support all Linux boxes in my child's school, wheter or not the redhat deal is accepted. I however will not support m$ trash bins. While some might see this as being selfish, I see it as helping to ensure a viable (better) option for all children, let m$ support their own crap. This m$ support should be for free for schools anyway, don't you have children oh great Satan, err I mean biliy joe jim bob junior gates.

Re:Linux geeks should offer free support anyway

[gregorio]

When was the last time you donated something (big) for your children's scholl?

Hardware Still Three Times as Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll set aside my desire to point at that this puts Red Hat in the same "I'm all for the free market except when it's my ass that's being skewered" parlor marxist dinner party circles as Scott McNealy, and simply observe that even in this era of commodity hardware parts, a halfway decent computer (1 GHz, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD, 19" monitor, 100 mbps ethernet) is gonna run ya about $750, whereas Windows 2000/XP Pofessional is only about $250, without taking into consideration any educational discount.

Either Microsoft will pay treble the damages, or only one third of the children will see any benefit from this.

LINUX IS NOT HARDER TO USE THAN WINDOWS

[BroadbandBradley]

it's just a matter of being familiar with one system or the other. microsoft only wants to groom our children to be windows users, and this is the only reason they would come up with a deal like that.

I do tech support for an isp, I get windows calls all day, and in one 8 hour shift, I spend more time waiting for customers windows OS to reboot than I do in a whole year on my home system. Win2k/XP may be a bit better in this respect, but Linux is still far ahead of what windows offeres as a usable environment. Who's going to pay to update virus software on all these 200,000 windows boxes?

Missing the point

[fritter]

For the most part, what OS kids are using in K-12 is irrelevant. It's not like they're all going to go on to be programmers and system administrators - the key is simply to make kids feel comfortable using a GUI. Proficiency in office suites and the like can come later.

On the other hand, what educational software *is* there for RedHat? Are there *any* colorful multimedia encyclopedias, etc? What of Oregon Trail?!?!?

not without a fight

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, say it does start to hurt rh. who is going to let that happen? i sure as hell wont. id step up to help out a school that needed the support, wouldnt you? i dont even use rh, but hell, its open source. you wouldnt allow os to get a bad name would you? i look at it like this.

some schools have problems. people from the open source community step up to solve those problems. what does this say to the schools?

one, the os community is damn good. even m$ support isnt supportive. ever call them? try it for shits and giggles sometime.

two, they realize they dont need microsoft. os software is just as good as m$s excuses for products.

it takes time to learn, big deal. give a man a fish, feed him for a day. teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. once the school gets used to a new operating system then theyll be able to support themselves. dont expect them to be gurus at something theyve never seen. we are supposed to be a community, right? well... lets start acting like one. lets step up to the challenge. one million copies of rh isnt going to kill m$. but a million people from the open source community joining the fight, helping others out, spreading the gospel of open source. THAT is what is going to kill m$.

uhh

[QuantumG]

If Redhat wants to donate millions to charity, then will, they dont need a microsoft settlement to do it.

Re:uhh

[sydb]

Puhleez, Redhat have already donated all their software to your ungrateful ass.

Why not let the schools choose

[drsir]

If the schools wants to use Linux great. If not, let Microsoft give it to them as part of the the whole package. Just let the schools choose. Isn't that what people who promote Linux are have been saying all along. It would be quite arrogant to force the schools (or anybody for that matter) to use a specific piece of software. Just let the schools choose what they want.

Great news, but then comes the reality

[magi]

I've rarely seen so splendid *GOTCHA* as this one from Redhat. It will really show Microsoft's double-faced behaviour.

Sadly, of course Microsoft will not accept it, and the court will accept Microsoft's proposal. This kind of settlement would be just too adventurous for the justice system, I'm afraid.

And the public will not care a bit, but all children of America will praise Microsoft's generosity and kind-heartness. That's the saddest thing. TANJ.

I also don't quite believe Redhat's proposal. I doubt they would be delivering 1 million Redhat boxed packages with printed manuals and everything. Perhaps one for each school, or maybe just a CD set, or just "here's the URL."
This is one aspect which might make the proposal less appealing.

Putting the cart before the horse again

[Anonymous Coward]

Sacrifice the kids' education until companies maybe start writing educational software for Linux.

Re:Putting the cart before the horse again

[Ignimbrite]

We were somehow educated before the advent of the computer. If these new Linux machines don't have the latest whiz-bang features, maybe they will be less distracting from the three R's.

Check and Mate

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great there no way for M$ to get out of this, look good and make a profit. I LOVE IT!!!

Educational software on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in elementary school, we used LOGO. There's a logo interpreter for Linux.

Hardly Fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way we entrench specific hardware while making it that much harder for Apple, Sun, whoever to remain competitive.

If what we all want is fair competition, shouldn't MS give $$ to allow schools to buy whatever they want?

ADD educational tech development & deployment

[ToyDr]

Good... give the schools more hardware and software.

However, regardless of the vendor, dumping technology into the schools is not going to necessarily benefit or improve our schools (assuming this is the background motivation for Microsoft's proposed penalty settlement). We've learned this lesson already!

Red Hat's proposal is a step in the right direction in terms of broadening the vision. Let's not lose sight of the background goal - something beyond just punishing Microsoft. We should take Red Hat's proposal a couple of steps further...

1. The schools need teachers that know what to do with all the technology being unloaded on them. Microsoft should also provide funds for teacher training, toward how to use technology in their classrooms and beyond, using sound pedagogy.
2. There is not enough good educational software out available on any platform (unix-linux-xbsd, MacOS, Windows). Microsoft should also establish a fund that rewards development of open source educational (or education support) software. Perhaps, money can be awarded through a competitive proposal process or an annual contest for best of class software in a number of defined categories. Of course, all developer participants would contribute their work as Open Source projects.

   There have been small-scale exemplars of this seed funding approach by NSF (NEEDS), Dept of Education (ERIC), and even Apple (of old - when HyperCard was hot).

Let's really take advantage of the Microsoft settlement to better of our schools. There are important problems in our education system that can be solved with technology, but software+hardware are only part of the solution. Let's use the Microsoft settlement to address the complete solution.

Good idea.

[JMZero]

I think it's a great idea for Red Hat to put together an educational distribution.

I think it's a great idea to give it out free. However, Red Hat is in the business of selling services. Giving away software AND service is not a good business model (and hasn't been for almost 2 years).

Re:Good idea.

[inKubus]

Thing is, I don't care what happens to RedHat. It would be nice to see an infusion of anti-microsoft into where society needs it most. Someone is going to have to take a hit sometime for the cause, or we shall all perish.

Where is Apple in all of this?

[bujoojoo]

This would be a great way for them to once again become the mainstay personal computer in schools again

Re:More unix edu software than Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I would suggest that there is more zero
fluff educational software for Unix than
there is for windows.

Under math for instance there is:

A)Mathematica, Matlab, Maple etc
(how would you perform a quick calculation under
unix? answer well I might pop open an xterm and
type bc and the calculation, or I might launch
xcalc, or I might run emacs calc-mode and convert the answer from hexidecimal to octal. How would I do it under windows, well I'd... get a pencil and a piece of paper of course!?)

B)Astronomy
Well I know of xephem I'm sure there is
more.

C)History
What in the hell do you need some crappy
multimedia software for, go get a
history book, watch the history channelvisit the internet or go to project gutenberg.

D)Literature
See project gutenberg

What else do you need?
Using computers as glorified video tape
playing babysitter is overrated.

no tech..

[Anonymous Coward]

i think the only safe method for settlement is
MS give the cash and it must be for ANYTHING
but technology(of any kind). be it new libraries, more metal detectors(heh), rennovations, new textbooks..etc.

i think thats the only way to be truely fair.

I hope it won't breed skript kiddies...

[EvilStein]

...or just open up 2,000,000 insecure default Red Hat installs on the world. That would look just GREAT for everyone if they put 2 million Red Hat Linux boxes in schools and all of them were compromised within days. The pro-M$ crowd would stand up and say "See? This wouldn't have happened to a WINDOWS machine!"

Red Hat had better be prepared for a LOT of seemingly mundane support issues to come flooding through their doors. It would also behoove them to actually get in touch with LUGs in the area to see how they can assist with the training/support/etc of these 2 mil. RH boxes.

This is a very nice thing of them to offer, but it could also backfire in a huge way if not done correctly.

Re:I hope it won't breed skript kiddies...

[Ed Bailey]

Red Hat had better be prepared for a LOT of seemingly mundane support issues to come flooding through their doors. It would also behoove them to actually get in touch with LUGs in the area to see how they can assist with the training/support/etc of these 2 mil. RH boxes.

I like your idea about getting the LUGs involved; I'll make sure that the people coordinating this inside the company hear about it.

Ed

ummm....

[dangermouse]

So, I realize that Red Hat is probably just being a smartass, and I'm cool with that. Everybody likes a smartass.

On the other hand, has it occurred to anyone that perhaps they have the same motives as Microsoft, when it comes to getting their software distributed to schools? It would give Red Hat a serious competitive advantage over other Linux distributions, just as it would give Microsoft an advantage over other software vendors in general.

Perhaps it is wise to rally around Red Hat at the moment, as maybe the most serious commercial contender "our camp" has to offer (though that's debatable, even, given their slim lead in actual market share)... or maybe it makes more sense to make deals with multiple software vendors (Apple, various Linux companies, and maybe even Microsoft), and force Microsoft to provide hardware from varying vendors (Apple again, Dell, Gateway, Sun, whoever). This may be difficult due to the price differences among these companies, but I'm sure they'd bend a little.

This way, you don't indoctrinate the children at a million schools in the use of a single vendor's products (diversity is good!), and you make Microsoft dish out some money to its various competitors (competition is good!)

Mix it up a little.

Re:Great! And then what?

[kevin lyda]

squeak.

Fine. Prove it.

[GCP]

Go find out what the schools actually use. Then post links to the Linux version / equivalent of each.

I don't think you can do it, but I'm not just being negative. Even if you don't succeed, the results of any such attempt should be publicized, because they could eventually lead to success.

The two big problems schools face are funding and expertise. Schools don't have enough money to buy fancy commercial hardware and software and keep it up to date, and teachers are rarely above the level of the most naive consumer user, but they're on their own.

The Linux suggestion does a great job at dealing with the funding problem. That just leaves the problem of making these free systems do what schools need to do and completely admin'able by a very naive consumer-level user.

Making Linux systems easy enough for schoolteachers to use has never been any kind of priority for the Linux community.

Re:Fine. Prove it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been out of high school for about five years now, but back then all they used was an Internet browser, office software, email app, Basic interpreter, and a text editor. You're telling me those applications don't exist on linux? Some of the more specific software had to run on a variety of machines including DOS, MacOS, and Windows. However those apps usually just reside on a computer cart with a machine that _only_ runs that particular program. a large percentage of the software needs could be met with the following:

I'm not going to provide links, you can look them up yourself.. try google.

Windows --> kde or gnome
M$ office --> staroffice or koffice
IE --> mozilla or galeon or opera or netscape
programming --> scriptbasic (basic interpreter) or java
simple editor for writing programs --> pico or kedit
email app --> kmail or a webmail system like IMP
everything else --> wine

Re:Fine. Prove it.

[thirdrock68]

Look. The Linux community has, so far, built an enourmous amount of really cool software, for NOTHING.

So consider this scenario. Let's say that there are ~650,000 machines on which you can install new educational software.

Ok, so you form a working group of dozens, hundreds or thousands of programmers from all over the world (that means outside the US too, we have a different definition of the word 'world' than you do), who collaborate over the internet to produce educational software.

Then, you do a deal with the schools. You tell them that you are going to build one great new educational title for their school, that they can download off the internet, and it has an easy, double clickable installer with which they can install the software, every 2 months for the next 12 months. In other words they get 6 titles.

The programmes will be open source, and they can install it on every machine, in every school.

In return for this, they will pay a one off development fee of 50c per machine/per title.

This is approximately $325,000 per title, total of $2,100,000 for all 6 titles. A freakin bargain if you ask me, given the current state of your education system.

Then you take that 2 mill, and you start a Linux educational software company. The company operates as a commercial entity, but comes to it's own arrangement with the schools, and also markets their educational software to kids and parents.

Suddenly, you have a market for Linux software, and commercial vendors start making software and selling it under any licence they choose.

That's a lot more pleasant than the thought of having to watch fat-arse yell 'Developers, developers, developers...' for the next 10-20 years.

Just my 4c

Why Red Hat will get more sympathy...

[ebbomega]

What does Red Hat's offer mean versus M$'s?

Red Hat: Kids learn Linux, which is openly applicable and if they pay attention, they could very easily learn how to work on _any_ linuxbox regardless of whether or not it is a RedHat box or not. Also, this might push some High Schools to teach the concept of Open Source in schools, which is IMHO invariably a Good Thing.

M$: Kids learn a OS that they're going to know regardless because it's what's on their parents' computers/it's currently the standard/it's what they've been subjected to because of societal brainwashing courtesy the corporate world (I myself am a victim of the latter), so they don't really learn anything new. On top of which, Windows is only distributed by a single company, as opposed to Linux, which means ONLY M$ benefits from this.

This isn't a matter of ethics of the companies, really, it's more of an evaluation of the reprocussions of the two acts. M$ means more brainwashing. Red Hat means less.

At least, that's my opinion.

The philosophy of Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

moneymoneymoneymoneymoney

Ohhhh yeah, gimme MOOOOORRRE MONEY!

moneymoneymoneymoneymoney
moneymoneymoneymoneymoney
moneymoneymoneymoneymoney

you don't get it

[varkatope]

Under Red Hat's plan, all of these schools would get a massive amount of hardware. Some of these schools may not even have computers in the first place or have decrepit 486s. Who cares what OS they're running? It's all about the hardware.

- the schools might already have licenses to windows software, what's stopping them from installing windows on the newly donated hardware? Also, if they at some point in time scrounge up enough loot for the MS software, what's stopping them from installing it then? Hardware would just be one less thing to buy.

-the schools might not have hardware in the first place (we're talking poorer areas here) and maybe, just maybe a hard to use by the layperson (but ultimately rewarding) computer is better than no computer at all. Am I right or am I right?

There are a few things I can think of right off the bat that schools could use under linux.

Star Office/Open Office, GIMP, the INTERNET for crying out loud, various programming languages (high school mostly). Shit, they could even get MAYA if they had the cash. I'm sure there's plenty more. The only thing lacking would be the kiddie "educational" and "edutainment" software.

These would be very usable computers no matter what OS they end up running.

I don't think this is going to happen but it would be really, really nice.

They shouldn't be "teaching" Windows...

[Svartalf]

They should be teaching computer use and literacy- there's a big difference there. Windows isn't everywhere, like many would hope that it is. There's mainframes, unix servers and workstations, etc. They DON'T work like Windows- and they're not getting displaced anytime soon.

The argument of "teaching" Windows because that's what is out there is bogus because there's much, much more than Windows out there in the world. There's much more than MS Office out there.

It doesn't matter what OS they use..

[JMZero]

As long as a school computer lab is well supported and the teachers have an understanding of what's going on, I don't think it matters what OS kids are learning on.

And I'm one of the biggest MS apologists here...

As if it matters what word processing program they use! Any feature they learn will be so similar in any modern program as to be interchangeable. Ditto browsers and spreadsheets.

Re:It doesn't matter what OS they use..

[RestiffBard]

if the lab is well supported. big if. if the teachers have an understanding. another big if. i know not all teachers are morons but a great majority of them are. as for the interchangability of routine in a program. forget it. in browsers sure it might be doable but spreadsheet programs and word processors bewilder folks enough as it is. just changing the colors on a program is enough to make some folks lose their way. don't put so much faith in the ability of people to do what we can all do so easily. outside the sheltered world of /. most pc users are completely lost. i wish they weren't.

support

[Ignimbrite]

As far as I can tell, Red Hat has the infrastructure to provide something akin to support to many people. Does FreeBSD have this? I don't think so. Besides, what does FreeBSD have over OpenBSD? Not security.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Nailer]

What educational software is there for Linux? I mean REALLY?

Creatures is pretty popular, so is Simcity 3000 and Civ:CTP / FreeCiv, and Tux Math, and Tux Type, etc.

Kudos to Redhat, but.

[GISboy]

Let us put this into perspective a little:
Redhat is showing what Microsoft truely is, just like the Cigarette companies were exposed for what they were, correct?

Well, people will still smoke and use windows (which I seem to be doing both, right now...oops).

(**warning**
Distrubing and potentially imagery ahead.
If you are of a weak constitution or don't wish to feel the need for a self labotomy don't read the following, please
**end warning**)

This settlement is a complete sham, and everyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together knows it.

The "sick and disgusting part" is the menage a trois of the CEO's of Intel, Microsoft and Dell.
Let me guess that:
Intel is going to make a "special education" chip at "market value" from however many pre-trial years ago.
It'll probably be a brain dead P4 (oxymoron, I know, bear with me) at 3X the price for the "pre-trial value"...say 600 dollars.

Dell who will probably be (wink wink nudge nudge) "donating" the hardware will probably be getting an even more obscenely "favoring contract" from both Intel and Microsoft will put together a 150 bucks worth of lefover parts and charge 300.

Microsoft is putting on, what was it?...XP home edition? Capable of networking with NETBUI only (if my memory serves) for the valuation of 100 bucks.

There is your $1000 dollar machine, my friends.

Yes I am being cynical, but I am probably dead on as well.
The CEO of this Menage a Trois did not get where they are by "going it alone" much less "helping thier fellow man" or "some philanthropic generosity", far, far from it.

It is not called the "Wintel duopoly" for nothing.

Where does Dell fit in? Heh, every 'circle jerk' needs a pivot man...guess who.

My opinion, standard disclaimer, and all that.

Oh, and if the Redhat deal is not taken seriously, when the pc's are delivered to school someone should make a fake news paper with the Hindenberg disaster and the "first pc" being delivered photos with the headline "Oh! The Humanity!".

Then again, who knows what will happen?

Re:Great! And then what?

[dimator]

[dimator@chernobyl]$ fortune
Menu, n.:
A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.

True cost of computers/software

[Anonymous Coward]

Microssoft sells office xp standard edition for $479.99.

Dell sells our school p4 computers (1.5G p4, 20G HD, 256M ram, CD, 17" monitor, 3yr warranty and such) for $650, not $1000.

First off, I venture the comupter would be worth much more than the software to any school.

Second, whoever is quoting computers for schools at $1000 is pocketing some cash.

The software is just a smoke screen to inflate the value of the settlement. The schools are just being used as a "good cause" for PR and tax writeoff for Microsoft. Like the tobacco companies, they just want a settlement to be done with it and will pass the cost to their customers.

As for the software, where is the open source movement in creating, organizing, distributing software for schools? How about university CS and Education programs creating open source educational software? And get the Business programs to practice marketing it to schools?

I would like to see someone practical to take control of this settlement. Have Microsoft cough up the 1.1 billion (or more, don't see where the figure came from), then cut a better deal with Dell or some other computer company that is at least equal to what our school is getting today. Interest on that kind of money alone could do a world of good. The tax write off should not NOT go to microsoft, but how about to all the people that microsoft cheated but aren't getting anything to show for out of this settlement?

Then setup a program that encourages open source and schools of higher learning to create, develop, promote educational software for schools of lower learning.

What will this deal to Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it... Apple has had a stong hold of the educational market. A lot bigger market share than it has else where.

Now MS is taking that away, so where's the punishment?

The Apple market share will shrink even if RH will donate the software and MS just has to pay for the hardware.

Sick.

You americans are stupid.

Schools don't need computers...

[makisupa]

They need teachers.

One more math teacher would do more for these kids' computer skills than ten more pcs.

28 kids/classroom rather than 34 kids/classroom would do more for the at risk children than 50 pcs.

As computer people I think we sometimes forget our warped views of the world. Children need (1) more adult human attention and (2) more education.

Not more useless screentime with a digital babysitter, Red Hat or otherwise.

Re:Schools don't need computers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go, man. As a high school student that has to deal with two student teachers who are barely competent, I'd definitely have to commend you. All these zealots on here are arguing about which OS to run, while my teachers are continuity complaining about lack of resources. Use the money to improve the schools instead.

Re:Schools don't need computers...

[mami]

Of course.

But it is exactly the Window-ish thinking that tries to REPLACE a teacher with a COMPUTER through their pretty useless usage of the computer as an encyclopedia made by "the idiocy of the human race as a whole without using human brains to judge the material published in their encyclopedia".

The usage of Red Hat doesn't prevent the school teachers to make the mistake to let the kids "surf the web". Nobody said that computers should be used for such a thing in school. But Red Hat would give the best platform to actually learn how a OS works, how to manipulate data and how to program. That's what kids should learn. That's why kids should use THAT OS and not learn to surf the web for fun. If they do get used to using a Windows box, they later in life would possibly have to "relearn" another OS. The only reason why people want dual boot Win + Linux OS is exactly because they know, right now, if you use the computer on the job, you HAVE to know how to use Win applications.

For the younger kids I would insist on an open *nix OS. It's bad enough that the older folks, if they want to switch to *nix, have to start from scratch and relearn. Don't force your kids into the same situation. There is NO reason to use a closed source code OS or even application, when you start out new. It is not harmful, because whatever you learned from using a *nix box, will just be of value, even if later on you might work with another OS.

BTW, I would even prevent kids from browsing and doing "research" during official school hours.

a beautiful political move

[jptxs]

how can M$ respond in any way that does not portray them as recieving an award through the original "settlement".

Make my day

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just after midnight, got screwed by the boss today. Time to relax, a San Miguel at my desk, Doors (the greatest hits) at the headphones LOUD as to not disturb la mujer and this article made my day: /kick low mode on/ Straight at los cojones de Bill y Steve. /kick low mode off/

Why not have both?

[joemiah]

What about a compromise where Microsoft would be required to set up dual boot Windows/Linux systems for the schools?

Personally, I think this would be of a lot more benefit to the schools, and students.

So what we need...

[mmol_6453]

...is some sort of program to educate the educators.

Note that school system administrators aren't dumb, they're just ignorant. With enough information, they can make extremely well-reasoned decisions.

I say educate an entire state's worth of school administrators of both the pros and the cons(yes, they do exist) of running Linux, Windows, MacOS, and *BSD, and let them choose what they want to do with that information.

Give them example plans, time schedules, financial reports, and what-have-you. Make sure these represent an average school district.

Also try to address common fears like "But what will my students have to use once they graduate?" "What about my slower students?" and common fallacies like "But Windows has been around for so much longer, so it must be a better alternative," and "Windows has commercial backing, so there's concern for us," and "Windows has a much larger market share, so it must be better."

If you can make it completely plain that the information you give them is intentionally unbiased, then they'll trust what they see.

While the decisions won't be unanimous among all the school districts, you'll certainly see a trend towards whatever is best at the time for students.

And I'm betting that the administrators won't be betting on Windows.

Re:So what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe so. But I don't happen to like Linux and I'd be very willing to go in and educate the educators on why Linux is a really bad choice.

You aren't talking about educating, you are talking about marketing bullshit.

Re:So what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you mind educating me on why you feel linux is a really bad choice?

Re:So what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get it.
OS vs OS is not a matter of education. It is a matter of opinion. -- What I just said is a matter of education. Please learn.
(not your parent AC)

Re:So what we need...

[Tony-A]

OS vs OS is a matter of opinion. Informed opinion is better, which requires education.
Whether you can get education from the education system is a different matter.

Excellent proposal

[mami]

Slashdotters seem to like to play traitors and deny to consider the obvious. Here reasons why schools should use Red Hat.

1. Kids should learn how to program. Nothing will help more to learn how to program and understand what an OS does than an Open Source OS like Linux, and yes, it should be Red Hat, because Red Hat is the only company, who might be able to handle the task at hand.

2. Teachers should learn to program and learn to teach how to program. Nothing will help more to understand how to program and how to teach it as having well developed tutorials on CD or online designed to help teachers and students to learn it. Red Hat has started their Training and E-Learning programs and seems to be very well equipped to produce such specific training services and software for schools.

3. Red Hat SHOULD IN NO WAY give up to make a profit on the long run in providing services and e-learning services to schools. Red Hat is a company and may be one of the few left who might make it, which has philosphically stood stead fast for opened source code software.

I consider anybody a hypocrite, who for whatever "uncool" reason thinks that Red Hat is not allowed to make money with what they do. The kids, which will be educated in programming in highschools, are the future programmers, who will go on and become the professionals of the future. They might want to write open source software again. I want them to find a successful company like Red Hat, which is capable of hiring them. So, please, your lovable slashdotting fathers out there, if you want your sons to find a job in programming in the future, don't be so darn stupid to deny Red Hat to make money.

It really doesn't hurt to have high school students knowing a bit of shell scripting and to have an understanding about a *nix based OS. Not only highschools should use Red Hat, but also colleges. It's ridiculous to deny ANY student to look at the source code of a program on their own computer and force them to use a proprietary OS.

4. The argument that there is not enough "educational" software running on Linux written for kids is a phony argument. Linux in itself IS educational. Because kids can discover by themselves how to program, they might develop themselves faster than you think their own "educational programs".

And what the heck are you waiting for ? Can't YOU write the educational software, which might still be missing ?

What more do you want ? Do you want them "TO SURF THE NET", "CUT AND PASTE", "COPY", "STEAL", "CHAT" at school ???? Heaven's sake I rather would teach my kids at home than to let them deteriorate into ADD kids flipping from website to website.

In short, why isn't there an open letter to sign for anybody who would like to give their support for Red Hat's proposal.

Smart Heads need Red Hats.

Re:Excellent proposal

[jonesvery]

Kids should learn how to program.
OK, I'm with you most of the way on this one, but I might say that all kids should be *exposed* to programming; I see no reason why every kid should be forced to program (especially since most of them will be *terrible* programmers). Yes, programming can be a tool rather than an end in itself (to introduce kids to formal logic, say), but it will not be the best tool to teach every kid.

Teachers should learn to program and learn to teach how to program.
Why should a history teacher, French teacher, or English teacher learn how to program or try to teach others that skill? You're probably doing more damage by getting a huge number of incompetent "Literature/C++" teachers who give kids poor information and convince them that programming is utterly incomprehensible.

The kids, which will be educated in programming in highschools, are the future programmers, who will go on and become the professionals of the future. They might want to write open source software again.
But you're also educating the future doctors, bakers, writers, historians, ethicists, and mechanics; what is it about programming that means we should teach kids the skills of of programmer rather than a doctor, baker, writer, historian, ethicist, or mechanic? Are you sure that the skill you propose is the most valuable?

I actually agree that Red Hat's proposal is a good one for schools, but I don't think that's because "Linux=programming." Even in the the techno-centric future that we keep hearing about, only a relatively small part of the population is going to be programmers; a large number, however, will use computers in one form or another on a daily basis. With MS' preferred deal, we're looking at about 17 computers per school, where the Red Hat software takes that number to about 70. 70 computers, regardless of what OS they're running, isn't really enough for most high schools these days, but it's better than 17.

Re:Excellent proposal

[bigbird]

1. Kids should learn how to program.

There are a lot of things kids should learn before learning how to program - if they ever do. Like reading, writing, mathematics, problem solving skills, social skills etc. I feel you are vastly overrating the importance of programming in a school's curriculum. For many, if not most students, programming is of little importance.

2. Teachers should learn to program and learn to teach how to program

Most teachers are too busy and too stressed to do anything other than survive. *IT teachers* should, I agree, know how to program and be able to teaching programming. But again, learning programming is simply not that important IMHO.

Re:Excellent proposal

[mami]

Well, I can't help it if the school's teachers are not capable to teach the kids the basic reading, writing and math skills and usually it doesn't take much longer than til eight grade to do so.

There is no better way of learning logic thinking and focussing on detail than learning to program. It's not that hard.

Knowing how a computer works covers a lot of areas in physics as well. So, I am not talking about the average elementary or middle school teacher. Anyhow U.S. separation of middle and highschool is an abomination anyhow. Why you have to drag the kids twice through different schools in that age is beyond me.

OK, off-topic.

Re:Excellent proposal

[mami]

I didn't mean that EVERY teacher should learn how to program. I meant that every highschool student should (yes be forced) to go through basic programming classes and to learn the functioning of an OS.

Yes, even if you are educating the future doctors, bakess, writers historians, it is still useful for the students to learn HOW their computer "does a good chunk of work for them". They ALL will use the computer in one way or the other in their professional lives and it is very helpful, if they actually know (and can see at the source code level) how they can manipulate data etc. Even if most people will never have time, the need or the desire to actually USE and take ADVANTAGE from the opened source code, some will want to do that and they SHOULD NOT BE denied the possibility to do so.

You don't hide to a pharmacist the sources of how drugs are made and what they consist of. Why would you want to deny the same "scientific" openness to anybody who uses a computer ?

Re:Great! And then what?

[anothy]

you're right, linux isn't (currently?) up to the task, primarialy because of software base (questions about Linux's suitability for non-geek desktops aside). but Red Hat's offer still has some good ideas in it. helping the schools is always nice, since no government in the US gives them the cash they should have, and the counter-offer does take M$'s obviously self-serving ploy and turn it into something really punative. targeting the poorest schools is also a nice move (on the part of M$ and Red Hat). and, most importantly, it's likely to have some lasting effect as it may (hopefully) encourage a viable long-term competitor to M$.
so, if it's a good idea, but RH and Linux can't pull it off, who can? simple: Apple. they've already got a good reputation in the education sector, they've got good app support, and it's their traditional strong suit anyway. it'd also avoid subsidizing one of M$'s biggest de facto partners (Intel), who've also benefited quite a bit from M$ abusing their monopoly.

so, how 'bout it, Apple? wanna step up to bat for the kids, put M$ in their place, and improve your long-term prospects for years to come, just for the cost of some support?

Re:Great! And then what?

[anothy]

you are correct on pretty much everything here. but there's more. to summarize:

• M$'s monopoly has helped keep Linux out of schools
• Linux not being in schools discouraged edu. app writers from porting to or writing for Linux
• putting Linux into schools would encourage greater edu. app support for Linux
• this would increase Linux' momentum, impacting M$'s monopoly
• this would acomplish the real goal here, punishing M$ and preventing future offenses.

all this is true, entirely logical, and valid reasoning. the problem here is that it would, until the software companies catch up, very much degrade the usefulness of those computers to the schools that recieve them. while it's certainly a huge improvement over M$'s "offer", something that doesn't diminish the positive effects would be even better.
to which i'd propose swapping Apple for Linux. administratively, it's much more familiar to the people who'll be running these boxes, Apple can absorb the support costs better than Red Hat, and Apple's already got both a very positive reputation and good app support in the education sector. and, of course, Apple's been hurt probably much worse than Linux (since they've been abused my M$'s monopoly before Linux was a concern), so it's a further improvement to the punative nature of the settlement.

Free Software is our only hope to compete

[Benjiman McFree]

I totally agree with redhat's ceo. msft should not give away their skunkware as part of a settlement option; it cost them nothing and the poor the opportunity to gain technical knowledge on worldwide computer technologies. Not only that, but the cost of licenses(in five years) is prohibitive to poorer schools.

If msft did buy hardware, i'm sure they would make sure that it was the least linux compatible on the market, so msft should make arrangements with valinux, ibm and the rest of the linux pc makers.

Actually, if the poor waits a few years, they'll be able to get an embedded linux webpad for peanuts.

Why haven't we heard from Apple?

[bstadil]

Why haven't we heard from Apple regarding this? One of the main reason that you can't use inmates as cheap labor is that it will unfairly distort the economy. Why does this not apply to this "Remedy" They are the dominant supplier of platforms incl. OS to the educational sector. This proposal will severely hurt Apples business forcing them to counter act with price reduction. How can this Remedy be acceptable to them?

Re:Why haven't we heard from Apple?

[tillemetry]

*@$#, beat me by 5 minutes...

Still. It would be cool to make Microsoft buy macs. They could even supply new copies of Office XP for OSX. Most of the other arguments would be moot.

Re:Why haven't we heard from Apple?

[tillemetry]

Just want to add that in 5 years the macs would probably still be useful...

Re:Why haven't we heard from Apple?

[Legion303]

One of the main reason that you can't use inmates as cheap labor is that it will unfairly distort the economy.

You've never worked for a state government, have you? Here in Colorado, state agencies are bound by law to buy furniture through the Juniper Valley Corrections Facility. See, the prison put in the cheapest bid when the state was writing up contracts; as a result, state agencies may not buy any furniture from anyplace else, even though it can be had for as little as half as much, unless there are special circumstances (e.g., the furniture has to be built to exact specs that Juniper Valley can't handle).

Slave labor is here to stay.

-Legion

Perhaps they should hear your opinion...

[dagnathan]

If people think that Redhat's solution is one that should be considered -- Voice your opinion to the people who have the power to make the decision!

Personally, I am in support of allowing any company, group, or organization (except Microsoft) that wishes to donate software with accompanying support to do so. Microsoft should be limited to supplying compliant hardware. Microsoft should not be allowed to receive a "punishment" that will further their own monopoly.

PLEASE BE COURTEOUS. DON'T FLAME THEM!!!

Write Your Member of Congress:
http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-ema il .html

Write Your Senator:
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

And write the Anti Trust Division of the United States:
The text below is taken directly from the Anti Trust Division of the United States located at http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms-settle.htm#submi t

Submitting Comments

Before you submit comments about the settlement, the Department of Justice recommends that you review the documents related to the settlement.

You may submit comments about the settlement by e-mail, fax, or mail.

Note: Given recent mail delivery interruptions in Washington, DC, and current uncertainties involving the resumption of timely mail service, the Department of Justice strongly encourages that comments be submitted via e-mail or fax.

E-mail
microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov
In the Subject line of the e-mail, type Microsoft Settlement.
Fax
1-202-307-1454 or 1-202-616-9937
Mail
Renata B. Hesse
Antitrust Division
U.S. Department of Justice
601 D Street NW
Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Lack of integrity

[Princess Firefly]

Displays the lack of integrity of the US justice system? Depends how you define the word but I think it shows real integrity. In that we can continue to expect big corporations to operate outside of (or control) the legal system. That hasn't changed since the beginning of US history!

Redhat needs to act now

[Lumpy]

redhat needs to do thins right now. Start shipping to the Schools NOW. send a nice letter stating they have free support forever and a nice infographic that shows how much microsoft is costing the school in fees and administration costs.

Bew sure to have big bold letters that state... REdhat is 100% free to your school and will be that way for the next 99 years. In fact we give you the right to give copies of the operating system to your students, faculity, parents, and stranges on the street for as long as you like. now sweeten the pot, offer to train and certify 1 person at each school district in redhat.

Microsoft wont know what hit them....

Wait a sec here....

[josh crawley]

Who says this Red Hat offering is actually good???? Well for a little background, I am a Windows user.. However I'm also a Linux user, Mac user, Solaris user and a next user. My biases are only what is actually good (EG: cost, stability, support). Linux has EASILY proved to be a superb OS as compared to monetary cost (none) and stability (weeks and weeks without reboot). However support is lacking. Red Hat is offering support to all schools under this plan, but that support isn't any better than a good posting to USENET. However, Windows has easily proved in thier recent OS'es that THEY can make a stable product. I run win2k at home in conjunction with a Sparcstation 5, a linux server and a few other clients (sister and dad). My main beefs are 1: Has anybody EVEN worked at a school (not college)? Like I said, I have a sister who's in 3'rd grade. The teacher is responsible for teaching them Windows and other skills. She hasn't a clue on how to do stuff herself. People at schools are EXTREMLY computer-phobic and won't use one unless they have to. I even tried to donate time to that same school. The computer specialist was an overworked Sys-ad who had to go to 2 other schools/fix problems/pull her hair out. 2: When's the last time Linux has EASILY went on hardware so that you DIDN'T have to open the box? Windows, however does. You can do a bulk install of windows machines without bunches of questions to answer. If Linux manufactuers could create a SEAMLESS install with autodetect Sound/Graphics/Ethernet and start at a nice fuzzy KDE term, then that's the product for them. However it doesn't. It's that nasty command line-thingy whatsit. Teachers/school sysad's won't have time to learn Linux. Overall, Linux is NOT for school use yet. Only when it's made very easy for home users, should schools even consider this. Bringing the whole monolopy garbage clouds the issue. The issue is really at: Is Linux ready in schools?

Re:Wait a sec here....

[Graymalkin]

Well..for those of us who can read. Redhat is offering to stick Linux on these systems and provide unlimited support for the hardware MS buys. KDE and GNOME look alot like Windows and in many cases act alot like it. As long as the installation is kept pretty compact it shouldn't confuse anybody. You click the button at the bottom to get to your applications. Nautilus is a pretty workable GUI file manager desktop icons pretty easily get people to the media devices they want to use. It isn't like the schools have to admin the boxes themselves anyways. They call up RH if there is ever a problem and if the boxes have even modest internet connectivity an RH trouble shooter can run stuff remotely to fix the system.

Re:Wait a sec here....

[gear6468]

Well..for those of us who can read. Redhat is offering to stick Linux on these systems and provide unlimited support for the hardware MS buys

I knew that, but maybe I didn't made myself clear: If the RH installation is similar with SuSE's, and works well, then I think it's OK to have RH on those computers (there are many similarities between RH and SuSE).

[...]It isn't like the schools have to admin the boxes themselves anyways.

I totally agree!. They just have somebody install the OS (with RH support, if needed) and then put the root password one a piece of paper, wrap it in an envelope and store it in the prinicipal's office :) ... Anyway, after they get the pc's (?), they can install whatever other OS they like (debian - free, SuSE - pay, *BSD - maybe not for everybody).

Re:Wait a sec here....

[Graymalkin]

I don't even think the schools really need to install RH on the systems because it can be done by whoever MS buys the boxes from (Dell or Compaq most likely) so it can be as easily done as writing an image onto the drive. That also works for maintaining the systems. The school's can be given disks with live images on them which are just dd'ed onto the hard drives. As long as there is a modicum of password security so people don't get to run around as root it'd be hard for anyone to really fuck up an installation anyways.

Hurray. Fantastic Idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Increases the number of computers to kids. The "punishment" does not turn into a taxpayer subsidized marketing effort for Microsoft and it increases the base of people knowledgeble about opensource.

Definitely an interesting concept...

[Vorgo]

when I first read that Microsoft offered to put computers and their software in schools as their settlement, I thought that it was a really bastardly thing for them to suggest.
1) It makes them look like their looking out for the children and therefore makes them look like the good guys.
2) It would be almost no punishment at all! Especially when you consider that all the software would cost them nothing because they'd be supplying their own!

The Redhat idea for Microsoft to supply the hardware and Redhat supply the software is quite an interesting idea.
Upsides:
1) Microsoft gets a bigger punishment because they aren't just taking money from one of their pockets and putting it in the other.
2) More schools benefit because the money will be going into the hardware and not the software.
3) The schools would get "unlimited support" from Redhat.
4) A generation of people maybe would learn to not be quite as afraid/ignorant of the mysterious entity known as Linux.
Downsides:
1) As much as I'd hate to say it... let's me honest: A large percentage of those children are not going to ever use Linux (or any other Unix) other than in school. They're going to be using Windows, cause that's what they probably have at home, that's what they'll be using in their entry level jobs.
2) Not to take any credit away from the teachers but... most teachers (even computer teachers) would not have prior experience with Linux. This would mean that training would be required.
3) Let's face it: people are bitchy by nature. I could picture the uproar that the parents of these children would be in because their children are being taught how to use something other than Windows.

In the defense of Non-Windows software:
In theory it shouldn't matter what OS the students are using because
a) a GUI should be intuitive and
b) because most programs are layed out and function that exact same whether it's a program for windows or for something else.
EG: Basic Word Processor. If you know how to use one word processor then it's not going to be a stretch to use another word processor.

just my two cents (cdn)

Perhaps RedHat could do this anyways? Fair idea?

[SA3Steve]

Since it seemes odd to say that Microsoft should be banned from giving the software to the schools but RedHat is allowed to with the tech support for free, perhaps they could do this...give the hardware and give the option of having Windows loaded onto it and getting the software for free as originally proposed...or getting the hardware barebones without an OS installed (or let RedHat install it...Microsoft shouldn't be responsible for installing RedHat themselves). This way, the schools can decide which they would prefer to do and neither is forced upon them. I belive most would still choose to go with Microsoft since that is what they are used to...but some could decide to go the RedHat route and this would be a pretty fair decision they could make?

get real...

[Anonymous Coward]

is this for real?!
ROFL - like that'd work!

i'm a linux enthusiast. but c'mon... use your brains here. if MS's gonna do anything with supplying computers. you better believe there'll be some MS software on that PC.

A terrible idea by Red Hat.

[Derek Finch]

It's well known that linux is infected with the decimal number system. Until it is completely hexadecimal in user I/O, it is poison to students.

show em like it is

[staeci]

give them a mix of linux, windows and mac. Just like it is in the real world. Have a mix of applications on each. Have them learn the strenghts and weaknesses of each. This is what the real world is like.

Have a mix of them in the library for internet use and accessing the library catalog(often via web-interface these days). Show them that it doesn't really matter so long as standards are adhered to.

Seriously I doubt that any kid would have a problem sitting down at a KDE desktop for the first time. They'll just click on things till it breaks or works. And lets face it kids will often use the one which looks the coolest. Even a default KDE desktop looks pretty sweet (just change win-deco to laptop).

And after the license free period is over I imagine all the windows boxes will dissappear. Either that or MS will chase em down and eat them alive.

ermmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

learning linux instead of windows? Red Hat supporting all these boxes?

All the schools need is a machine to surf the net and do some word processing or basic office stuff.. where's the problem with software availability there?

As for support, just setup a standard educational install (minimal, quick and easy), then ghost it and stick it on a cd for the school tech dept to reinstall if the machine ever goes wrong. where's the support problem?

That won't be true for long...

[sterno]

If every school in the country started using it, the amount of educational software for Linux would suddenly grow substantially. Also, don't forget that one of the biggest pieces of educational software is already available for linux:

THE INTERNET

:)

Re:Great! And then what?

[sparkz]

Word.

Even worse....

[Leimy]

Anything but RH!!! Now our children can learn to use broken compilers that aren't ready for prime time yet...

Why not just give them hardware and then let the schools choose...

Redhat must really want/need those training contracts.

Re:Great! And then what?

[GlassUser]

They need to be used properly. And I don't mean administered or installed properly. If a student does not want to learn, you have bigger problems than simply increasing productivity. You need to actually get involved and motivate the people (AKA students, yes, they're people too). Of course, this leads to a lot more things that people don't want to hear about, like making schools useful for more than extended advertising campaigns, and paying teachers competetive salaries (and most likely STILL not compensating them properly for what they do).

These types of issues should be the a priority. Not that we shouldn't be working on making computers useful as learning tools, we (should) have enough resources that we can dedicate something to that too. But our priority should be the foundation.

like largo

[staeci]

How about a city-wide installation such as the city of Largos in Florida except just across the schools?

Even this is self-serving...

[leandrod]

Why do we need Red Hat Network when we have all software we need thru Debian GNU CDs, mirrors network, dpkg package manager with full dependency management, apt to get all this software and install it, everything documented and supported?

What's more, Debian creates communities.

Re:Great! And then what?

[taxman_10m]

Are you kidding? Apple has a monopoly on schools. Hell, it's practically the only thing saving them.

As a punishment.

[OgGreeb]

Microsoft should be forced to buy at full price, Linux distributions, Mac OS X and the hardware to run them on, and donate that to the schools. This would be a real penalty and would also benefit its competitors.

Forcing RH almost as bad as forcing MSFT.

[gig]

Why should the court specify what the schools are going to get? If this is a penalty, it should be a blank check donation that schools can spend on anything they want, as long as it's non-Microsoft. It's not a penalty unless some of Microsoft's money and market share goes to their competitors. If a school already has a Linux setup, they'll want more stuff to go with that; if they already have Apple stuff with PowerSchool and carts of iBooks, then they will want more of that. If they have all Microsoft stuff, in part because of Microsoft's illegal actions, then they will have an opportunity to see what they've been missing with some other stuff.

Also, it would be a good penalty to have Microsoft pay for a UNIX/Mac training course that's offered free to MSCE's that want it. In other words, you paid to become an MSCE before Microsoft's actions were brought to light, and now you have a free way to upgrade your skills to other tech and round out your knowledge and maybe stop pushing MS kit because it's all you know.

Another penalty would be free Windows 3.11 for any machine that can run it. These machines are out there, and often they are junk only because of software licensing. They ALL had DOS because of Microsoft's illegal licensing (pay for DOS whether you want it or not), so it's not like Microsoft didn't already get a cut of the cost of these machines originally. Apple has offered System 7.5.5 for free for years, and that is much higher functionality than Windows 3.11. That's why there are so many old Macs still doing functional work, and even being sold around on eBay to do functional work. The equivalent PC's (late 486's and early Pentiums) are going to the dump, or sitting in the basements of office buildings. Microsoft recently hassled a charity for collecting these and putting Windows 3.11 on them for kids. That's not right. If their software weren't so much more fragile than the hardware, these machines would still be functional (in other words, you'd turn them on and they'd be as good as the day they first went into service).

Why not go a step further RedHat/Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of just "thorowing money" at the problem of poorer school districts in the nation (which we've see doesn't work, do a little research on the last 8 years of the democratic whitehouse) go a step futher and make it manditory that each school in a poorer area have a Microserf or RedHat"guy"(is there a name for those folks that work in the triangle yet) TEACH at one of these schools.. Bring the kids up to par.

I know there are a LOT OF "libral arts grads" in redmound... hell last time I was there there were more marketing people than programmers.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

i work k12: IT jerkoffs like yourself with BA
about k12 guys keep me there.
code, maintain 200=win9x machines, maintain
mult db's, novell, ms and linux servers..
what don't you get-not all schools are created
equal, though smug jerkoffs are.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you need?
You would need a viable office replacement.
That's it: one that is used widely in industry.
That is the whole problem.

The rest of the curriculum works:
Programming taught where i'm at is java and c++ ;
no problem.
web design;hell quanta is so nice the teachers would die to have that to work with.
Graphic design and cad: you have gimp and I'm sure there is an acceptable cad implementation
for linux.

Office is the only stumbling block, hell
thin, dumb clients would facilitate the admins work and cut down on abuses.
There are all kinds of benefits to going with linux, but the drawback is a huge one.
(love to see it happen though)

800,000 keyboards

[Sly Mongoose]

First, if Red Hat's offer does nothing else, it points out the duplicitous nature of Microsoft's offer.

Second, if the point is to introduce the students to the principles of computer science, then Linux is perfectly adequate to the task. We aren't out to create a generation of Word-using stenographers, we are out to expand the minds of the students.

Third, there is no reason for any school to keep Linux on their machines if they choose not to. They can install any OS they like. True, they may have to pay for it. The cost-free option remains theirs, but they can go and install BeOS if they choose.

Fourth, the benefit of this proposal is not that Microsoft gets punnished for their evil deeds. It is not that they get their monopolistic plans thwarted. It is not that Red Hat gets to capture the hearts and minds of the students. The real benefit is that 800,000 more kids get to sit in front of 800,000 more monitors and tap away on 800,000 more keyboards than the original proposal. Five times as many kids get access to five times as many computers, running a capable, highly reliable, highly efficient operating system that can be utilized at no extra cost, or replaced with the OS of their choice (should they decide to do so) for far less than the cost of acquiring the equivilent systems themselves.

What a pity it won't happen!

Better Idea

[rnicey]

I personally think a better punishment for Microsoft and a solution to balance the monopolgy they've been found guilty of is for Microsoft to buy $1bn worth of Redhat (why not split between similar companies also to keep a balance) software and support and be forced to use their extensive programming resources to port the top 500 educational titles as voted by the school boards.

Might make them think twice next time.

DOJ and MS retort

[pinkj]

at first i thought this was an excellent idea. but a lot of people have given some interesting future scenarios that could arise out of this. but the proposal's out. that can't be changed. all i want to know now are the replies from the DOJ and MS. i think that would be a lot more interesting at this point.

Why Don't they just give them the money

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is a great idea that they are trying to help schools. Lord knows schools need to spend more money on teachers than computers. However, instead of inciting even more debate about anti-trust issues (which giving copies of windows clearly does), why don't they give the schools the money outright? Instead of the schools feeling like they are unable to turn down free MS software and thus adopting windows, the schools can buy whatever technology they see fit. Afterall, isn't that what this whole case is about? Choice and Competition?

Re:Sure, fuck the students

[josh crawley]

Would you care to explain why we should "fuck the kernel" as you say? Anyways, the last I checked, the kernel is software. Bits and people cannot engage in sex.

Perhaps you'd like to 'unhide' yourself if you actually stood beside your <laugh> cause.

Go away, troll.

Ed software

[shaunboy]

This question has been brought up all over this topic but I'll reply here. The education software I remember from HS (4 years ago) are the same ones I used at home, i.e. MS word, MS paint, MS ... On the Macs we had hypercard and Organ Trail. Yes, there is a possablity that Linux may free up some funds for other uses.

My college has a program were we (the students) go to schools and repair and replace computers. We have been known on the occusion to install Linux or FreeBSD on some systems.

Education software for Linux
http://www.linux.org/apps/all/Scientific/Educati on .html

Re:Great! And then what?

[afroginthevalley]

What will the kids run? What educational software is there for Linux? I mean REALLY? Sure, there is some, but it's not even close to what is available for Windows.

If half the energy spent on posting here was dedicated to developing free educational software / volunteering sysamin time for local schools this would not be a problem but an opportunity...

Quit whining and code!

Interesting

[shaunboy]

A good use for all those Linux user groups. I know we have three in my county and a group just for Admins too. Send them out to install and maintain systems. Good idea to get CIS/CE students on it too.

bah

[shaunboy]

Not a waste of time. Their are many districtes out there that are stuck on the MS track to hell. I interviewed for a school district sysadmin job and was turned down because I have more experiance admining *nix then MS Windows.

As far as hardware pickieness, I repaired an English teacher at my HS 's Kaypro. She had all her grades and stuff on 5.25" floppies. She regualerly backed up her floppies and even had an extra Kaypro in case her original one final bit it.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Angst Badger]

Well, if you're learning about computers, EVERY program on a Linux box is educational!

That's great, but most kids don't use computers in school to learn about computers, nor should they be expected to. They use computers to run educational software to learn about other things -- mathematics, language arts, etc., and secondarily to familiarize themselves with the One True Office Suite that will be inflicted upon them in the workplace. Beyond a certain basic understanding (which I will be the first to say is sadly neglected), the average student, like the average user, doesn't need to understand computers. Most of them are, after all, going to grow up to be something other than software developers or electrical engineers.

And unfortunately, near as I can tell, there is still vastly more educational software available for the Apple II than there is for all flavors of Unix combined.

Re:Great! And then what?

[CaptIronfist]

Almost not at all. If it wasn't spelled out in a book word for word they couldn't do it.

Nice attitude, this is going to help your schools a lot right ?

"It's too hard for them, you have to give them the candy in the mouth, they are dumb asses you know ..."

If you can't beat them, you might as well give them some irony.

Kids are different

[JMZero]

I would agree that most users are pretty poor at adjusting to new software.

I think kids have to be thought of differently though, at least to some extent. I'm certainly no expert, but people growing up today seem to be able to understand computers.

I'm basing this on horribly anecdotal evidence - I don't know hundreds of young people.

You're certainly right, though. Installing Linux in a school would demand very good understanding on the part of the school's tech resources - and I don't know whether it's the right move.

In any case, though, I don't think a student who learned to do Word Processing on StarOffice would come out horribly disadvantaged. I learned Word Processing on an Apple IIe. Also, the level of instruction (even in high schools), is so basic that most applications won't show much divergence from their MS counterparts.

fa!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get Microsoft any way you can! Nice to know that the government's job now is to harass companies into giving their wares away. How can Microsoft be a monopoly if Redhat is a competitor? How does Redhat enter into this legal battle if it isn't a competitor of Microsoft? How can Microsoft unfairly compete with Redhat if Redhat routinely gives away its O.S. distro free? Folks, our legal system is f***ed if it becomes a way of making politics (or economics) by other means.

Re:Great! And then what?

[cgleba]

What is 'educational software'? If you mean running number munchers to learn your times tables one can code somthing like that very quickly and is trivial.

Let's think a little higher level here. There's an enormous number of 'educational' scientific open-source apps already available for linux like scilab for instance. That would do wonders for math classes not even taking into consideration the fact that they have the SOURCE CODE for the entire OS. That's the best learning tool I've ever had.

As for admin'ing the machines, I would take a lower-paying UNIX admin job for a school in a heart-beat over a higher-paying high stress corporate UNIX admin job.

Count me in

[jmorris42]

I have been trying to get Linux from out of the server closets and onto desks here in Beauregard Parish since I started consulting for em. On the clock or off, I'm up for helping with a rollout.

Ooh Ooh Ooh!!!

[jpellino]

I got a counter counter proposal - MS buys the $1B hardware from me and installs it in all these schools!

Seriously - all such proposals are sugar-coated self-serving crap. And that's coming from an educator.

Nobody - and I mean nobody - will do this if the corporation doesn't stand to benefit in some way. Their boards would have their heads. That goes for Microsoft, Red Hat, Yellow Dog, or Little Green Men.

If any of these folks thought it's be just a plain old good idea to give $1B in tech to schools they'd have done it long before there was a mandate to make nice.

MS needs to make up for this in some other way - by promoting competition, not by jacking up their ed. market share.

And anyway Linux boxes on every schoolkid's desktop? Not with this gen of offerings unless they hi-fi emu an existing OS. MacOSX or WINE nonwithstanding - there's no app base you can point to.

Re:Great! And then what?

[datacaliber]

Honestly what does it matter? The only EDUCATIONAL software used on school computers are web browsers and office suites. The sad fact remains that putting fast computers into schools is really just a waste. No one uses them for anything other than writing up reports, which by the way is mainly a cut and paste job. And even if someone wanted to do something major like programming or web design, chances are that they won't be allowed to because no has the credentials to teach them or monitor their activities and we all know kids who can "hack" are risks.

Organ Trail?

[mmol_6453]

Isn't that the game where you're a professional musician on a cross-country tour from Independance MO to Seattle, WA, playing organs for local churches?

They could learn something more educational

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get all everone complaining about "well what kind of educational software will they run on linux" what the heck do you think most kids are learning using their current computers. For the most part they are not learning much just messing around with office suites and doing some web browsing. Both of course could be done on Linux (although it wouldn't be MS Office). But better yet how about teach these students how to think and problem solve. They could do Logo, or some other form of programming. That would be much more educational.

Snoop

Linux or MSFT? It doesn't matter.

[datacaliber]

A couple points people seem to be missing.

1) If these computers are going to poorer schools than how are they going to be networked? Connected to the internet? Who's going to pay for the T1? MSFT? Red Hat? As far as I'm concerned a computer not connected to the internet is just an expensive space heater.

2) So we have the computer hooked up to the internet. Now which OS do we choose? Answer: It doesn't freakin matter. Seriously what "educational" software do kids in school actually use? All you need is a web browser and an office suite and you're good to go. The ONLY thing a school computer is used for is a) writing up a report b) Downloading MP3s c) Surfing the web d) checking email. Sure you'll have those few schools where kids learn to program but most of those kids do their work at home and take the programming class for an easy A. It's hard to find a teacher in high school that can beat a good programming book.

3) Schools are too anal with computers as it is. You can only do approved activities and you can hardly go during school time. And most computer labs are closed once school closes because computer are a precious commodity that cannot be used without proper monitoring.

I say just make microsoft pay that 1 billion to something that doesn't involve computers. Make them buy textbooks or have a nationwide free lunch day.

Educational Software = games

[FatAlb3rt]

Do kids really use educational software? Or are they using the computer to play an educational GAME that is supposed to be teaching them something at the same time?

When I was in school, computers were used for typing reports, a keyboarding or programming class, or screwing around with games. The first three were actual schoolwork - I guess I wouldn't put a heavy emphasis on the games. So really, what's linux missing? How many math shooters and spelling blasters need to be available before you think schools will consider linux a viable solution?

Nowadays, I'm sure kids are doing more stuff on the net, whether that be trying to get around filters to look at nudies or actually doing research. But I doubt the basics have changed, nor will they change any time soon.

Linux may not have all the eye candy educational software, but I hardly see that as a downfall.

MacOSX then Linux!

[Anonymous Coward]

1.Young kids can use all that Mac Educational software.
2.Older kids can take classes on UNIX using OSX.
3.Then, these older kids can go into businesses and setup free unix systems for a carrear......FreeBSD and Linux
4. Remember this chat is about stopping the Microsoft Monopoly...... and promoting some opensource in the process.

Re:Great! And then what?

[odaiwai]

> Back when I was in high school, all we had were Apple IIs. The software we didn't
> have, we made -- hand-coded with AppleSoft BASIC. That was quite a learning
> experience, though I doubt it rubbed off on that many potential programmers.

<yorkshireman>Luxury.

When I were a lad we had to bang two rocks together to get ones and zeros. And we were LUCKY!
</yorkshireman>

dave

Re:Great! And then what?

[brad3378]

&gt What will the kids run? What educational software is there for Linux?

How about Star Office for typing reports & spreadsheets? It's very compatible with M$ Office.

How about The Gimp for art classes?
(that could be fun - Wish I was still in school! )

How about a web browser like Mozilla?
There's no reason why you can't learn something from a web site.

I think it would be sweet if there was a website for kids similar to SmartPlanet.com It could potentially be a great way to offer standards in education, and since it can be interactive, students might actually get more of an "one-on-one" feel behind a computer than in a 30-student classroom.

Off Topic, Just imagine how much money schools could save in textbooks if students could just log onto a website? Yeah, there would be problems, but there would definitely be benefits as well.

Re:Great! And then what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I graduated from high school two years ago.
During elementery school we had about 1 Apple //e
per class room, and a lab of about 24 IBM
(I think PS/2s... used 286s) per building.
There were 2 elementry school buildings, a middle
school, and a high school.

The Apple //e's functionality was Oregon Trail,
which the entire class would play if it was
applicable to what we were studying (in other
words, once per year.)

I was in this school system up until the end of
middle school, and as I recall the IBM machines
were only used for MS Works (the text version)
and a nice graphical program for teaching how
to type.

I moved to a smaller school system after 7th
grade, and there they only had one computer lab
of the entire system (only 2 buildings). That
lab consisted of about 24 Apple //e systems
(5 had color monitors, the others classic green
monochrome), 1 Apple //gs (no fancy gui on that
machine), and they had just bought about 10
Apple Macintoshes system wide. The two libraries
(one in each building) had about 6 Apple //e
systems each that were used as card catalogs,
one of which the librarian used to scan your
student ID card, and the barcode on the book.
It was used as the "check-out" system.

The lab's primary function was to teach BASIC
(believe it or not, it was required). They had
a copy of LOGO for each machine, and some had
KOALA drawing pads. The macintoshes were used by
facualty to tabulate grades and to run Microsoft
Encarta of all things.

Needless to say, we moved out of that school
system quick, only stayed there up through
freshman year. That school recieves a new lab
(50 machines) of macintoshes every year.
Well, at least the highschool does. The
highschool's campus is comprised of about 20
buildings, all on one network. There was about 1
mac per class room, each math classroom (about 4)
had about 5 Apple //e machines along with their
single Mac. There was another lab used as the
typing/programming class that had about 20 macs,
two English classrooms which also had about
20 macs, the library had a small lab of about
10 macs, and the graphic arts class room had
about 3 macs. For each lab there was another
mac that was dedicated for teacher use.
While I was there, they used PASCAL for
programming, but a friend who is a senior there
now says they got with it and use Codewarrior
to teach C++. No Java(tm).
This is what we used these machines for:

Graphic Arts -> Photoshop, internet
Library -> Internet
English -> Hypercards, MS Office, Internet
Social Sciences -> A weird turn based business sim
Math -> TI 86 emulator, Ebay (Internet)
Keyboarding -> a typing teacher
Misc -> Primarlily used to tally grades

My sister was still in elementry school one we
moved, and she said they used a Commodore 64
in her 5th grade class, and I've asked around
and this is true. Seems the people that made
Oregon Trail on the Apple // did a lot of good
work on the good ol C64s.

Now, here is a list of programs used in school:

Netscape Navigator -> Linux has this
MS Office -> Linux has an equiv
Database (Card Catalog) -> ???
Database (Grade system) -> ???
LOGO -> Who needs it
Oregon Trail -> They are still using the orig. HW
A typing program with textbook -> ???
MS Encarta -> Use an online Encyclopedia
Adobe Photoshop -> Linux has an equiv
BASIC interpreter -> Linux has an equiv
TI 86 Emulator -> ???

I don't know about you, but the gaps are fairly
easy to fill, and the two database programs shouldn't be too difficult of an Open Source
project.

m$

[Anonymous Coward]

M$
WinBlows
WinDohs

It's old.. get over it.

What ????

[Anonymous Coward]

This is crazy. Cannot they mind their own business instead of trying to make their opponent look bad just for the sake of it? This is no better than MS stuff. At least before OSS companies where pretending to be on a different level of moral leadership and had a message or something. Turns out they're no better than what they're fighting.... Doesnt surprise me though, anyone believing companies like AOL and Redhat fight for the good of the consumer need a **SERIOUS** reality check. It's just for themselves and the bank account of their stock holder...

Why not a Mac?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OSX is unix underneath. It's easy to use. It runs many existing mac educational software. Apple is the major OS competitor to MS.

On top of that, making MSFT pay for competitor's product would be the ultimate punishment.

even better deal

[Anonymous Coward]

why not put those felonious softwar gangsters in prison, then take just some of their ill-gotten gains, & use IT to supply every man, woman, & child, in the US, with a desktop/laptop, loaded with a generic GNU/linux dist., a choice/variety of GUIs, & a year or 2 of dialup access, from their LOCAL mom&pop isp. know?

we're here for you j., should you ever be forced to have your head extracted from your .asp.

fud is dead. at least as far as we're concerned.

Re:PC Lifetime with Windows... Learn Linux?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I should point out that these donor PCs are already far past their lifetimes for Windows 2000 or XP and have an indefinite time left with a 386/486-compatible version of Redhat.

They're not all expected to learn Linux, only StarOffice. Don't be silly. Why does every geek have the stupid assumption that this requires any knowledge other than "click here and type?"

Also, I think you mean quadriaticals, not quadrilaterals.

Re:Wait a sec or two....

[gear6468]

I'm not very familiar with RedHat, but SuSE 7.3 has a complete graphical install, that's very easy to use (next/back buttons, auto detection etc.), with KDE default, more packages than you'll need, etc. And It works well, with a pc with pre-installed Windows (shrinks partition, etc).
If this would work flawlessly if you don't accept every default option, it could be even easier to install than Windows (all drivers included, applications already installed. Bugs on the installation procedure it's not something you wanna have.
P.S. Please don't flame me on this, it's just my opinion.

Dual Sidewinder

[bug_hunter]

I'll donate my dual sidewinder to anybody.
Please.

Someone take it away.

Re:Sure, fuck the students

[Snow_crash_69]

Bill Gates is that you?

Top Scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft should have to *buy* copies of RedHat Linux for each and every machine that the schools want.

Man , r00t hat is being stupid again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Like kids and teachers know how to use Linux, like they want to use it, like it's fast, like it has enough applications for it.

No.

I've said this many times before, and I'll say it again: LINUX SUX FOR DESKTOPS, BECAUSE IT RULES FOR SERVERS!

Think of it: if car brand X were to make a car that's both fit for Formula 1 type racing and getting your groceries back home, wouldn't we all be laughing at them?

What is this *really* costing them?

[alecbrown]

I wor for a large corp. and we get a massive reduction on hardware costs for buying in bulk, I'm sure M$ get an even better deal. I wonder if the value of the fine will be what M$ pay for the equipment, or the value of the equipment had they bought it at recommended retail price (i.e. the extortionate price you would have to pay at your local computer superstore).

Maybe it will be worked out on what the Equipment would cost in the UK, it would work out even better for them then.

Re:Wait a sec or two....

[mami]

This is the U.S. school system, and though I like Suse's install better, in U.S. schools you should have Red Hat, because it's a U.S. company. You are allowed to be patriotic these days and for a good cause all the more.

Just one concern

[sjhs]

Hopefully, if this does turn out to be the deal, Microsoft will kindly remember not to include any Windows-only hardware in the computers.

RHAT not the bad-guy

[ajs]

A lot of folks here have been hammering on RHAT for proposing what they did. I'm frankly stunned. No school is forced to install Red Hat Linux, but if they're going to get a free copy of the software (saves them the download) and free RHN access (saves them the constant checking for downloads), this would be pretty sweet for the schools. They could certainly opt out, and buy a competing OS.

The key thing is that in most schools, no one would go out and install Red Hat on all of their systems for fear of the backlash from "concerned parents" who see this as teaching the students with second-best (e.g. cheaper) tools in order to save. No one is going to question the installation of Red Hat, if it's being provided to the schools as part of a major settlement. It would, after all, be a substantial waste of resources to turn it down ;-)

I really hope that something like this happens, but I don't know what, besides issuing a press release, RHAT is doing to move this idea forward.

who indeed will do this?

[Erris]

They set up terminal servers.

Who sets up the termianals? A PR stunt it could be! What a great way for a local consulting firm to demonstrate what they can do. What satisfaction to do it on M$ suppied hardware, "Thanks. *slap*.", and to do it for local schools. Red Hat would have trouble selecting from all the volunteers if this happens.

Certianly it will take less effort than the current M$ waste, but it will be an effort. Go Red Hat!

Re:who indeed will do this?

[Lumpy]

anyone. It's simple, plug everything together and plop a floppy in the drive.

turn it on and it works...

Just like a toaster.

Write Judge Motz about MSFT

[Anonymous Coward]

At http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/ is info about contacting Judge J. Frederick Motz about the MSFT case.

"Judge J. Frederick Motz has invited written comments from interested third parties via fax. We strongly encourage you to fax your comments. He will make his final decision whether or not to accept the settlement in a hearing on Tuesday, Nov 27."

I'll do it.

[Omega]

I would be happy to help.

My folks live in MD, so I could go into the schools there when I'm visiting for the Holidays.

And I live in Seattle, so I'd be happy to go into the schools here any time.

Re:Wait a sec or two....

[josh crawley]

Atcually, I own SuSE 6.2 and 6.3 boxed sets.

I've had my 'Luck' with both of them.

6.2 REFUSES to run on athalons without a downloaded bootdisk. That right there, is a negative. I shouldn't have to go on the web to make the thing run. What if I didn't even have Windows??? I'd end up with a nice doorstop, with SuSE be at fault. I have NEVER had windows refuse to run on any somewhat newer computer (let alone a 500 mHz athalon).

A secondary problem of why I cannot run yast (without going and editing modules out) is the ethernet autoconf. I'm using a mobo that has onboard lan but I have no risers, so I'm using a secondary card. The SuSE autoconf sees the 2'nd card first and applies that driver to the first card. Kernel Panic.

With 6.2, you get no YAST2, just command prompt Yast1. Next, when my dad went to run YAST2 from SuSE 6.3, we couldn't even change or make partitions. There was some sort of nasty bug. Rebooting and restarting the installer did NOT help. We had to resort back to Yast1 and use the cfdisk and fdisk(on the 2'nd cd). I know I'm stating the obvious here, but That Shouldn't Have Happened.

Something I'm slightly miffed off at SuSE is that they claim to support graphic driver 'X' but they leave it out of the cd. Yes, RAGE.

PS: I'm currently running Slackware on my 2'nd box, as it correctly installs my ethernet card right. However, the only RH distro I have is 5.2 (way too old to compare). Other than nasty compiler issues I've seen (OOPS), RH seems to be pretty good.

Josh Crawley

I would support this effort

[Anonymous Coward]

If the agreement included installation of Linux to the schools I would provide free support so long as they are willing to accept it.

I've been using Linux for many years (also NetWare, Micro$oft and other *NIX's). If they are willing I'd help.

After all... this is supposed to be punishment not a benefit to Micro$oft

Logo Kids

[fm6]

For a first computer language though, I would reccomend something like logo instead of C because it's more visual and also builds math skills (geometry and so on).

Ye gods, Logo actually does what it was designed to do.

It's worth mentioning that the famous Lego Mindstorms product is the result of a sort of intellectual collision between some media lab people and the Lego company. As with all Logo systems, there's an emphasis on creating visual results (though in this case the visual results have a rather high Cool Factor!). But what makes Mindstorms interesting (and also the Media Lab "programmable brick) is that the programming environment is itself visual. Probably has a lot to do with this being the most successful commercial robot "toy".

The Oregon Trail!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Oregon Trail rocks!