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MS Pressuring NW Schools: Pay Up, Or Face Audit

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the must-eat-more-money dept.

razvedchik writes: "As reported in this article in the Portland, OR newspaper, The Oregonian, Microsoft is pressuring 24 school districts in the northwest to agree to their Microsoft School Agreement licensing scheme or undergo an audit in 60 days. Multnomah ESD, which covers the greater Portland area and has around 25,000 computers, has to either decide to accept the license at about $500,000 or undergo the audit which it does not have time to prepare for. Of significant interest is the fact that a significant majority of these schools are experimenting with using Linux. Multnomah ESD has its own thin-client Linux distro called K12LTSP."

4 of 791 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Whatever happened to 'Innocent until proven gui by JCCyC · · Score: 5, Funny

    Whatever happened to the concept of 'Innocent until proven guilty'?

    It has slowly mutated:
    1) Innocent until proven guilty
    2) Guilty until proven innocent
    3) Guilty, period.
    4) Guilty, and suggesting there may be such a thing as "innocence" is a crime too.
    5) CBDTPA

  2. Re:I live in Portland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    IT lessons in Portland over the next month:

    "Hi Kids, today we are going to learn about Linux. We will do this by installing Linux on the computers you are using right now. Thanks to the friendly guys at (RedHat|Mandrake|SUSE|Debian|etc) we each have a CD on our desks. Please put it into the computer and power-on."

    "Now we can learn about hard drive partitioning. See that picture which has a big red bar with FAT32 written in the middle? Select that with the mouse and press "Delete". That has got rid of Windows, and saved us a lot of money. Now click on "Defaults" and click on "Next" until it is installed, then reboot".

    (Teacher now relaxes for the 10 minutes it takes everyone to install Linux) :)

  3. Re:This would be an excellent time. by SurfsUp · · Score: 4, Funny

    Think about it: you're faced with a huge audit, that you know you're going to fail. Do you a) pay the huge license & know you'll have to pay it again next year? or b) call in the Linux-install swat team to put Linux on every machine that you can't *prove* is legally a Windows machine, thus avoiding the whole issue for ever?

    Cue theme: Who ya gonna call?? Billll-BUSTERS, Billll-BUSTERS!

    --
    Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
  4. Play for time by verloren · · Score: 5, Funny

    A thought on how to keep MS at bay while you fix the situation:

    1. Switch all the PCs off.
    2. Invite them in to do the audit.
    3. If they ask you if a machine has Windows on, tell them no.
    4. If they want to power up the machine, ask them how they intend to power it, as the school board doesn't sell or donate power to third parties.
    5. If they want to take the PC away, point out the school policy on theft.
    6. If they want to bring in a generator, point out the for safety reasons such equipment can't be used in school buildings.
    7. If they want to remove the hard drive, point out the school policy on vandalism.
    8. Goto 4.

    By the time they've figured out how to see what's on the machine you can have Linux on a sufficient number that licenses will cover the rest!

    Still haven't bothered with a .sig...