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Windows on an iMac (says the invoice); Red Hat's Alternative
A user writes "According to a story at The Register, schools who want to take advantage of educational bulk licensing agreements with Microsoft have to count all PCs (and Macs!), even those not running Windows." One package of software applies to all installed PCs and Macs, including those running Linux or BSD, so schools end up paying for stations that Windows (and other programs) cannot or do not run on. Microsoft's justification is that the agreement requires an "institution-wide commitment." Coincidentally,
bc90021 points out that "RedHat announced its Linux Pilot Program for schools today. Designed to improve the overall learning experience for children, seven North Carolina school districts have already joined. One county director is quoted as saying: 'With the money we saved from not buying proprietary licenses, the school district purchased additional resources that directly [a]ffected the learning experience of our students and brought us into the 21st century.'"
by eliminating the accounting necessary for Microsoft licencing?
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
What about graphing calculators? I mean, how far do you go? Slide rule? Abacus? They are all computing devices.
Doesn't that just mean giving up?
"Well, they can force us to buy licenses of Windows we don't need... we might as well make the best of it and figure out uses for all the extras."
I guess they should also just install Windows on any *nix machines too?
Would be a shame if they got to choose, huh?
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
On the other, I don't know if I should direct the statement at Microsoft or its customers.
Institutions should just refuse these licenses on principle.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
As if the consumer wasn't enough those scumbags are now trying to extort money from out education system. I personally am going to go about getting every school in my area to at least aknowledge the existence of sowtware suppliers that don't screw their customers over. As a high school student myself, this senseless waste of taxpayers money on Proprietry sowtware sickens me. My School has every M$ Application it's possible to have and the result: I'm the only person in a 1500 pupil school that knows how to use an OS other than Windows. For M$, this kills two birds with one stone; they can extort money from schools in the short term and then cash in on the fact that the've raised a whole generation of people that know nothing but their crappy software in the long term because they've discouraged their school from even providing an alternative to Windows. Sorry if this is too much of a rant but this really bugs me.
Ergh! I'm sick of people deciding what's too "advanced" for our children.. Oh no.. that's too *harrrdd*... They can't possibly handle *that*! I say BULLSHIT! Children's brains are like great gaping holes that you can pour information into. They adapt, their thought processes are never going to be in better shape to learn. Teach them multiple languages, they will pick it up *easily*, teach them the workings of the OS on a low level, even if they don't use it, it still will help them in the long run! How much of that Earth Science are you using now adays? It's still a requirement, because it's part of your environment. So will computers be when these kids get out of school. Show them we have the confidence in them to learn and give them as much information as we can. How many kids can organize their thoughts and think logically? Don't you think learning a programming language would help? My daughter (10) is currently working on learning BASIC on my old PCjr. No, she'll probably never actually apply her "L337" Basic skilz, but she's learning to plan her ideas, and logically comunicate her thoughts to the computer, and that, my friend, is some seriously valuable lessons.
Run. I like water. Push My rutabaga.
OK, it doesn't help you understand all that solid-state stuff, but that's not really relevant. On the other hand, command-line interfaces absolutely demand a greater awareness of what each program does, what it expects, and how it interacts with other programs. Plus it encourages a can-fix attitude to problems, as opposed to the learned helplessness of most GUIs.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Schools can't afford that - what $400 equated to in a school of 600 with 100 computers, was literally the entire IT budget. The school I'm involved with rejected the "offer", only to be told that doing so meant they were no longer licensed to use Windows or any other Microsoft product - even those supplied OEM. That is, "since you broke the contract here, we're nullifying every EULA you've ever seen!"
My school has since switched to 100% non-Microsoft products (Sun, Linux, some macs) and haven't regretted it since. They're able to use older machines as thin-clients of sorts, and with a couple of bright students and a lot of learning, they haven't needed to look back.
The Department of Education are not amused, and neither I imagine are Microsoft. Education Queensland have used the carrot ("but this is so much easier to account for than Linux, and here, we'll give you 10% more IT budget than last year...") and the stick (need I say more?) approach, but it so far hasn't worked.