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.'"

Comments

PPC NT?

[TerryMathews]

Well, once upon a time Microsoft had a port of NT4 for PowerPC. Now granted it never actually worked on Macs (It was for RS/4000 class machines, I believe), but wouldn't a site license covering Macs obligate Microsoft to provide a PowerPC XP?

Oh yeah, never mind. The DMCA eliminated consumer rights.

Re:Fish Bowl?

[Happy Monkey]

Read at +3, and change all your "Reason Modifier" values to +/-1.

Re:Fish Bowl?

[unitron]

I browse at -1 only to have to put up with this wide page crap? Come on Slashdot, fix the bug already.

Re:Fish Bowl?

[unitron]

I used to very carefully check the "don't add the bonus point" box ( and I still think it should be opt-in instead of opt-out), but I discovered that posting with the extra point means I get fewer down-moderations where it's pretty obvious that the moderator in question has an ax to grind. You'd think it'd be the other way around, but apparently not. So now I just post without worrying about it.