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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.'"
Would that include the old Mac case that the network admin changed into a fish bowl too?
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
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**
I wonder if the school could buy the stripped down (OS-less) Connectix Virtual PC for their Macs... and use the Microsoft Windows license through emulation. Just a thought and a way to at least somewhat compensate for the additional expenses.
With all this MS licensing crap, why do schools even consider going with it? Even if they don't go to Linux/BSD, iMacs are perfectly good replacements for windows, and they can do anything a Windows station can (that a school would need, anyways)
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
One version of the agreement it suggests that they sount all the staff (even the ones not using computers at all) working over 200 hours a year to get a license purchased. So when do we have to include a license for buildings and cars?
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
What about graphing calculators? I mean, how far do you go? Slide rule? Abacus? They are all computing devices.
I don't think it's going to be long before people/organizations actually start READING those agreements they sign, once word about this kind of stuff gets out (school board meetings, company newsletters, etc). THAT'S when the shit will hit the fan for MS.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
"Look, just because you can't even install or use the software doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it! I paid $25,000 to your campaign, and I want my $95M in revenues, dammit!"
that's why my tuition so high!
my school is under a bulk licensing program from MS. Students get access to various MS software for free, such as 2 licenses of Office XP.
We also have a ton of non-MS systems. Databases run SCT on top of Solaris, many labs in the CS and Physics dept run Solaris and Linux (those physics folk have a 64-node beowulf cluster!), Art depts have a lot of macs. The student webserver is Solaris.
Man, Drexel spends a lot on all those non-MS systems. No wonder tuition so high!
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Why is it that when schools save money, they go and spend it on more fucking technology? Like the dude: we are bringing our students into the 21st century. What the fuck? You saved money, so you spent it? How the fuck is that saving money. That money was spent either fucking way.
God dammit, this fucking makes me so mad that there's spittle on my fucking monitor, and that's pretty damn savage. Why can't money be spent on important shit? I don't see computers being more important than quality chairs, desks, supplies, instructors. A computer doesn't teach people shit. Does giving a chef some new T-Fal shit suddenly make them fucking Iron Chef? Fuck no. It was grunt work that did.
Fucking people and their ideas that computers can replace good instruction. It doesn't matter what the fucking OS is. The OS is just some shit that is the vehicle for edufuckingcation. It's not an end. It's a means.
But really, what educational software is available for Linux? What good is a free OS if the software they require runs exclusively on Windows or MacOS?
Satanosphere.com / The dot does not count as a / syllable, d
The first time Microsoft settled an antitrust investigation, they agreed (if memory serves) to stop charging hardware makers per machine sold.
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.
... and I though Oracle licensing was bad ...
In the US "Microsoft Schools Agreement 3.0," for example, "100 per cent of all Pentiums, Power Macs, iMacs or better" are specified, whereas the FAQ document for the UK Microsoft School Agreement says "You need to count 100% of all Pentiums, Power Macs and iMacs."
So AMD's are OK? Phew!
CNN recently had an article about tuition for private schools are rising faster than inflation and average family income, meaning college is truely out of reach for some mid- and almost all lower class families. Perhaps MS's bulk licensing is a contributing reason? (sorry, i cant find the link at the moment)
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
...about computers or about Windows? Linux and Windows and MacOS will all do the same business functions (spreadsheets and whatnot), but if you want to delve any deeper into how computers work and what the OS really does the 3 OS are certainly not equal. Windows will only work to a certain level of advancement in computer know-how, since it focuses entirely on apps. So if we really want the kids to learn something about COMPUTERS, shouldn't we go open source and teach what makes them tick?
Murphy was an optimist.
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.
Microsoft license
Squeezing money from our schools
Linux saves the day
The Microsoft agreements provide other software than the OS. Most Mac users use Office and therefore can benefit from an agreement. At the University level, it is most beneficial to have agreements that cover entire campuses. It is too bad Apple has not been as aggressive in the educational markets (like they used to be). Now Apple just has token programs like the iBooks in Maine. Too bad we dont live in Maine. Lets not talk about Star Office for Win32---Yukk. And LInux (believe it or not) does not have serious market penetration...just the way it is.
...without know how much the discount it. If it turns out that the cost of buying 100 licenses for only 50 PCs is less than the full price of 10 licenses then this is a bit of a non-issue isn't it?
-- SIGFPE
When you keep seeing this stuff coming out, each time a more egregious, ridiculous example of monopolistic greed run crazy, you have to keep asking: Do they remember that they are in the penalty phase of an antitrust trial? That there are 9 brave states looking to cut them off? That the EU can still take a crack at it? Are things so isolated up at Redmond that nobody there recognizes how astonishing bad all of this makes them look?
This is obviously an illegal use of Microsoft's monopoly. Stopping these types of practices should be the Justice Department's primary goal.
IIRC there was some kind of law suit against Microsoft years ago for forcing OEMs to pay for Windows licenses on machines that did not include Windows. I believe Microsoft lost that suite. Wouldn't this fall under that ruling?
It's not like they can't buy licenses just for the machines they want, it's that if they want to save some money they have to include all the machines. Sure it's a bit bullish of Microsoft, but if they end up saving money fine. What I would have a problem with is if this policy (of buying in bulk) was not applied evenly by Microsoft to all institutions and businesses. Another thing to look at, is whether they'd have to buy licenses for all future machines as well. But again, it's part of the deal. You deal with MS, you do it on its terms. You don't want to deal, you can always go with OSX and apple or Linux.
I'm not excatly sure how legal something like this is and what rights MS has to prosecute if the school simply ignores them and only notes PCs runnning windows?
Don't the schools ever bother to contact their lawyers when faced with something like this? Don't any of these people write to their political representatives over issues like this? I was under the impression that in the US you can sue over something like MS "requiring an institution wide commitment". Isn't that criminal in the US? Since when does MS have the right to require *anything* whatsoever. Isn't this in the legue of charging for services not rendered, or goods not sold?
I am shocked and amazed by the arrogance of that company. I wrote a post asking if someday MS would make it a criminal offence to not have a PC in your house with Windows on it. This does seem very close to that sort of behaviour. I would assume that others would be too because it the future of their children that is at stake.
That's not justification, that's a descriptor of what they want. Justification would be something like "because it helps us to rule the world."
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Don't give them ideas!
I mean, how far do you go? Slide rule? Abacus? They are all computing devices.
BSA Rep: "I'm afraid you're not in compliance with your license agreement, because each of those children has ten fingers, which they use to compute basic mathematics. For your class of 20 first grade students, you will need to purchase an additional 200 licenses."
Wasn't part of the old Consent Decree that MS thumbed their noses at, that requiring OEMs to pay MS for every PC they sold, even those without Windows, was illegal and had to stop?
How is this different?
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Isn't this the sort of thing the anti-trust trial was (is) about?
It looks like they haven't learned their lesson. This is clearly illegal, they need to be stopped again.
I believe that computers running as UNIX thin clients are exempt from having to pay. To be a thin client the computer must have no harddrives and must boot from the server. We are working on a project using ltsp to get Unix labs around having to pay the per computer license. Oddly,we will still have to pay $50 a year for the Linux server, but its better than paying for the other 10-25 boxes as well.
Interestingly, I wonder if macs would be exempt if the harddrives were stripped and they were booted using OS X Server and NetBoot as thin clients.
A lot of people seem to agree that putting Linux on computers in schools is a good idea. There's one thing that's always bothered me about the idea, though - there doesn't seem to be much of a selection of good educational titles that run on Linux. I know that more generic applications (such as word processors) are very useful in the classroom, and those are most certainly present on Linux. But what about education games? Or tools for the teacher's own use (such as gradebook software)?
Admittedly, I haven't done a lot of searching for these things, so maybe they exist. If so, then that's great! But if not, and no one does anything about it, it seems to me these Linux-in-the-classroom programs are going to eventually fail - and Microsoft will have the opportunity for a big "I told you so!"
Back in the olden days, Miscrosoft had a similar deal with IBM with DOS. If IBM made a computer, they were charged for a copy of DOS, wheather it was on the machine or not. It quickly had every IBM-PC running DOS straight out of the factory. Why should we expect MS to change? I mean, it's a sweet deal! I'd like to be able to charge people for things they didn't buy.
Click here or here.
Perhaps come up with a one-CD, bootable Linux distro specific for high school. It doesn't have to have 6 word processord and apache and 4 window managers and etc, etc, just a very few workable apps. Bare bones, simple, clean, works on "typical" school hardware.
Sounds like we might see more schools systems (with Mac + Linux and no Windows at all) bragging about the money they saved and the purchases they made with these savings. It would be nice if they could network and share expertise. Might also be nice if Macs and Linix interfaced a little more seamlessly.
=brian
PS: This might be another occasion where Microsoft's aggressive policies work for us and against them. If they really are hard-assed about this "all or nothing" licensing, several schools systems will choose to opt out, especially those that are Mac-heavy.
1- Do true UNIX desktop machines count as PCs? Is a Sun Blade 100 (Sun's $1000 desktop) a PC under these rules? Since this licensing is obviously targeted to XP Professional, what about serious UNIX workstations? Is an X86 OEM or UNIX workstation with two or four CPUs and 2 gigs of RAM even really a PC?
2- For a large high school, the savings offered by Red Hat with StarOffice could probably pay the salary of a decent Linux admin to manage the computer labs and train the teaching staff, if not teach full time. I think we can expect to see this really take off once teaching/school administration journals are full of articles about the savings offered by running Open/Free/Cheap Software.
3- Has anyone else noticed that Apple and Red Hat are both trying to push into schools with open source operating systems running a ton of well supported GNU software? If Red Hat and Apple work together to make it easier to kids to learn both systems and the associated tools, Microsoft will have some serious trouble from the Open Source world in education.
...that new-fangled Oracle License.
In a sea of "I can't believe MS did this!" and "Now people will wake up to the horrors of MS!" I can make some sense on why they did it.
How easy is it for a sys admin to simply format a linux box and throw Win2K on it with a CD he has? Basically, they are making sure campus admins don't say "We have 5,000 computers, but only 1,000 will run Win2K" then they go and install Win2K on all of them.
Just a capitalistic company covering their rears. Sure, to the open source community its an "outrageous greed act," but all it is is economics.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
They certainly teach all these kids to never sign up a contract with Microsoft. So, the kids are actually learning something usefull here.
In response to Red Hat's announcement, I sent the following email to the technology director of Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools:
Greetings Dr. Whitworth,
I found your email address online at the JCPS site. As a citizen of Louisville who is deeply concerned not only about the education of children, but also the costs of doing so, I am sending you a link (http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2002/pres s_education2.html) to a new program being offered by Red Hat to bring open source software into the schools to replace proprietary (read: very expensive) software by Microsoft. This is not a marketing letter, and I have no affiliation with Red Hat whatsoever. I'm simply a local software developer who can attest that the Linux operating system can do everything that Microsoft Windows can do (with few exceptions), with a lot more reliability and requiring fewer hardware resources.
I hope that JCPS will be a technology leader and simultaneously fiscally responsible enough to consider all the possibilities that working with Red Hat and other open source software providers will bring to the table.
Best regards,
Steve Magruder
[Street Address]
[City,State,Zip]
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
effect: (v) - To cause to be.
affect: (v) - To influence or move.
The implications of this passage are either:
...is if my iBong is included.
When Queensland's Education Department signed up for the Microsoft School Agreement, they tried the same thing. Schools using Macs were expected to count their computers as well. After alot of blowup, either the Education Department or Microsoft backed down. It was never made clear which.
Also the asking price that the schools were expected to pay was far too high, especially considering most schools wouldn't get much advantage right off the bat. In this case the Education Department subsidised the cost.
The precise implementation of the agreement seems to vary depending on what part of the world you're in, but the inclusion of Macs in the headcount, and the insistence that you have to count all PCs rather than just a specific number you want to license, is probably general. In the US "Microsoft Schools Agreement 3.0," for example, "100 per cent of all Pentiums, Power Macs, iMacs or better" are specified, whereas the FAQ document for the UK Microsoft School Agreement says "You need to count 100% of all Pentiums, Power Macs and iMacs."
Is it just me, or do I spot a loophole?
This is ri-Goddamn-diculous.... it's exactly like when they forced PC manufacturers to pay for a Windows license for every machine they shipped, whether or not Windows was on all the machines. By making anyone pay for Windows where it won't be used, they are effectively levying a financial penalty for the use of a non-Windows computer.
What next, will consumers have to pay for Windows licenses for everyone in their household? Will they include newborn babies who couldn't possibly use the computer? Will two licenses be required if there's a pregnant woman in the house? What about pets? If there's a photo of your dead grandfather on the wall somewhere in the house, will you have to pay for a license for him, too?
How much farther will these shitbags go towards squeezing every penny possible out of multi-celled organism on the planet, before consumers, institutions, and corporations revolt against them?
I'm starting to think that the only government action that could possibly stop these jackals from misbehaving would involve the use of a small tactical nuke, air burst over their headquarters.
~Philly
"Hello, Microsoft, our Windows won't work on our Mac."
"Um, Windows doesn't work on Mac"
"But the terms of this license says I get to run Windows on the Mac. So, can I arrange for you to bring a small programming team down here, say a couple of thousand member are so?"
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
From http://www.microsoft.com/education/?ID=SAcalculato r#pc
Counting Eligible PCs
School Agreement requires an institution-wide commitment. To that end, you must include all of the eligible PCs in the participating school(s) or district. Eligible PCs include all of the Pentium machines, Power Macs, iMacs or better.
The solution is simple: Buy "AMD machines" and don't count them when licensing comes around.
If Microsoft wants to treat the customers as idiots (which I will suggest more than half typically are) perhaps those that aren't idiots should act like it and not count the AMD machines.
And just so you know. This kind of stuff *does* happen, and oftentimes it *is* intentional. I'll count the iMacs, but I'm not counting the AMDs.
Erm... run that by me again?
Here's a list of the software regulated by this agreement. I'll drop the ones that are currently available for Mac (as listed on the MSFT site) into boldface:
- Desktop Package* (Includes Office, Core CAL & Windows Upgrades)
- Office Standard, Pro and Macintosh Editions
- Windows Desktop Operating System Upgrades
- Core Client Access Licenses (CALs)
- SQL ServerTM CALs
- Visio Professional Edition
- FrontPage
- Visual Studio
- Project
- Publisher
- Encarta Class Server
- Encarta Reference Library and Online Deluxe
- Magic School Bus
- Windows 2000 Professional Step by Step Interactive by Microsoft Press
- Web Publishing Step by Step Interactive by Microsoft Press
Now can you repeat that bit again about Mac users benefiting from this?The Reg is being subtly smart on this one. If you read the story with your ad blocker off, what do you see on the left side banner ad?
:-D
An orangish coloured box with a picture of a vacuum cleaner on it, over which are the words "Clean Business?" . The ad then flips to just the background with the following message:
Our aim is to remove the growing threat of piracy.
For further information on the resources available, including details on the authorised distribution channel, click here.
Microsoft
Coincedence, or has that ad with the thinly veiled threat of software auditing been placed there specifically to pound home a message?
I laughed when I realised what the Reg was doing. Summary: We have a story about MS being unreasonable in thier licensing on which we have an ad threatening businesses with audits, more evidence of how heavy handed they are in regards to licensing. The kicker? Microsoft likely paid to have the ad on the Reg, and the Reg, in true BOFH style, shoved thier nose in it.
I wonder how long the ad will last on that page...
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Each bulk license is only $53. So for a large university with 5000 FTE equivalants, we're talking about a total of ~$250,000 per annum. Seems like a pretty darn good deal, wether you have to pay for a few computers that don't use the software or not. Please, bash MS for the stuff they do that is actually bad! Please somebody tell me what I am missing and why this is causing everyone to cry!
As detailed in Jerry Kaplan's excellent book Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure , about the rise and fall of the GO Corporation, one of the first anti-trust cases to be brought up against Microsoft involved a very similar license (circa late-80's, early-90's).
Basically, every retailer who wanted to sell Microsoft products (and who didn't - even then it was very popular software) had to sign a contract with Microsoft stating that for every competitor's product they sell, they had to pay a 100% royalty back to Microsoft! (you read that right - here's a quick example: if the retailer buys both a MS product and a GO product for $50 a piece, and typically doubles the price to $100 to make a profit, they'd have to pay Microsoft $50 if they sold the GO product, so the retailer is basically forced to sell the GO product for double their usual markup ($150) - 50 to GO, 50 to Microsoft, and 50 to themselves). And as icing on the cake, the retailer wasn't allowed to mention the terms of the contract to anyone.
The only way GO eventually found out was from a rare retailer who had seen the contract, but decided not to sign it (and therefore not to sell any MS products in his store).
Bizarre? I'd say. Illegal? Oh yeah. I think that's a text-book definition of anti-competitive behavior. And it's basically the exact same thing they're doing to the schools - the school still has to pay Microsoft for using a competing product.
Sadly, the DOJ didn't pursue it to closure because they couldn't get enough witnesses (they were too scared to lose Microsoft's business).
(OT: it's a great book, read it if you get a chance - it should have been required-reading for all dot-coms).
My ass. The first thing I would do after an opensource migration is to make it known to former vendors that since "The Software" is not installed that all such agreements are null and void. If they persisted in an audit (there wouldn't be anything to find) then they can expect to be sued for wasting time and resources, barratry, persecution and anything else a good lawyer can think of.
Come, now, are these for real, or were they just made up to inflame the trolls of Slashdot?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If you read the whole article, it turns out that the campus license (as opposed to the schools license) requires a license on a per person basis. ie, they're not just forcing you to pay for software that can't run on your hardware (Mac) but they're forcing you to pay for it on hardware that you may not even have.
More amusingly, MS requires a license for each person that is full time. Which they define as 200 hours (5/6 weeks) a year! Now I know what they mean when they say they're working on security full time.
Perhaps RedHat or Mandrake should offer a bounty... For each system converted to Linux, receive $x off a support contract. Yes, this would cost them some money (unless they found a wacky sponsor!) but would ultimately payoff if the companies then provide good service through those contracts--The customers will renew for a second year and they will pay the full price knowing it is well worth it.
That's a freebie.
Who did what now?
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.
Perhaps we should start prosecuting companies like Microsoft and Oracle under those federal laws they passed in the 30s to limit organized crime...
:)
"Bill Gates, you have been convicted of racketeering " has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
octave would probably be better for these schools. it doesnt have a lot of the fancy stuff matlab does, but it is probably just fine for most school stuff. plus it comes with redhat already.
-- john
linux for kids is for kids 10 and under. it looks like they have software for math, spelling, language, science.
i dont have any personal expirence with it, but it looks promising.
-- john
I found your email address online at the [school] site. As a citizen of [city/county/region]who is deeply concerned not only about the education of children, but also the costs of doing so, I am sending you a link to a new program being offered by Red Hat to bring open source software into the schools to replace proprietary (read: very expensive) software by Microsoft.
This is not a marketing letter, and I have no affiliation with Red Hat whatsoever. I'm simply a local software developer who can attest that the Linux operating system can do everything that Microsoft Windows can do (with few exceptions), with a lot more reliability and requiring fewer hardware resources.
Furthermore, on a general note, I would like to call your attention to the following facts:
Additionnaly, I am quite confident that you are using Microsoft software to read this mail. I am therefore quite confident you have had a close encounter (if not an actual catastrophe) with the various reliability/security problems that seem to be the trademark of Microsoft, including (but not limited to:
- Losses of data because of a system crash
- Outlook specific viruses/worm: Nimda, Klez, Code Red
I hope that [school] will be a technology leader and simultaneously fiscally responsible enough to consider all the possibilities that working with Red Hat and other open source software providers will bring to the table.Best regards,
[Your name]
[Street Address]
[City,State,Zip]
Idea:Someone could build a web page with a generator: enter the relevant infos, click a button and presto a mail ready to be sent! We would, of course, need to refine the model and add more relevant links.
Windows upgrades $18
Core $15
Office $24
all three of the above $48
SQL server, Visio, FrontPage, Project, Publisher $5 (each)
Vis Studio $2
Looking at their education main page, I believe that this is an annual license fee. However, let's assume you're the head of I.T. for a school district. Do you really think you're going to get a better deal than that for those licenses?
Don't think so. So, you swallow your indignation (if you have any), and buck up...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Nope, you should know better by now. Standard EULA boilerplate states that the software is licensed "AS-IS" and disclaims any warranty.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Tell Microsoft that they can take the numbers you give 'em. If they don't fuckin' like it, they can talk to the DOJ.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I couldn't care what the prices currently listed are. It's what they'll be when they've got you hooked that count. If you have 500 Macs and 20 PCs and you're charged for all 520, you might purchase PCs at the next computer purchase round. Thinking it's "cheaper" to "standardize". Then what will they be charging?
It's never better to set yourself up to be bled dry.
fix it so I can play my games on somthing other than M$ and I will finish removing it. Loki was a poor bastard step child with the right idea but no way to stay current in the market. I am NOT interested in playing an online game 8 months after the online community has moved on. I am a solaris admin, who uses linux by choice but I am also an AVID gamer and there is no real alternative to the M$ OS for good, CURRENT games.
"and yesy peguins do like to play too so there are plenty of games too."
I'd hardly call a 6 month old port of a game..plenty but hey you can play what you want.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Of course you do. If you are going to pay for something, you would prefer that it was something you are actually going to use. In this case, Microsoft is requiring payment for goods and services that are not being used. In most environments, this is often referred to as "waste".
There is some anti-competative undertones to this action too. First, Microsoft manages to collect fees on competing platforms. Secondly, since you are already going to pay these fees... does it become cheaper to just use Microsoft products?
At first blush, that second point seems like fair competition. But its not. If I have the OPTION of an inexpensive product, THAT is competition. Instead, I am forced to buy the product whether I wish to use it or not. That leaves competing products with a potentially higher cost.
Of course, this is all standard fare for Microsoft. The only difference is that these issues are now coming under more and more public scrutiny.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure that a first class in operating system concepts really benefits all that much from using real (production) code instead of pseudo-code [ducks]. Sure, you should be introduced to it sometime, but in a first class you want to understand the concepts and I think you could get bogged down in confusing and irrelevant details.
Disclaimer: I am not a systems programmer and my University was very math/theory oriented (which I think is a good thing). In addition, I think Microsoft's business practices are despicable.
OK, you can flame me now.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
*WARNING* Some moderators may see this post as a Pro Microsoft Post (TM). It is advised that they do not read it, to avoid raised blood pressure on their part and decreased karma on mine. ;P
The reason Macs are included is because you are licensing *all* of the products in one yearly payment. i.e. you pay £40 per computer (in the UK) and you get to use the latest Office, Windows, Works, CALs, Encarta and Visual Studio on any computer. If you look closer that does also include a terminal services CAL for each computer so if you're stuck on P133s you can still use the School Agreement to 'run' 2K and Office XP on all of your computers with a meaty enough server.
I don't know how much of the above software applies to Macs, but I know Office does and the CALs probably do too. I think MS included Macs not only to make money but also so that it would be a 'catch all' agreement - one of the really attractive things to schools is that it means no more worrying and auditing software - just add up the total number of PCs and install as much MS software from the list as you like on them. What's even nicer is that when you get new computers you don't pay for the licensing until the agreement is renewed at the end of the year, so you get up to 364 days free software usage.
To be honest for some schools it's a good idea. If schools are mostly MS shops (like the one that I work in), then it gives you the opportunity to standardise on versions of Office (instead of 95, 97, 2000 and XP) and Windows (instead of a mishmash of 95, 98, 2k and NT4), *and* upgrade when new versions come out. To be honest, if MS was the only option this would be a great deal - £40 per year for all Windows and Office upgrades would easily work out cheaper if you wanted to stay cutting edge.
I'm torn with the School Agreement. On the one side I do genuinely think that Windows is a better platform for education ATM (having tried out K12LTSP and so on), but on the other side it seems like a huge amount of money and the idea of renting software is something I'm very wary of. Maybe in a year's time Linux will be a superior contendor - let's wait and see!
' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
- found on a park bench
One thing ignored in all the comments I read is that school districts have a significant percentage of their computers in administration, not the classroom. Training all those office staff in staroffice or something would not be a trivial undertaking, necessarily. I suppose they could use Macs, but then they'd still be using Microsoft Office.
Mostly, though, I suspect administrators are simply scared to go down a path no one else is going down. Government administrators would rather walk down the wrong path with everyone else than take the right path alone.
...
It's further interesting to have seen recently on /. that MS has $40 billion in the bank. And the letter from the Peruvian government official championing open source software. With the legal actions against Microsoft continuing, it certainly does have the feel of pressure building to the point of explosion...
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
The beauty of an open source operating system in an educational context is that the workings of the entire environment are open to inspection
You mean stuff like this?
void write_string_kernel_panic(char *str)
{
str[0] = 'A';
str[1] = 'i';
str[2] = 'e';
str[3] = 'e';
str[4] = '!';
str[5] = 32;
str[6] = 'K';
str[7] = 'e';
str[8] = 'r';
str[9] = 'n';
str[10] = 'e';
str[11] = 'l';
str[12] = 32;
str[13] = 'P';
str[14] = 'a';
str[15] = 'n';
str[16] = 'i';
str[17] = 'c';
str[18] = '!';
str[19] = '\0';
write_output_string(str);
}
Yeah, they're learning alright!
If a school buys a license for Windows XP, and they tell MS that they have 50 computers, and MS notices that Windows XP hgas only been activated 35 times from that school, then it's painfully obvious that 15 of their computers are not running Windows XP. Yeah I know there are probably ways around this (like imaging the hard disk) but do you think all teachers are going to be able to do this?
Follow me
This licensing cuts out Star Office and Gobe. If the schools are already paying for Office on every machine why would they ALSO buy Star Office or Gobe? This is how they kept other OSes off of computers for a long time.
They're doing something similar with their licensing to corporations - for the same reason. The company is already paying for Office so they aren't going to buy ANY copies of Star Office or Gobe. AND the company has to buy a multi-year contract, so every one else is locked out for good.
I seem to remember it was decided this was illegal when they did it to computer manufacturers so how come they are getting away with doing it to school districts and corporations? Is it because of the payoff\\\\\\\ agreement they made with the Bush administration, that they know they don't have anything to worry about?
You might find it helpful to open this page while reading this message, as it gives you a very clear overview of the different licensing options MS has.
This is School Agreement 3.0 that the article is referring to. Way before SA 3.0, there was SA 1.0. The 1.0 agreement was designed to give schools a fixed-price-per-year subscription for everything they could possibly want software-wise. There are plenty of other academic licensing options available.. this one was incredibly cheap (roughly $50 per seat per year max, decreases dramatically in volume) and makes sure you've got everything covered. Education is a unique market to sell software (assuming they are going to purchase software and not use open source) because money comes through an annual budgeting process. If a school can say that they have (x) computers and each one costs (x) in each budget cycle to keep in software, that's something that can be planned for. Buying software (er, anything) when needed is darn near impossible in many schools. The other advantage is that when a new machine is purchased, Microsoft includes it on the license until the next yearly cycle. Therefore, if you have 100 machines, you can buy 500 more without any software and be immediately licensed without any charge until the next year, when you pay Microsoft for 600 seats. Because of the free-software-for-new-boxen clause (which is VERY helpful... software acquisiton budgets and hardware acquisition budgets often do not coincide) Microsoft requires that every box in the school be included. This is only one of many options!
The reason Macs were included was dualfold - the agreement covers BackOffice Client Access Licenses, for one - for consistency, Microsoft doesn't want you dealing with having some computers covered for BackOffice and others not, thereby allowing you to 'fudge' on your servers - and the inclusion of various Mac-based software (office:mac, etc.)
Would this be a bad license if it was intended for everyone or the only option? Yes. Did it save my school in budget crunches becasue current software we needed (While open source is nice, let's be honest - it's neither designed for nor up to the usability needed for an educational deployment) could be billed as a required expense instead of an optional upgrade was available? Yes.
Now the confusion came up when Microsoft redid the license as School Agreement 3.0. Now, instead of receiving a package (which included Windows, Visual Studio, Office, BackOffice CAL, etc.), institutions can pick and choose products. The old option is still available for roughly the same price as a "desktop/client bundle" plus a few upgrades (Visual Studio is $2 a seat, for instance). There are a few minor differences which are detailed on the Microsoft licensing website... and a few changes for the better, like allowing schools to buy Microsoft software and simply give it to their students. (This is a great development for Visual Studio, for instance... Pay $2 per student in a CS course and they get development tools. Is it a GNU tool? Nope, but it does create young coders who will discover open source later.)
Because the basic premise of the agreement is the same, and options can be added and subtracted, they apparently didn't change the counting restrictions since 1.0. The difference now is that because you can order only certain products, people who don't fully buy into the plan and *only* purchase PC products wind up buying more licenses than they otherwise should. If this happens, school agreement should be avoided at all costs. IMHO you should only buy into this arrangement if you as a school want a large percentages of the stuff; simply licensing Windows is not productive here.
To be fair to Microsoft, pricing on these licenses takes into account the fact that the software will probably not be used on every box. Think about it... a single license for Visual Studio.NET Pro Academic runs $99, while the per seat cost here is $2. They're obviously recognizing that secretaries and many teachers' desk machines won't be running Visual Studio. In the case of Windows, the license cost is $18. That is far less than a volume license of an NT-based professional OS has ever cost in 100-300 unit quantities - so the acknoweldgement is made that not every machine will be running Windows that is counted. (If it does, then you get an even better deal. That's why this only makes sense for some schools.) This "subpricing" strategy is not something I made up - they do detail it on their licensing site.
If interested, these are the prices:
Please mod this message up - the discussions so far haven't been acknowledging what the license is really about. For a task that is already very difficult (especially for those of us who'd rather not buy the stuff to begin wtih), School Agreement makes school IT admins who are forced to work wtih MS products' jobs much easier and (when signed properly) can save money.
Ben
ever heard of faking your browser ident string ?
graspee
"Effect" is a noun too, meaning to make happen.
However, my guess is that half of all verb uses are errors. The problem is that "to affect" does mean, roughly, "to have some effect". Nasty. Though I bet non-native English speakers rarely make this mistake since they aren't so distracted by the similar sound.
dude, I read your name as "Cybersex", and the start of your post:
/. affecting my brain ?
"My girlfriend graduated from high school just over a year ago, and I got to see how this works first hand."
...just sounded like the start of one of those "no, really, it's true" sex story posts.
Am I sick, or is
graspee
Actually, although rarer in useage, "affect" is also a noun, and "effect" is a verb.
Doctor: She is showing a distinct lack of affect
He wanted to effect a change in local government.
graspee
Such an intelligent and interesting post would make an excellent basis for an "Ask Slashdot" story.
graspee
The Sims runs on Wine, thanks to Mandrake Linux, the Wine team, and a few others.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
It seems to me what MS is doing is just WRONG. Windows, like it or not, is the standard and children need to learn it. MS knows this and is exploiting the situation, effectively holding our already under funded school system upside down until all the change falls out. What I find worst of all is that school systems who acquire alternative OSes are being punished by Microsoft's licensing system. What are the chances of any school system trying an alternative OS if they either have to get screwed on licensing by MS or make a switchover to Linux or Mac in one fell swoop?
"It tastes like.... burning." -Ralph Wiggum
Granted, in college, there is plenty of use for them (Mathematica in calculus classes, for example, really helps with visualizing what is going on for things like multi-variable equations and vector fields).
However, it has been shown that kids don't learn any better with computers than they do without with the way they are applied in most primary and high-school education settings. In essence, computers in the classroom is just a huge waste of money and a distraction.
I think that the CALs are required for Macs. At least if they are accessing Windows file shares, Inter/intra-net servers, etc.
You don't need a CAL to access a Windows Networking share from a computer running Mac OS X. All you need is SAMBA. Most of Microsoft's other server software runs on standard protocols such as HTTP, FTP, etc.
Will I retire or break 10K?
School is about socializing? WTF?! Did you drop out or something?
School is about learning, or at least it SHOULD be.
Socialize on the weekends. Thats like saying work is the place to socialize, no you do that after work at the bar.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You are right, school on all levels should be about learning. I think that troll who posted that msg that school is about playing and socializing, is most likely some dropout kid.
Kids should learn computers are soon as possible, this isnt 1920, this is 2002, we are in the information age, and we need as many programmers as possible to build the nanites, and robots which will be used in our future society.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
We will soon find out, because the population increases and the amount of teaches decreases.
As the difficulity of the work increases the need for teachers increases.
Dont you think, interactive software would teach a student just as well as a teacher could?????
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I learned basic on a Commodore 64 in elementary school (3rd grade)... and then took those skills to the Apple II. These days I pull in a tidy sum coding in Perl, C, IDL, AppleScript, Lingo, etc. Once you learn the programming basics (for loop, conditional branching, variables) you're pretty much equipped to learn almost any programming language under the sun. I say almost, because LISP (which I have learned, and have written code in) requires a good grasp of recursive design, which is another skill set entirely...
On the issue of what's too hard, I had friends in public school (Los Angeles Unified School District to boot) taking and passing the AP Calc test with perfect scores in 8th grade. Most schools have excessively low expectations of their students, and it shows. I say,
I'm not excatly sure how legal something like this is and what rights MS has to prosecute if the school simply ignores them and only notes PCs runnning windows?
Since it is a contract, it may not be that illegal (though it may be unenforcable).
On the other hand, it is identical behavior to that which they engaged in with OEMs in the past, that led to an investigation, lawsuit, and Consent Decree which Microsoft subsequently ignored with impunity. That might play a role in making said contracts unenforcable, and perhaps illegal outright.
The DOJ, in bending so far over backwards to throw the case and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory have sent a very powerful, and very clear, message to Microsoft: Thank you for your campaign contribution, you are now excused from these pesky antitrust laws.
Is it any wonder Microsoft believes they are above the law, despite being a convicted monopolist? Not at all, given the current, reprehensible behavior of the US Department of Justice.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Computers are, as Steve Jobs puts it, bicycles for the mind. Google, for example, is a tremendous educational resources.
Microsoft, however, adds no value to the educational mix over what is available for free. Possibly it subtracts. It's a scandal that school districts are putting themselves at mercy of Microsoft's predatory licensing practices.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Unless you plan on using the Linux boxes as paperweights you're going to be emulating Windows using Codeweavers, VMWare, wine, or .dll linkage on anything that isn't running Windows natively so the license is justified. The only native deployment of Linux is going to be in something not a computer so those wouldn't be licensed.
These days, the Mac version of Office is arguably better than the Windows version. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Also, the two versions operate pretty seamlessly. If you want users to be able to follow OS-specific instructions, or if you want perfect font matching, you can emulate any version of Windows on a Mac, and it also works damn well.
We all know that MS is the root of all evil in the computer field. These issues with schools are getting some attention, but not nearly what MS negates with their brain washing of PHBs and techies at their conferences. (It takes weeks to deprogram some of the guys at work after attending an MS seminar!) What we need is to somehow get this message out to a broader audience. OSDN-sama, have you considered making a television commercial? Perhaps a good looking school teacher with a child and dog who was forced to give up her job to allow for higher school IT costs from Microsoft? Go to that school district in Austrailia who did away with MS and show how productive their IT staff has become - and the sexy teacher riding on horseback that didn't have to be fired because they found a way without MS. IAMAAdvertiser, but my little brother is. Make a commercial for the general public showing that life does go on without MS. I think his advice has merrit.
Sorry to bust your bubble, but 15-odd years of serious research overwhelmingly confirms that so-called educational software (teaching programs) are generally useless. Most of us who have had to use the crap already knew that.
A lot of it appears to end up purchased for purely political reasons, then wind up as "shelfware".
What's really needed is a description of what software for education needs to do. Rather than picking certain packages and saying it must do exactly what that package happens to do. Regardless of if it is actually of any benefit at all.
Was wondering about the new name...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Didn't I just tell you that Macs will run Windows? It's called Virtual PC. www.connectix.com