Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft vs. Northwest Schools Part II
sharkey writes "Simple End User Linux (SEUL) has an article about their visit to the ACPE 2002 conference. Microsoft's visit to the conference is outlined, as well as the school districts' attitude towards GPL software and migration issues. An interesting follow-up to an earlier Slashdot article."
In our district we have God control over our machines and dictate all hardware and network decisions, but even then have had to give some leeway on software installs for political issues.
;)
I prefer to take a more hands-on approach and use "root", rather than a third-party administration product of dubious reliability, scalability, and quality.
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
This is and old and known MS business strategy. They let their softs spread freely and then demand license regularization. Companies around the world used to have no alternative but to pay thousands of dollars on licenses because mass migration is expensive, user training on new OS is expensive and many other things. Even thou some years ago linux already existed it was not a so viable alternative, so companies, even knowing Windows is not the best OS out there, stick to it.
:))
It is pretty good to see that this is changing. Microsoft tried to do this but now there is an alternative out there and that alternative is pretty strong and robust. It is good to see that even thou MS is a large company it cant do business like it did years ago because it is not the ONLY out there.
Way to go!!!
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
That may come across as annoying or foolish, but it's probably also true....just badly worded. The kids are not the ones that will have trouble learing the new technology.
That phrase should be read "No one is worried about the kids [they'll adapt quickly]."
They love to scare you into thinking they're going to press charges and levy fines, but it's just a good-cop, bad-cop routine -- the second the outrage hits, they're a different company; flexible and understanding.
At that point we're supposed to believe MS is a big cozy teddy bear and really wants to help. They've done this more times than I can remember. It's time to walk away from them and not look back...
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
2. Committed volunteers. As the article points out, the LUG was a big help. One of the cool things about the open source community is the freedom and diversity of work. But a pitfall is that it is not organized around a single goal like a corporation. If the Linux community said (i.e., leaders said), we are committed to getting all public schools onto free software and keeping them going, make that your priority, what amazing things could be accomplished? Instead many people would rather work on their own, probably less important projects. I love working on my own stuff just for the fun of it, but there comes a time to put down your own agenda and dig ditches for a greater goal.
I think one of the biggest barriers to getting Linux installed at schools is the lack of software targeted at secondary-school teachers and students. I'm working on writing an open-source, Java-based gradebook application (still in initial stages, so there's no project homepage yet), and I'd really like to see people writing things like gradebooks, educational games, and the like.
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
This is exactly the problem that schools face. They are looking at options, but except for an initiative at red hat, there is not a strong, coordinated effort from the linux community. Schools are over burdened and cannot afford somebody who is really good to come in and do the right thing. The schools don't need a flock of geeks, they need consistent, reliable support.
Believe nothing -- Buddha
I think it can be easily determined that what is meant is that no one is worried about kids being able to use the software. Kids are much more adaptable to new technology than adults are, they're just not set in their ways yet. Its always been that way. A lot of teachers(and adults) struggle with OSes that have been around a long time, and fear having to learn something new on the computer because they just don't think they can do it.
The problem is that Microsoft's licensing requires the schools to decide NOW, and then locks them up for years. (Right in the middle of finals.) The same is true for their corporate licensing. They have to decide NOW and then are locked up for years.
Desktop Linux isn't quite ready. It's getting close. That's why Microsoft is forcing them to decide NOW. And it isn't really a decision now. Maybe even in a few months. But, of course, Microsoft is forcing them to decide NOW and commit to years.
So they have to choose between Office and Star Office NOW, (and that means 5.2, but even 6 isn't QUITE right.) Or gobeProductive, which is really great on Windows, but isn't QUITE ready on Linux yet, and there isn't enough time to do a proper evaluation anyway. So they have no choice, really, except to commit to Office.
So it's just another monopolistic extortion scam from the company with $40 billion cash in the bank. You'd think that the corporations that are the victims of this licensing scam would recognize what they have unleashed by putting Bush into ofice. Or you'd think that the municipalities with the school districts would be talking to their members of Congress. Education was suyppose dto be the big Republican thing, right? But the first thing Bush did was free up Microsoft do go after --- other corporations and school districts! Is this really the kind of country they wanted when they coughed up all that cash to put Bush in office?
As a high school technology teacher, I'm probably more incensed over the way M$ is trying to blackmail the education system than those who aren't involved in education, as I see first-hand the struggles involved with trying to integrate very inflexible software into the education system. But I'm also a taxpayer in the school district I teach in, and it makes me angry that our school district has also chosen to be a whore to the M$ brothel.
There's a related article over at The Register which exposes yet another nefarious plan by M$ to fleece the public: They are proposing licenses on a per computer or per FTE basis, without regard to whether computer or person runs, installs, or is in any way associated with M$.
I think it would be interesting if those who are sickened by these business tactics were to request from their school districts those EULAs and agreements which govern the use of software in the district. As a taxpayer, you're entitled to this information: If they won't give it up willingly, then surely it can be acquired via an FOIA request (in the states). I know our district has used passage of a $36 million bond issue to outfit our 50,000-student district with more M$ products...exactly what is not needed.
I plan on requesting our district's EULAs through official channels first, then through FOIA channels as a taxpayer. The reason why this situation exists in the first place is the failure of the taxpayers to monitor how their money is being spent.
Flame me all you want, but Microsoft reacted the way that any business would when confronted with angry customers. Sun, IBM and others would have reacted in the same manner if they were in MS's shoes.
Never underestimate the power of bad customer support or angry customers!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
That's mighty impressive. There's a lot of awfully good people in the Linux world. With a sense of community and pride like they have, who knows what they'll have accomplished in a few years time.
It makes me think. How can Mercenary programmers working for corporations possibly compete with those doing it for the love of the game?
I'm not a 100% Microsoft hater, but it's hard to see them vanquishing a determined, diversified foe like this (who doesn't have to make a profit to continue fighting.) I'm betting my future skill training on Linux. They're absolute berserkers on the OS battlefield!
Hand me that stack of O'Reilly books.
----
Slogan-free since April! We pass the savings on to you!
And I do mean really serious, then one place where the Portland Linux/Unix Group is collecting information is here. I am still waiting for them to contact me, but I am certainly willing.
It hasn't been mentioned in the article, nor in this discussion so far as I can see...but is nobody aware that the computer maker that sells more boxes to the educaton market is Apple?
I realize that many in the slashdot crowd see any solution other than free/oss ones as inherently evil...and that companies with these solutions are engaged in nothing short of extortion and theft...but c'mon. Isn't one of the best options for these schools to simply buy more Macintoshes? Of course it is!
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
You are correct. Unfortunately "any business" doesn't have monopolistic power, either. The reason we have laws against monopolies is to prevent business from applying normal business practices in a competitive vacuum.
-Sean
a new definition to "free as in beer", anyway....
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
It's interesting that Microsoft's auditing process is acting as a catalyst to mainstream linux awareness and possible adoption at the public school level.
Isn't someone going to quote Princess Leia? ("The more you tighten your grip..." )
I must be at the wrong website.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I just moved into my town a little over two years ago, and learned shortly after moving in that the School District had just launched a major effort to completely overhaul their IT infrastructure. The bill was enormous as the district opted for MS products across the board.
Interestingly enough, it turned out that the guy in charge of the whole implementation, was one of my best friends. A truly brilliant guy, he has always been firmly entrenched in the world of Novell and Microsoft. When I told him, that they really should be looking at Linux for the file, print, and web services he immediately began to recite so much recycled FUD I thought I was talking to Bill Gates himself. Myself and another friend of mine spent hours debating Linux and other open-source solutions, and in the end he conceded some points, but was still largely unmoved.
Well, to make a long story short, he called me last night to tell me that the bill for the School work was getting a little too high for their budget, and they were shopping around for vendors with some Linux experience. His boss, who's even more Pro-MS, told him that they can't lose this contract and that someone needs to "ramp-up" on Linux fast.
We install Linux on his box tomorrow! When it comes to the education market, cost is king.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
"No one is worried about the kids"
Well obviously. The kids will be recompiling kernels and root-kitting computers before the software's been installed a day, if it's anything like the schools I know.
It's a basic principle of business - and also, strangely, con artists - you're better off taking a little off your customer/mark over a long period, maintaining a positive relationship for an extended period, rather than taking them for all their worth once and never hearing from them again. You want them coming back, asking for the privilege of handing you more money.
In the business world this is of course, achieved through providing quality products at a fair price acompanied by good customer service.
In a con game, this is achieved through convincing your mark that you are acting in his best interest, and if that deesn't work you can always try threats and extortion.
Microsoft seems to have made a business decision that it is more cost effective to derive funds through threats and extortion rather than by providing a quality product. Before you dismiss this as being an overbroad accusation, consider the following.
In the early 1990s Steve Balmer was quoted as saying that "Software Piracy is a critical part of Microsoft's Business", the reasoning being that if those who couldn't afford Microsoft products, pirated them and their use of the software increased their efficiency in business and otherwise, they would become more profitable both personally and in business and be able to afford to pay for upgrades to the software, so Microsoft would proffit through a somewhat obscure customer aquisition technique.
In the Mid 1990s the BSA began to take major steps to try and curb software piracy through various threats and lobying for new anti-piracy legislation.
Then, in the late 1990s and now, Microsoft has become dissatisfied with collecting from those who illegally use their software. Now they are seeking out organizations who use their software legally, and have always acted in good faith, singling them out, causing them expense and time which they can not afford, above and beyond that which they have already budgeted to legally purchase the software in question.
Is it really a suprise that these faithful customers are now objecting and seeking other alternatives? No. I think not.
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
One of the big issues isn't running Linux, but using all of that already-paid-for Windows educational software.
...).
The performance of WINE is going to be a major lever in moving schools to Linux. If it can be shown that they can use most or all of their existing, paid-for (proprietary) software like Reader Rabbit, Carmen Sandiego, etc. then the migration will be that much easier.
Yes, GNU software is better. However, trying to get them to jump 100% from what they ahve to GNU is going to have one major speedbump -- and it will be made from the pile of existing software that they paid for and still works.
Step #1 is removing Windows, MS Works and MS Office and replacing them with Linux and OpenOffice (or KDE Office, or Gnome Office, or
Another step would be a good, reliable list of Windows Educational software and how it works on WINE. (Heck, most of it is still Win 3.1 compliant!)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
As the IS Manager for a K-12 school system that uses Linux for our main servers, I really see the advantage of it over NT. Also, I can see using KDE + Mozilla + Star/K/Abi Office for business classes and office PCs. The problem is what do you use to replace all the curriculumn and remediation software like Plato, Abacus, Destinations, Accelerated Reader/Math, STAR Reader/Math, etc.? There aren't any open-source or Linux-based alternatives that I'm aware of.
On the school office side, what do you use to replace SASI/Pentamation/WINSchool/etc.? for student management, grades, attendance, etc.? What do you use in the libraries to replace Follett?
These are all questions that need to be answered before many school systems would even consider switching. Until there is a good answer for all of them, it isn't feasible to switch away from Microsoft and/or Apple.
Jason
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
As a low-level admin at a K12 district, I was pushing Linux, to what appeared to be deaf ears, until a couple of events took place, which sparked a renewed interest in Linux. As a result, we now have one of our webservers, two firewalls, and a proxy server all running Linux. And I can say that as a direct result of:
1) The greatly improved security and performance of the machines when Win2K server was wiped from them in favor of Linux, and
2) The action up in Portland, and Microsoft's generally jackbooted-thug-like behavior toward schools right in the middle of a major budget crisis
We will be headed more and more toward OSS in general and Linux in particular. And our district is by far not the only one. I hear from the other local districts and guess what? They are doing the same thing.
M$ has shot itself in the foot. It is possible that they can get some educators drunk at a conference and buy a little forgiveness, but how many people do you think were there in the context of how many people are dealing with Microsoft audits now? Not too many. And when Microsoft alienates the education market, they don't just piss off some administrators: if and when those administrators migrate some or all of their services and equipment to OSS, the effect inevitably trickles down to the students being educated in that district. The last thing Microsoft wants is for high school students in the process of making college choices to see the superiority of OSS to their own crufty product, and make decisions based in part on that information. But that is just what is happening. So the events going on right now will have ramifications well into the future. Count on it.
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
Sure they can afford more PR hits. Come on. They're Microsoft. Do you really expect a few PR hits to have any significant effect in the face of overwhelming advertising power and market dominance over most (admittedly mostly clueless) users? These people have come to expect PR hits and controversy as part of the industry. "That's just how it works." Microsoft wouldn't want to raise their expectations, now would they?
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
This is actually very true. I work in a high school, and software knowledge problems are from the educators 95% of the time. I have 10 computers in my classroom, and I installed OpenOffice on them when I was denied an office suite due to $$ restrictions. The students picked it up in 10 minutes (as an aside: Open Office also works great for opening corrupted powerpoint and excel files that office 2000 won't). During the summers, I train teachers how to use software, and it is FRUSTRATING when an adult looks at you as if you have strange jungle disease when you explain how to copy and paste.
Can schools make the switch to Linux? Yup, Doing it now. No need for MS Proxy or Border manager when E-Smith(the commercial site) offers a great solution.
Open Office / Star Office is the best thing that has come down the pipe for schools. If a student can learn to use these less expensive/just as robust software packages productively, then they can switch to using what ever MS office product that they may need to use on the job once they get out in the "Real World." What is wrong with education? I don't think computer illiterate teachers are the problem, but it fixing that certainly doesn't hurt.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
They would still have to license Office. Linux really is the answer.
I'm from the TriCities Linux Users group in Richland, WA, a mere 3 hours down the road.
I will gladly volunteer my time to this project. Not Just weekends. Not just a couple of hours here and there. I'm a unix system administrator with about 5 years of solid linux experience. I have experience in educational systems (I learn and admined linux at a university).
Please contact us. Our mailing list can be found at www.3clug.org.
I might suggest you see if there are volunteers from the OSDL (Open Source Development Lab) right there in Portland.
I would also suggest a good leader for this. This is going to be a lot of "heads" arguing back and forth, and having a "this is the way it's gonna be guy" is gonna work best.
You will have the people to do it. Just ask. We will save your school district money. We will make it work. You will not feel forced into a companies bottom line ever again.
--Doug Nordwall
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Their first move was to appear sorry, smooth over the tense situation then, MEET WITH EACH SCHOOL ONE ON ONE.
Diffusing the group is their primary objective. Once this is done, they can continue to manupulate the ones in charge into bad contracts.
PR 101 in action here, I am surprised that these two did not see it coming.
Blogging because I can...
If I were you, I would write my applications with the Schools Interoperability Framework in mind, so that it can communicte with other programs run by schools.
I remember back when I was in school we had big problems with comptuers. Seems both the macs and the PCs were single user systems, and so students would regularlly, and intentionally change something on the local disk. (the stupid ones just deleted something critical, the "smarter" ones changed something subtile that you didn't even notice for a while. Remember, these are teens going through the worst years of their life from an honesty standpoint.
Linux by contrast was designed from the ground up to be a multi-user system. Give someone a login, and they get access to their files, and only their files. They can run programs, but only the ones allowed by the administrator. (it is fairly easy to mount home noexec, and move programing students to a different disk)
I graduated in 93, so win3.1 was the latest windows, and the macs were m68k. things have advanced some (windows 95 is a little better for multi-user, but it still sucks compared to linux when you cannot trust the users)
Remember, these are students, not employees. They are immature, and untrustworthy. (I wasn't, and I was one of the more honest students)
As mentioned in the article, the biggest concern about Linux in schools is support. Somehow, I don't think telling them that Larry over at the local LUG said he'd help out if you run into trouble would go over too well with the administration (assuming the debate even gets this far). It would seem that if there were an organization like the AAA that offered emergency support, training opportunities, and instructional publications all for a low annual fee, regardless of what kind of Linux boxes/boxen you have or where you got them, a lot of the reluctance to switch to Linux would be removed. (I know that there are some small companies that do this sort of thing, or at least there were during the .com boom, but I'm thinking of more of a LUG-for-hire outfit.) With the current situation in the Northwest, the stage seems set for a few of these organizations to spring up, eventually merging into a single nationwide Linux support organization. Anyone have any venture capital they need to get rid of?
If OS X learns to play nice with Linux a school could deploy a network of Linux boxes and eMacs and use a lot of the same software on both... an eMac with XDarwin should be able to run all of the software on the Linux boxen (after a recompile).
That way a school could use cheap linux boxes in labs and use eMacs for the school paper and art classes and other places where proprietary software is needed.
It would be a good idea for Apple to team up with Red Hat and come up with a plan for a Linux/Mac system that would allow schools to keep using thier old intel hardware.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
It is an extremely one sided system- as they unethically designed it to be (1). As many have pointed out, the system is set up to make you feel you cannot possibly fight it, given the unacceptable risk if you lose.(2) However, if you can find other cases where people have fought, and you see how they did it, you might have hope.
People need to know how bad it is for schools. Example: Slashdot on Microsoft / BSA vs the LA School District, (3) where "hundreds" of unlicensed copies were found. the threat was $150,000 fine for each copy of a $100 per license product. ($100 at best. 1/3 was MSDOS, and schools get very good rates). They "negotiate" down to a $300,000 total fine, and the school district probably felt very grateful for this kindness of the BSA.
This is a 150,000% fine negotiated down to a 1,000% fine. (or 1,500x down to 10x). How does the BSA get to levy fines so out of proportion to actual damages? Yes, illegal copies are a crime (as is speeding), but the LAUSD wasn't running a mass piracy operation. Assuming that "hundreds" = 500 copies found, then the LAUSD had found roughly 1 copy per school, or 1 copy per 120 employees. The BSA got to treat the LAUSD as if it had found widespread felonious behavior rather than a few years worth of a few people deliberately or mistakenly making copies. No proof of bad intentions needed.
Extraordinary fines should require extraordinary proof, but instead the BSA has you do all the work, and even if you are entirely innocent you can still get hit. Unless a mistake can cause extraordinary harm, you don't usually get to treat mistakes like a felony! What makes the BSA so special? They get to threaten fines in line with fines for damage to life and health. Is software piracy that much worse than discharging toxic substances into waterways (max fine $125,000)? Misbranding a drug in interstate commerce (max fine $100,000)? Violating the Sherman Antitrust Act (the fine listed in Section 3571 (d) is "not more than the greater of twice the gross gain or twice the gross loss" caused by the conduct...)?
The LAUSD is not a happy ending story- but this current story might be. A collection of all cases like it would be useful for anyone just receiving a dreadful BSA / Microsoft letter. The site should be part of a high-Google-rank site, so that it is easy to find (for non-technical folks). The database should also have easy to find links to all user groups, by geographical areas, so that anyone can quickly get advice / quotes / support.
(1) Because a good ethical system (think Categorical Imperative) includes consistency in applying rules. The BSA would never accept their rules applied to themselves: imagine a Software Consulting Association sending audit letters out checking for late payments to consultants. If you've paid a consultant more than 30 days late, you get fined 150,000% of the daily rate.
(2) You'll fight a traffic ticket because you can afford to lose. What if the original ticket was $100,000, with a "negotiated" fine of $1,000? This is extortion, not a negotiation- you'll accept whatever the court says. Not to mention if *you* had to show that you didn't speed, even a little bit, and lack of evidence = proof of guilt. And it took a minimum of 5 days in court and they get to dismantle your car and replace equipment to test its maximum speed! That is what these audits are: time consuming and they can place programs on your system.
(3) Also see Inside the BSA (2/02)
I'm wondering why we even need computers in grades K-6. I can't really see how it helps the learning process; I and generations before me did just fine without computers (the first classroom computer in our school came when I was in the 6th grade).
I can understand giving the teachers computers for tracking grades, lesson planning and such, but I think it is not appropriate to use it as an educational tool for young children.
One should learn to do basic skills -- reading, writing, arithmetic, social skills, arts -- without the use of computers. You will get a much deeper understanding this way; you will be able to solve problems much quicker.
I think it is ridiculous that grade schoolers are being made to write reports using computers. Perhaps using the internet for research is OK, but with a computer the student doesn't learn spelling, grammar, or penmanship because the comptuer does it all for him. Use the computer as a reasearch tool, but write the final report by hand. You can't learn to write by typing.
Once you learn these basic skills, then (and only then) should you use the computer. Granted, when I was that age, computers weren't widely available, but we weren't allowed to use calculators until algebra, and typing was prohibited until you were an upperclassman. If the teacher couldn't read your handwriting, well, that was YOUR problem and you got an F.
A computer is a tool, but we're teaching our kids to use them for crutches because we're too lazy to teach them how to do things for themselves.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
In the county where I live and attended school, when computer science classes where first offered, they were taught by a handful of math teachers. Most of them did not have a background in programming or designing a computer science curriculum, yet they took the classes and taught them the best they could.
Unfortunately, they quickly gravitated to Visual Basic. The reason one stated to me is that it was an easy language for him to pick up, and it allowed the students to see quick results.
Now, the majority of the local school systems are solidly entrenched in Visual Basic as the primary tool that's used in all the high school computer science classes.
I recently ran into one of my old teachers, and I brought up the subject of Linux and open source software. He had no interest in even discussing it. He says there are plenty of VB sites on the Net with source code provided, and that Linux will never be be an option in the school system because he can't run VB on it. End of discussion. He even started to get a little hot-tempered with me when I tried to tell him about Kylix and some Borland products that were available for Linux.
These teachers all have the ear of the school board. And they seem to speak with a united voice in favor of Microsoft, regardless of price.