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Slashback: Moonbase, Schools, Entropia

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the communist-mechanist dept.

Slashback tonight brings updates on the Chinese Moonbase, games kids play, and a few more bits on the Microsoft crackdown on public school licensing.

Perhaps in a bit, though. texchanchan writes: "From the BBC: 'China will not be launching a manned mission to the Moon in the foreseeable future, according to Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's Moon exploration programme... he said he wanted to clarify news reports in the Chinese media that Beijing would be putting a man on the Moon by 2010..."We will explore the Moon certainly," he said from his office in Beijing, "but with unmanned spacecraft."'"

Can I sign up to be a robot brain surgeon? ascii7 writes "Remember that story a while back about Project Entropia, the free MMRPG? Well, now it's in the commercial trial phase, and free for all to download. Get it at www.project-entropia.com"

Free Software Entrepreneurs, take note. llywrch writes with more information on the Microsoft effort to crack down on licensing in Northwest public school districts, as reported by Oregonian columnist Steve Duin, writing: "Most intriguingly, Microsoft's heavy-handed tactics have already started a backlash, with 16 school districts in central Iowa having 'completely dumped' Microsoft and migrated everything to Linux."

He sends some background details not in the column:

  1. This column generated the most feedback Duin has seen for any one of his columns to this time. (He has experienced the Slashdot effect first hand.)

  2. The Beaverton And Hillsboro school districts, two that have been targeted for the audit, apparently will comply quietly. Beaverton will because they have kept close enough tabs on software licenses to make it feasible (as well as officially banning all non Mac & MS Windows machines from their network). Hillsboro will because a certain microprocessor manufacturer based in that city can subsidise the costs of Microsoft software.

  3. Paul Nelson (one of the forces behind the Linux for public schools movement) has been urging more cooperation between public schools and local Linux user groups. ``My hope is that other LUGs out there would start hosting clinics. If you are from a school, contact your local user group and offer to host a clinic!" He is planning a demonstration of what Linux can do for schools this July 4, calling it Software Independence Day."

Apropos that, JDALaRose writes: "While it was discussed at some length in this Ask Slashdot, the Washington Post is running an article wherein a columnist gives his take on making the switch from Windows/MS Office to Linux/OpenOffice."

9 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Snowcrash by jezreel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone remember the novel "snowcrash"?

    Like Entropia some ppl built up a whole cyberworld where you could meet friends and have 3-D access to other applications. And of course one would be able to participate in fancy sword-fights and supersonic motorcycle races. Legalized mafia and dragster-style pizza delivery where you could legally kill the pizzy guy when he failed to deliver your stuff on time.....

    Sadly somebody wrote a virus for it that affected the people behind the characters. I hope that won't happen anytime soon.

    --
    0 001 11 1
  2. Re:school districts migrating to linux... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Logo, and a part of that was Turtle Graphics

  3. Donated computers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I think it was on /. a while back that someone mentioned MS policy on accepting donated computers in schools.
    It used to say that it's "a legal requirement for the the original operating system that came with the computer to stay with that computer."
    I guess realizing how utterly stupid a claim that was they have since changed the site.
    Now they just say its a bad idea to accept computers without the original OS.

    1. Re:Donated computers... by madfgurtbn · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Now they just say its a bad idea to accept computers without the original OS.
      They don't say it's a bad idea, they say that a school should decline to accept a FREE COMPUTER just because it doesn't have an OS. I think that is just utterly unethical. They should be recommending not to decline the donation, but to make sure that all computers have legitimate licenses, or get a legitimate license. It's some of the worst FUD I've heard from M$, yet they seem to think we should be happy that they have at least stopped trying to tell schools that it is illegal to remove an OEM install of Windows.

      Schools and the people who donate computers to schools should not be led to believe that it is in any way improper to donate or receive a donation of a pc without an OS. Large companies with donation programs often wipe the hard drive for data security reasons.

      M$ doesn't want schools to get cheap old boxen because they know that sooner or later the schools will figure out that they can install k-12 LTSP and save themselves a lot of headaches and expense. It's the headaches of maintaining PC's in a student environment that will drive this more than the cost savings. Students rapidly break any security and change the settings so the computer labs all have Slipknot screensavers and so on.

      M$ has no excuse anymore for the donated computers FUD, because it has now been cleared at high levels in the corporation. When the original "donation" site appeared on slashdot, I wrote to them to complain. Shortly after they changed the site, M$ wrote back to me explaining that they had changed the site to clear up misleading language.

      They have not responded yet to me regarding the just as misleading suggestion that schools should decline to accept donated pc's without OS's. They cannot say that the site has "unclear language" or anything like that anymore, because it has obviously been reviewed and approved by someone with some clout.

      I cannot imagine the fantasy world they are living in that they think it is a good idea to recommend that schools refuse perfectly good computers just because they don't have an OS. And what makes matters even worse is that they are in the business of selling OS's !!!!! . If that isn't evidence of something being seriously rotten in Denmark, I don't know what is.

      Think about that for a while. I'll repeat it again...

      1. M$ sells OS's
      2. M$ recommends that schools refuse to accept FREE computers unless it comes with a valid OS.

      If you were in the OS business, wouldn't the logical thing be to recommend that schools BUY an OS for their donated computers?

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
  4. Microsofts licensing hurts small business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I work for a small company that sells educational software. We recently lost a large sale because Microsoft was turning the screws on the district that wanted to buy our software, and they didn't have any money left over for ours.

  5. Linux ready for schools by galaga79 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After trying Linux Mandrake out a couple of months ago, one thing that crossed my mind is how ready Linux is for schools. Linux distros these days contain all the basic tools needed for productivity. You have several different office applications (Abiword, KOffice, StarOffice, OpenOffice) to choose from for word processing and spreadsheets and then you also have scientific tools like Scilab (a clone of Matlab I am told). Though admittedly I am not sure if there are Powerpoint and Access alternatives for Linux, perhaps someone could shed some light on this.

    Now consider the Windows alternative, that would entail getting a site license for Windows, Microsoft Office, Matlab and who knows what else. This would not only cost quite a bit of money but I imagine would also create a pile of added paperwork due to the multiple licenses. Then with Windows you have to contend with issues of kids installing software on the school machines such as games, and macro and email viruses which from past experience spread like crazy in schools.

    As far as I am concerned Linux is more than ready for schools. Sure it may be different to Windows which most children would be accustomed to using at home but children these days are quite tech savvy and I assume they would pick up Linux interface quite quickly (perhaps faster than adults?). The only major issue to consider is inoperability issues such as opening Word 97/2000 files but this could be resolved by encouraging children to save in RTF format which presents no problem.

    --

    aus.music.scrapbook
  6. Re:Microsoft heavy handedness vs. Cost effectivene by gilroy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Blockquoth the poster:

    The kids still will be ill-prepared to work in any normal job, though, as Linux is nowhere near standard in the real life world.

    I don't buy it. First of all, the whole point of commercial products (according to MS and their bannermen) is that the interface is "intuitive" -- which means it can't take all that long to become a power user. Second, anyone who's grown up on a complex and responsive system like Linus will find Windows a breeze -- plus they'll have actual problem-solving abilities. Let's face it: One reason that Unix conceded the desktop world to Microsoft involved the inability of any seasoned Unix user to take Windows seriously. Yeah, that was a mistake, but going from Linux to MS definitely does not tax the brain...


    Besides, this isn't about preparing students for the real world. Students are remarkably flexible and adaptable. This is about the inconvenience to the old dinosaurs who can't conceive of a computer as anything more than an intimidating electric typewriter...

    --
    The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
  7. Windows only? by user138 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Beaverton seems to be running a apache/linux server (according to netcraft). and made the switch from ISS in '00.

  8. Re:Training teachers by texchanchan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I was an ISP support tech, I found that people from these professions were hardest to work with: journalists, teachers, lawyers, psychologists. Preachers and writers were up there too. I took to calling these "the word-oriented professions." The most dreaded customers to deal with, other than the habitually furious, were schoolteachers. Public school or private made no difference.

    In general, they had great difficulty comprehending even the most basic concepts such as the difference between the Windows desktop and the interior of a web browser window. (There was one exception, a coach at some local country school who had an excellent computer lab going from the sound of it.)

    Teaching teachers about computers is already hard. Introducing the idea of a different kind of operating system would, I think, confuse most of them very much.