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A College Without Microsoft?
An anonymous reader asks: "My grandfather is the president of a well-known undergraduate-only college of about 7,000 students. He tells me that an alumnus has agreed to donate $2.4 million initially (and up to $800,000 each succeeding year for 10 years) to the school for computer equipment and staff if the school agrees not to renew any contract and to buy no products or services (either directly or through an intermediary like Gateway) from Microsoft. I'm told that this isn't the enormous amount of money that it sounds like and that a change-over to non-Microsoft products would be costly. I think it'd be great for college students to use computers apart from Microsoft, but I'm told that the board will look at the decision in terms of cost, not for benefit to the students. Does the Slashdot community have any points that I can give my grandfather to present to the Board next month?"
OS X has proven to be a very stable OS and it gives you the UNIX underbelly to teach students how to program with free compilers, while at the same time maintaining an extreme ease of use for all computer skill levels.
Apple and OpenOffice would fill the void nicely in my opinion. It won't be as cheap as x86 by any means, but it could be easier to support and teach.
btw, this isn't a flame. I'm using Linux right now and I love it, but distributing it to total novices can be frustrating.
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How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
I'd like to meet this person. Anyway, as far as making the case for acceptance: Show the board MS License 6.0. Highlight the "good" parts, and append some of the better industry commentary about them. Make it clear that, if whatever academic licensing MS offers doesn't already include these provisions, it will soon. (A reasonable assumption.) Run some numbers on the projected TCO of M$ software over those ten years. Be sure to include some reasonable extrapolation of past losses due to viruses & such. Then run the same numbers for Linux. With a reasonable effort, you might well be able to demonstrate to the board a lower ten-year expenditure for a Linux environment before taking the donation into account. Might not succeed (esp. now that MS knows about the proposal - thanks /. [G]), but at worst you'll certainly get a cost-conscious board thinking about open source.
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
Universities (i.e. locations where you get Bachelor degrees, not sure if they are called that in the U.S.)
An American I know told me that is the U.S., an institution is a college if it just offers Bachelor's degrees, and a university if it has Masters' programs.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
Or he could go the way of Venezuela and other countries, and declare that instead of saying "no Microsoft" just say "no closed source software". Then Microsoft is free to bring an open source offering to the university, nobody is being 'locked out', and nobody can complain about unfairness.
MORTAR COMBAT!
The words college and university are to some extent regionalisms. To some people the words are practically interchangeable. To others college implies "trade school" where specific trades are taught such as secretarial skills, engine repair, carpentry, and system administration.
Many CS and engineering programs have gone down the slippery path of Trade School were specifics are taught instead of general concepts. This has been discussed many many times on slashdot.
I'll bite. And start thinking like a PHB.
If I use Microsoft products (which are surprisingly stable as of late.), I can save myself thousands of dollars in human ressource since an MCSE is cheaper then an RHCE. If the RHCE tops out in the 6-figure realm I can theoretically hire me 3 MCSE to do the job to my servers, which by the way came equipped with the OS, thanks to the MS-TAX.
Now now, I know that linux is way more stable, allows me to do more with less, and that my RHCE will not have half the problems my MCSE have, but still. In PHB-land, the winner would be MS.
Now mod me into oblivion, and I'll go wash my hands after having typed so much pro-ms material.
Marriage is considered capital punishment for the theft of a goat in some third world countries...
scripsit paladin_tom:
OK, I'll put on my Yank academic hat for a moment...
In the States, ``college'' has many overlapping meanings. It can mean:
FWIW, ``college'' almost never means a secondary or preparatory school (i.e., high school or gymnasium) in the States.
Oh, and there's no legal restriction on these terms, so you will find totally unaccredited ``universities'' of massage, for example, or tech schools calling themselves universities (DeVry, for example).
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
Doesn't sound like the worst thing that could happen.
I've read many statements saying that students should be prepared for the real world, and for using Microsoft products. I've also seen discussion that CS students should be tought concepts and not just languages and libraries.
Now, put these two ideas together. Using OpenOffice is very similar to using Microsoft Office. A student who graduates knowing how to use either one should be able to quickly learn the differences between them and master the alternative once they are in the work place. It is not only CS students that should be tought concepts and not just specifics.
The other thing, that many have pointed out is that the change need not be immediate. Perhaps a frank discussion with the man donating the money could point out to him that for certain applications, it isn't possible to switch over to non-Microsoft programs. Perhaps until other alternatives become a feasible option (as determined, say, by the admins and perhaps *gritting teeth* a board as designated by the school administration), Microsoft products could be purchased for this usage.
Personally, I'd say that much of this depends on the composition of the school, and the type of school. Many previous posts have simply ASSUMED that the school is only a CS school, or ASSUMED that the school isn't... I think one person even kindly ASSUMED that there's graduate students after it was stated this is an undergraduate only school. Without further details, it is fairly hard to offer any specific insight. Since you have a month, perhaps you could get some more details down, including the financial state of the school, the predominant majors, and other appropriate factors (current budget might be a notable factor), and then bounce if off Slashdotters again.
Anyone giving advice with only partial details is bound to be giving at least partially flawed advice.
"If God's on our side, he'll stop the next war." -- Bob Dylan
Your grandfather should look into MIT's implementation of information systems. There is virtually no reliance on MS yet complete choice for students. The IS implementation at MIT is really a beautiful thing. Too often schools fail to seek best practices before diving into new projects.
Unless you have more then a few servers, as some studies have shown that the MCSE can only effectivly admin x number of servers, but the unix based servers are easier to manage so the RHCE could probably manage x*2, so you have to figure out where the point of having 1 6-figure RHCE is better then having 3 35K RHCE is.
Georgia Tech's CS department seems to be about equally divided into two camps, MS and *NIX, with a small fringe element going to Macs. Now, most of the students I deal with seem to love using the *NIX systems, and the main undergrad CS cluster dual boots RH7.3 and Win2k, each box spending most of its time in RH. The ultrasparc solaris workstations see a lot of use, too. Some of the early-on required CS courses teach the use of gcc, lint (proprietary but TASTY!), dbx (I like it better than gdb simply because gdb doesn't handle threads very well), and some other linux/solaris tools.
:) Most of them panic the moment they see a non-windows machine they're forced to use. Maybe they'll like OS X.
However, the curriculum for some required courses still focuses or uses in some integral manner proprietary utilities from Microsoft. Additionally, MS has launched this MSDN:Academic Alliance program, whereby CS students at GT (and presumably at other schools) can download and use for free just about any MS recent software that exists, be it application, development tool, or operating system altogether. Are these MS tools better or easier to use than their free counterparts? Not in my experience. gcc is still the best compiler out there, IMHO, and nothing beats eclipse for java. poseidon/dia make great visio replacements (for UML purposes at least), OpenOffice does everything I need for office functionality. Savvy students have no problem doing without a windows-based environment/curriculum at GT.
The problem is when you bring non-CS students into the picture
How about changing the restriction on the donation to this:
The university may spend the money only on non-Microsoft computer goods and services. That includes no computers with Microsoft software pre-loaded, or Microsoft licenses to run on blank computers.
This would not restrict choice - Microsoft wouldn't be banned from the campus - but it would put other options (Mac, Linux, etc. etc) in front of the student and faculty.
But the terms are unacceptable. The College has a mission that unfortunately has to include Microsoft products. Until there are better apps, they need to know Microsoft. There are ads for MCSE's and others related to Microsoft. Microsoft is the standard as much as you'd hate it. Tell the alum that they will try to expand into other products such as Linux and Unix, but due to mission of the College they could not guarantee that it would never be spent on Microsoft products.
Gorkman
... IBM. Boards like beans. They aren't swayed by warm and fuzzy philosophies, nor are they swayed by mercurial guesswork as to potential financial savings from people without intimidating business cards. Enter IBM.
... I might have to start a band just so I can name it that.
... *running to my local copyright office* :)
I would really, really suggest arming your grandfather with as many high-caliber charts and numbers as you can coax from the mighty Blue. When IBM speaks, suits listen.
I've worked, a bit, with the PR dept. of their Linux initiatives division in the past, and I can assure you that they love to help push pro-Linux campaigns like the one you describe. Having done that for a while now, I'm sure they have amassed a library of credible and well-documented evidence regarding the benefits of Linux over Windoze, especially as relates to TCO. Hell, they probably have a library of source material specifically for colleges.
Anyway, if I were you I'd contact someone in the IBM Linux division and ask for some help. At the very least you'll get some solid docs to help bolster your case. Depending on the circumstances, you might end up getting even more significant help than that. Cases like the one you describe are precisely why having (well-behaved) corporations anchoring the tug-of-war line is so crucial to the Linux movement.
- nocturne
p.s. Nobody use the phrase "arming your grandfather"
Oh wait, this is going to show up on the internet, huh
My university signed this thing with microsoft called 'Campus Agreement'. Basically it means they get MS software really cheap, almost free for the students, but tha catch is that this "Agreement" is exclusive. They're not allowed to work other similar liceses. This results classes about VB programming, where there used to be C++ and Pascal courses. This happened after I graduated, so I did enyoy learning a lot of different languages, but now, that's a thing of the past, thanks (again) to MS (or should I say M$?) As for my favorite language, C/C++, they could be using one of Borland's tools (C++ Builder, Kylix), but as a product of the agreement, they're stuck with the very inferior Visual C++.
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
I currently am a student worker in my University's ITS dept. To give you an idea about what kind of university, out of many many thousands, we're #31 (with whatever rating scheme is used). Frankly, only 2-3 people who work here in ITS are computer science majors. Most of the people are just savvy users that can learn a new app in a day instead of a year. This lends one to think that a changeover would be just a weeks worth or so of new-learning for ITS staff, but that's not true.
On the various computer classroom computers, there are at least 10 pieces of windows-only software that professors use to teach classes, and some professors (not the CS dept. interestingly enough) write their own apps for their classes.
I don't mean to speculate on whether a complete switch over would be a Good Thing (even though I think the end result would be worth it, at least in the sciences), just to show that the dependency on whatever system is in place is often rather strong.
Also, there is some handi-capped accessible software that is installed on some of the computers that we are required by law to provide, and it happens to be windows-only. (It's called ZoomText, and it's use is rather self-explanatory).
Have your Grandfather go to RedHat and explain the situation. Tell the RedHat Executives that they need to supply the software & support for that time period. Then they (RedHat) can use this as a case study for other schools. Additionally, RedHat can use this promotionally.
syouell@realanswers.org
nothing but chump change. Try something like the 32.5 million donated to CWRU by mogul Peter B. Lewis for leverage.
It might cost the university more than 2.5 million in legal fees. Lets think about like this: University tells MS to take a hike. MS says up-yours! your university network is responsible for X instances of piracy of Z number of MS products! And then the Redmond legal team gets involved and you shell out millions in legal defense and stopping piracy.
Damn monopolies suck.
Not so true: my university has a copy of the NT source code, which post-grad students use for research.
It's free, too. In fact, any changes we make to our own 'branch' of the NT source code can even be redistributed, internally.
It's not as open but the GPL, but it's wrong to call NT completely closed.
When I worked for a major New Jersey located Ivy League university's (to be left unnamed) Computer Science department, they received a multi-year grant from Microsoft which consisted of several hundred computers, supplied by Dell, with Windows NT/2000 on them.
The grant was written in such a was as to say that the Windows operating system MUST remain on the machine. If the machine were to be reloaded, it MUST be a Windows operating system. If the systems were found to have another operating system installed, the contract would be in violation and Microsoft would have the ability to take back all of the grant equipment and cancel the grant entirely.
That contract put the fear of god in the entire departmental management. And, as expected, Microsoft did do periodic audits.
Because the University environment (a very unique environment, indeed) lives heavily off of grants, their decisions are swayed yearly by who gives what and how much. For example, the server infrastructure, which was heavily UNIX based for good reason, swayed from DEC Alpha systems to HP-UX to SUN Solaris in a very short span of time. It continues to be SUN based because of the continued grants year-to-year from SUN to maintain their footprint.
Students really do not have choice when it comes down to it (did they ever? C'mon.. students are always treated like second class citizens anyhow!). What the student uses is defined by the University, and, subsequently, the professors teaching the courses. It is the professors who have to adapt to the changing environment defined by the "upper management".
Could an all-non Microsoft environment be done? Sure, anything can be done. Is it cost effective? Probably not (and that pains me) since Microsoft's pockets are much deeper.. They can easily do the 'payoff' since they can shovel more money the way of the University.
If I understand this correctly, then the students are allowed to look at the NT source code. But aren't they now "contaminated" by exposure? They now cannot work on any other project without Microsoft screaming bloody murder about them taking knowledge of their oh-so-important OS with them.
Huh? Where do you pull that 14 figure from? I'm sitting here on a nightshift, with two other guys, and we're currently looking after the e-commerce applications of one of the largest insurance companies in Europe. Hundreds upon hndreds of servers in multiple environments, in multiple locations across the country. It's busier when we're working days, obviously, but please take that linux FUD/nonsense elsewhere.
How you got modded insightful is beyond me.