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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?"
The reality is, the kids are going to need to know how to use Microsoft tools once they graduate in order to be successful in the real world.
Plus, imagine all the chaos as non-computer science majors try to struggle with Linux on the desktop in computer labs and so on. It will indeed probably cost a lot more than $2.4 million in the end.
This post might sound pro-M$, but it's not. I'm just trying to give the reality of the situation. Oh well, there goes my karma.
that they should put the good of the students ahead of any politics. That being said, the gift should be politely turned down. The best education these students could receive is a broad one.
That is, one that doesn't show any bias towards or against any one company's products. An education that includes zero microsoft products could be just as harmful as one that includes 100% microsoft products.
Fast forward to the first interviewer saying to a kid "What do you mean you've never heard of Visual Basic?"
This could put the students at a horrible disadvantage. Things really depend on their major, though. Anyone doing something like a CIS degree would get little experience of what they actually need, and that's working with Microsoft products in a Microsoft world. The deal seems something on the immoral side, too. What would you all be saying had Microsoft issued a deal paying colleges to only use their software in order to produce a workforce that can only use MS software?
//TODO: signature
Best to see if there's some negotiating room with this benefactor, i.e. set up and Open Source lab and fund at least one faculty position to instruct in the use of whatever the curriculum calls for.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1) If Microsoft did something like this, everyone would be screaming and calling the Justice Dept. It isn't right for someone else to do the same thing.
2) Taking all MS products off the campus would be a dis-service to the students. Do some of us like non-MS products? Sure. But when those students graduate and go to work, are they going to see a lot of MS in the workplace? You bet. To hide them from MS products for 4 years would be harming their education.
Chuck
You're not going to get an entire university to drop MS completely from the school for measly 2.4 million. Instead, try for a more narrow target. Something like "funds for the engineer school, if no engineering classes use MS products for classwork." Substitute for "engineering school" and "classwork" until you get a balance that is acceptable to both the donor and the school.
Here is the list of things I would tell your Grandfather:
1) Qualified (i.e. not test taking wonders) MCSE can physically manage about 14 MS Servers... However, a qualified Linux Admin can handle (depending upon variations in OS release) from 50-75. Much lower people cost.
2) The Admin time saved can be either be converted to cash (fewer employee admins), used to increase support of University Departments and Staff, or a combination of the two.
3) No BSA audits, papertrails, etc. which does not mean that inventory isn't maintained, it's just that it doesn't have to be a resource and legal liability issue (read, cheaper to operate).
4) I promise to send my son to this institution when he's ready for College (about 17 years from now).
Admissions, tracking, telephone answering and voicemail, the all important DONOR, PLEDGE, and WILLS AND BEQUEST software packages run on MS Windows, and nothing else.
The fundraising package Raiser's Edge by Blackbaud Software is Windows frontend on Oracle. It's about the only package powerful enough once you get past 10k students. It's about $150,000 initial purchase, huge hardware and maintenance, and it's Win only.
Good luck if you can replace all those packages with Unix based stuff.
Hell, the only mail list processing software is Mailers+4 from Mellisa Data. It's Win only, I use it every week, it works well but crashes like crazy. They just released a Unix/Linux library, but it'll be at least a year before anything happens with that. And you can't run a college without mailing list software.
Hmm that "real world" idea is part of the problem right there. In the real world, there's both MS stuff AND *nix stuff. A school that focuses purely on MS is just as detrimental as a school that focuses purely on *nix.
The fellow would be better off spending the $2.4 million on developing methods of teaching students how MS and *nix are related to each other, how BOTH are used in the real world, and familiarizing students with both.
The idea of a contract to remove MS products may help promote OSS, and help fight off monopolies, but it would be very, very bad for the students' futures.
...I'll procrastinate tomorrow...
Linux simply IS NOT READY FOR THE DESKTOP YET.
This is an entire student body, not just the CS dept we're talking about here.
The kids are going to need their MS Office with its Word, Powerpoint and Excell apps. No crappy Open/StarOffice need apply.
Not to mention all the apps they won't be able to use since they won't have Windows as their OS.
They are also going to have to use Windows in the workplace after graduation so they would acutually be BEHIND the rest of their generation once school is over. No thanks. No way. No how. Keep the GNU stuff where it belongs, on the server.
All in all, lets keep software politics out of college purchasing decisions. Buy the best practical, not idealogical, tool for the job.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Your response to them: "If you want to learn what you'll be using in the real world, go to College. University is to teach concepts, not products!"
-Ben
Well, there are plenty of alternatives to MS products, many of which are actually cheaper. The best thing to do would be finding out (or at least estimate) what they do have in terms of hardware/software and so forth.
My college mostly used Sun equipment in the CS arena, and had labs of Macs and Win machines. The x86 hardware can always run Linux or BSD. For people who just need to type a paper up, there are lots of alternatives to MS Word on the Mac (Appleworks, Thinkfree, etc).
Go to a school that has a good rep for computer science. It is easy to pick up any language once you know the fundamentals.
Since linux and a lot of it's programs are free, the only cost incurred by switching would be paying the technician/sysadmin to keep the system/network running fine.
Also, the learning potiential is definatly greater, because if any student wants to find out how a certain program works in terms of code, said student can almost always look and find out.
I really dont see how it would be costly to stop paying for software and switch to a free operating system.
With the donated money they could easily pay a whole team of lab techs etc to install and admin the *nix OS's.
You could even have different labs with different operating systems to give students a wide view on how things COULD be done.
Just my 2c.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
From my expirience, someone who plain and simple knows how to code can learn an IDE in days. The other way around can be quite tough for those used to the "hand holding"
TODO: Something witty here...
Bad idea.
Love it or hate it Microsoft is part of the real world just like Open Source, Apple, Sun, Oracle & IBM. I would much prefer undergrads get a balanced approach to IT. That way they can decide for themselves, and be able to see through the marketing when the actually have to work for someone else.
I don't think that it will fly, since business/commerce will never give up Office, and Visual Arts will never give up Macs.
At my university (Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany) most of the computers in the CS department are Linux or Sparc stations. Thats what the students do most of the work on and thats also what most of the stuff uses. In anyway we have Windows machines for several good reasons I think.
:-)
:-) than you won't have many problems using Visual Studio. You won't master all its features, but you'll come to it when you need them.
First, there is a public Windows NT computer pool for the students which is used for several things courses which depend on Windows Software. Chip design comes to my mind. We use the Altera Max circuit design software and the corresponding PGA chips to develop 4 bit processors in the 2nd year. It is free for students to use at home.
Second, try to find a good secretary who knows how to write a text with anything else but Word. I guess you will have troubles doing so. Professors (and students likewise) depend on the secretaries
Third, of course students should have access to as many different platforms as possible. We also have a public Mac pool with a couple of PowerMacs.
Last but not least, many other departments than the CS people will have to learn how to do stuff on Windows because in fact that is what they'll have to use later anyway. For CS people it's not a big deal if you have never seen Visual Studio in your courses. If you know what a compiler is and how to debug (and what a stack is
Economics or business students just learn how to use Excel and Powerpoint. You can laugh about it, I do so too at times, but in fact, that's what suits them best. They will simply not have a choice when they start at any company.
"How will the university provide a professionally-relevant education when you will teach students without using the de-facto stanadard tools of the trade in use by a great majority of employers?"
and (along the same lines):
"What will your answer be to a prospective employer of our students when he asks you why our accounting students have not mastered basic accounting tools such as Microsoft Excel?"
And while you're at it:
- Sell more of your school's decisions to the highest bidder. Next thing you know, the NFL will be paying you to drop your basketball program.
- Instead of finding a balance between Microsoft and *nix-like systems to teach students, FORCE THEM to NOT use Microsoft. Yeah, way to go. Narrow their possibilities of getting a job instead of doubling them. Does the "deal" include banning any commercial software of any type as well? If yes, all the more stupid. If not, then you're not pro-open source, you're just plain stupid anti-Microsoft. Hey, get your granpa a Slashdot account. He'd be a great fanboy.
- Be prepared for students either not joining or simply dropping out and moving to other schools. Here's a free clue: not everyone in the world is rabidly anti-Microsoft.
BTW, I call bullshit on this one.Mod away. I'll go back to the journals now.
I'm told that the board will look at the decision in terms of cost, not for benefit to the students.
To have no Windows anywhere is going to cost the college a lot of prospective students who are told, "We have weird computers in our labs with Linux and they won't allow us to have normal computers with Windows because the college gets more money that way." And the prospective students are going to run away, confused.
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It's one thing to offer the money saying that his money can't be used to buy MS products. It's another to use the money to blackmail the school into NEVER buying ANY MS product with ANYONE's money. Tell your grandpa that the guy is a jerk.
Your grandfather should tell the board that students that don't know how to use Microsoft products are useless in the workplace, and that therefore it is the college's duty to make sure their students are familiar with Microsoft products. Completely ridding the place of all things Microsoft is not the way to do that.
At the risk of sounding like a Linux zealot, I must ask - what is the goal here, education or training?
I guess I always imagined, (and my Lit professors consistently agreed) that education was an experience that was supposed to transcend job skills and give you something you couldn't get from a technical guide, training bootcamp, etc.
If you are any sort of computer professional, you are training all the time. If you can't handle changing gears in terms of the development platform you use, you are already behind the game before you've even gotten started. If, on the other hand, you've gotten some real Computer Science with emphasis on theory, you are going to have a framework of knowledge which I personally understand to be education.
If one were to recognize the need to get into the nuts and bolts of a system, free from constraints of filtering the information to remove marketing intent, and free from anticompetitive obfuscation and outright deceit, which would be the best option to look at if one wanted an education?
In the end, this guy's grandfather would be restricting CHOICE! Which is something that this group should be firmly against. He would also be hurting student's education by not including these products, which are widely used in the real world. He should walk away, or get the guy to agree that just THAT money won't be used for Microsoft products, which would be a reasonable request. If the grandfather takes this deal, he is doing the exact thing that Microsoft competitors complain about, i.e. pay OEMs to only use their products.
It seems like everyone one here thinks the only users of computers on campus are the students. You have to keep in mind that it's the faculty and administration that are probably going to have even more trouble than the students would.
;)
Think about it, the administrative secretaries that have used MS Word for the last X years and have learned exactly what the button looks like that does so and so would be totally lost if you just up and moved them to something so radically different.
Granted, if everyone understood what the computer was doing and what, for example, the magical thing called a "Mail Merge" actually tries to accomplish instead of knowing, I need envelopes printed so I click this "Mail Merge" thing, then everything would be a little easier...
I don't know if any of that makes a lot of sense to the people that haven't actually worked in an IT department, but as a current student and IT worker at a major university, you need to think about the whole picture.
Another thing to mention (which may have already been mentioned before I get done typing this) is that software is just a tool. It doesn't matter if you're running Linux, OSX, Windows, DOS, custom ASM kernel, etc.... all that matters is does the software you use accomplish the job and is it the best tool to use to accomplish the job.
I would really like to see just how much the CS world could accomplish if religious wars over dinky stuff like this never existed...oh well, until then, the wars are fun to read!
-Adam
I was expecting a bunch of posts written by zealots who thought this was just a wonderful idea. Instead the high rated ones make good arguments why being a MS free school would be a Bad Thing.
I guess what frightens me most about this gift is that it's an attempt to control the curriculum of the school by an outside force. I think this is the major point you grandfather should bring up. Teachers should be allowed to use the software they think is best for the job, and not controlled by some outside political interest with a lot of money. Would the school even be considering this if an doner would give money to the school if they didn't teach any courses about Islam? The analogy is a bit heavy handed, but I hope it serves a point.
What the board needs to understand is that at least in computer science, the software used is part of the curriculum. Letting someone with loads of cash set curriculum is just a bad precedent.
AccountKiller
It's not an IDE to relearn, it's an api. A good example is BSD sockets vs. Winsock. Yeah they do the same thing, and once you learn one, the other is trivial, but it eats up a lot of development time having to always learn the particulars of an api. I have the same problem, I'm a CompE that bit my teeth on old releases of redhat, which is roughly sysV UNIX, I picked up the VxWorks api no problem, cause it is pretty much the same. Windows programming for me is very hard because I spend 80% of my time buried in MSDN instead of coding.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
That being said, if I were presenting this to the board, I would recommend against accepting it. It is too restrictive, and isn't a good idea. It isn't a business, it is a learning institution. The students are the ones that would have to go into the marketplace, and they shouldn't have this restriction placed on them. However, I would propose an alternate plan, and see if the donor would accept it. Maybe a "[insert name of donor] Linux Lab" could be set up with all Linux based machines. (assuming here that non-MS means Linux, I guess it could mean other things too). Or the "Free Software Lab". Or let the donor name it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
There is a reason why trade schools teach MS products: They let you get a product to Market FAST. Wizards, N generation languages, OCX component integration, etc. lend themselves to a high paced development environment. For the purposes of teaching, research and mathematical foundations such >4GL languages are actually detrimental to learning the art of programming IMHO. *nix based development environments are typicallly much more opened ended than something like Visual Studio. Through the wonders of scripting a program like XEMACS can let you develop efficiently in hundreds of languages. If you are working with VB, you can use...VB...maybe some c# and some scripting tie-ins.
Programming and technical students will learn how to use microsoft products on their own. It is more important to teach them the fundamentals using a wide scope. Not to say that MS products dont have a niche and a function even for hardcore programmers, but more often than not they seem to adapt an "the ends justify the means" attitude. Dizzying libraries rarely supply you with optimal code, but greatly speed the development process. Its a trade off I guess.
If you're skilled at OpenOffice it wouldn't take much energy for an educated person (that has gone to college/uni) to swap over to Microsoft Office.
It's not that big a difference, they both do the same things down the line. The Macrolanguage is different, but a little practice should let a person that master one proficient master the other in notime...
The protection against BSA audits is a HUGE benefit. Schools are regularly targeted (often for good reason) for audits.
The cost in person-hours for school staff is very high, as is the tension created by the whole event. I daresay it's more stress than an IRS audit.
Of course, since most schools (and companies for that matter) haven't begun with a good license management system, they have no idea where their licenses are for most of their installed software.
In the future of course, we're all learning to be vigilant with our license tracking, but big companies and institutions have a much harder climb to get there. Meanwhile they get slammed periodically at a big cost.
Of course, if all of your software is open source, and you pay even modest attention to the licenses of the apps, you can rest very easy.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
5. A professor or CS class could admin the servers.
As someone paid to admin linux machines at a university, I can't recommend -AGAINST- this enough.
Professors and students are users of the University computing facilities. Period. The labs are provided by the university, as are the copmuters themselves. If they want to play at being an admin, do it at home or in their dorm room. That, or get a job with information/computer services.
With that said, I fully agree that there should be -some- course time spent on teaching folks the basics of linux/unix administration, especially if that's what the prevalent platform on campus is.
However, I don't care -how- good the professors or students think they are (or how good they may actually be, unless they are actually working for the university/college as an admin, they shouldn't be permitted administrative privs on the machines.
(The -only- reason the prof I report to has the root password is in case I call in dead, and even in that case, it's in a sealed envelope, and he doesn't know what it is without cracking it).
If a religious group showed up and said that they would donate 10 million if every student would be forced to write "by the grace of god(/allah/vishnu/whatever)I write this paper on (whatever)" How would you feel then? If they want to donate the money and earmark it for something specific, FINE, but this ammounts to bribery and is NOT for the betterment of the school, which HAS to be the first priority.
FLAME AWAY, you know I'm right.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
If I were a board member I wouldn't want any part of such an arrangement. And if I were an IT Admin or an instructor in such an institution I'd be outraged that such a thing would even be considered.
Decisions about what software are used in teaching and administrative tasks should be left to the people who actually use the software. Making sweeping decisions based on the whims of a wealthy patron is not in the best interests of any institution.
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.
What benefit to students is that, exactly?There's nothing to prevent the college from using open source or non-MS products wherever they want to, if they think it would benefit the students or the instutition as a whole.
It seems strange to me to completly remove all MS software from campus, because it is prevelent in the rest of the world, and students will most likely need to understand how to use it once they leave school.
On the same token, it seems like an excelent idea to bring in other platforms, truly teaching students about the varity of computing.
So, a grant that is supposed to be used for non-MS products seems like a great way to help students find out about alternative computing platforms, but to create an MS free zone I think would do the students an injustice.
And how is this different than when I was in college and presented with rows and rows of PS/2s? Looking for a Macintosh? Not a single one to be found. Sorry, but in many cases the student never HAD a choice. All they are doing in this case is changing the lack of choice from one mandate to another.
However, I agree with some of your other points. Microsoft is definitely not despised by everybody.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Presumably because they already have an investment in hardware that they don't want to blow.
Pros:
1) The university gets millions of dollars from an unnamed donor. A lot of the rougher parts of the transition could be smoothed over by this money. The other points will focus on the transition itself.
2) The university saves a bundle on licensing fees. This may be especially important since Microsoft is trying to move towards a subscription model.
3) While open source solutions aren't drop-in replacements for Microsoft products, the end user apps are similar enough to minimize the need for retraining. If someone knows their way around a Windows desktop, Gnome and KDE are pretty easy to grasp. The same goes for Office vs. OpenOffice and IE vs. Mozilla. With power users, its sometimes trickier, since they may have come to rely on certain obscure features.
4) With OSS, you don't need to rely on Microsoft for technical support. The fact is, Microsoft is the only company capable of adding features and fixing bugs in Microsoft products. So if you have a problem with those products, and MS isn't interested in fixing them, you're out of luck. Open source is more flexible in this regard.
5) A better CS program. If we assume that dropping MS will substantially increase the use of open source software, then it's very likely that CS students will have reasons to explore the code of the products they use every day. So they're being exposed to non-trivial implementations of structures, algorithms, software design decisions, and everything else that comes along with it.
I realize that Microsoft's "Shared Source Initiative" also allows some level of access to the code. But the barriers are much higher (NDAs), and the rewards are much lower (can't recompile, bugfix, or experiment).
Cons:
1) Ten years is a long time. You don't know what new products and services Microsoft will be coming out with over that time, or how useful they might be to the campus. Think about how the computing world has changed since 1993, and ask if the school really should be making such long term decisions about their IT infrastructure.
2) You lose the option to buy Microsoft products. By itself, this fact is too obvious to mention. But what are the ramifications?
3) You lose compatability with important Windows-only software (like certain CAD products). The university may be able to hobble along with the licenses they already own, but that's going to be more and more difficult.
4) People don't like change. Such a transition could make for an ugly political brawl.
[note: Five pros, four cons! Obviously, this means they should take it.]
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Windows and Linux are just different. One is better than the other in different areas. For example, Windows has a great user interface and offers outstanding tools such as Excel, Word, Internet Explorer, etc. On the other hand, Linux has the ability to handle Internet related matter in a flexible way. Linux also allows developers to manipulate the way the operating system functions by simply editing text files. Only offering one operating system to students decreases their ability to learn two great systems. It's no different then capitalism. The success of capitalism is greatly due to the available options the consumer has to choose from. If we want American schools to produce dynamic, experienced graduates who can bring the best solutions to the work place, all mediums of education should be available.
Why do you think your college was obligated to give you a choice of computer vendor? Did you get to pick the kind of chairs they put in the classrooms?
If using somehing besides PS/2's was so important, you should have checked it out before you committed to attending.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
He's referring to "in the English language in general", or, if he's not, he should be. Where i come from (Iowa), "college" refers to any type of education after high school, be it a technical school, a community college, or a state university. Whenever we refer to our post-high school education, we say college. "What college are you going to?" "I don't want to go to a big college." "Do you plan on attending college?" &c.. I suppose it depends on what you're referring to. If you're referring to the notion of post-high school education itself, then you say "college", but if you're referring to an actual place, an institution, you say "school" or "university", or whatever fits. My 2 cents, heh.
If the university system is based on OSS then the students will be free to use whatever they like to connect to it. IE has no problems connecting to Apache, OE has no problems connecting to a *nix mail server.
If the college systems are based on MS software on the other hand... connecting to an Exchange or Notes server pretty much requires Windows if the university want to use all of the 'advanced' functions that are available to anyone in something like Horde.
As far as programming goes, again, work done in Ansi C or Java (or even C++) will be easily portable to Windows to run at home. Stuff done in Visual Basic or even C# is _not_ easily portable.
Students can log into the university boxes with PuTTy/Exeed if they like, can you log into a Windows terminal server box (easily/free/at all) from Linux? Yeah, right.
Universites should pick the most stards compliant, open systems they can (so, Linux, BSD, something else) when setting p their network so they can retain access for all, no matter what their client wants to learn. The £2.4 million will just help them get there faster in this case.
Beep beep.
You've already got the "somebody saying something pro-Microsoft that seems reasonable" karma, so I hope you don't mind me disagreeing with you.
In a country full of schools and colleges using MS Word, you have the gall to claim that anyone not doing so is restricting choice?! Anyone bothered by their decision can GO ELSEWHERE, or use MS products themselves. Nobody is mandating non-Microsoft products; they're just trying to get the college not to pay for them. Microsoft is free to donate them, and students are free to use their own.
The donor isn't seeking to force anyone to buy his products. He's seeking to force them *not* to buy certain products. Sort of like people protesting fur.
Your average computer user has a hard enough time telling the difference between Word, IE, and Windows, let alone between Staroffice and Word. Your argument that learning anything other than Word and Excel is harming someone is pure bullshit. There are more differences between WordXP and earlier versions than there are between WordXP and OO, so the idea that you're training someone wrong doesn't hold water. Most people don't do more than type and underline, which is pretty much the same you'll have to admit, between any two word processors.
You're wrong on your last point too - Microsoft doesn't pay OEMs to use their product. They license the product in such a way that if the OEM wants to sell *any* MS software, it has to sell *only* MS software.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
The fellow would be better off spending the $2.4 million on developing methods of teaching students how MS and *nix are related to each other, how BOTH are used in the real world, and familiarizing students with both.
So true. When I was in college our small CS dept ran all its servers on linux and had a even split of NT and linux workstations. In addition we also had some old alpha boxes, macs, sgis, etc... that and CS students could log into and use. This allowed the students to experience a multitude of OSs and hardware, which IMO is one of the important reasons to go to college. To learn and think about things you wouldn't normally learn and think about in the real world.
Now, if I were to argue against using MS in a school I would avoid arguing the cost issue. MS generally gives all of its software(except games) for free(or close to it) to schools and students. Also keep in mind that supporting some lit edu major who can't seem to transfer their powerpoint presentation between their laptop and computers in the lab is also not cheap.
Open source is about the freedom to choose what software you want to run.
Entering into an agreement to specifically exclude MS software is inherently anti-choice.
You can't be pro-open source and anti-choice at the same time.
Until we in the open source commnuity make the total cost of ownership of open source comparable to commerical products we have no real chance.
Secondly, the traditional Unix hack-er type installation, setup, configuration, and operation of many open source software packages is a serious roadblock to adoption.
Third, usability of many open source software packages precludes them from being used by your average corporate user, average college student, your mom, your dad...
Try explaining to someone non-geeky how to go from a new machine to one running only linux including basic multimedia, dialup/broadband net access, and email setup.
Ever wonder why some universities have money to build new sports stadiums and swimming pools, but no money to fix a broken dining hall? Or why a liberal-arts school might have a brand-new Science building while the library is about to crumble?
One reason is that too many donors are only willing to give money with strings attached. You want to build a Science building, so you ask the Keck or Broad foundation to give you money. No problem. You need to raise an extra 100K here, another 100K there for general maintenance and repair, and nobody wants to give.
If you're in the position to donate a significant amount of money to a university, please consider giving it with no strings attached. I understand that sometimes it's nice to have your name on a building, but don't forget about all of the programs that get neglected because all of the school's money is already earmarked for other projects.
I have few years of commercial Windows coding experience and probably half as much of *nix one and I've gotta tell you that different APIs is not the biggest obstacle (and IDEs certainly are even the lesser one). It's more of the general practices issue. On Windows due to its closedness and incomplete documentation, the developer is haunted by a constant feeling of uncertainty. From simple things like an API call suddenly falling on patched version of WinNT to a methods declared as BOOL something() returing anything but 0 and 1.
:)
Dont get me wrong - it's perfectly fine to have bugs in any code, including the OS, but the inability to fully investigate the problem forces developer to stay as independent from the system API as possible and be constantly ready for the weirdest induced f*ckups possible. Sure, there are tons of people who write the code tightly coupled with Windows, but with this often means creating a lot of work for support and deployment departments.
My general impression is that a good (as in "geeky professional") windows developer does not have much trouble moving to the *nix, while the move in the opposite direction is quite likely to be painful. Scroll the this very thread and see what I'm talking about - *nixoids complaining about Windows, and not the other way around
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Well, I guess this will probably send you into an apoplectic fit but please understand that that is not my intent.
I would advise this student to recommend to his/her grandfather to actually go one step further and deploy free software for the university but I won't support my reasoning with a "just because" argument.
In an educational environment, students should not only be able to learn from source code, but they should be encouraged to play with it, modify it, and be able to give the product of their endeavors away. That way, their modifications can played with, modified, and shared by others to the benefit of everyone. Everyone has the opportunity to scrutinize, modify, and (most importantly) share with everyone else. I find it hard to imagine an environment more conducive to the sharing of information...aka education.
While I believe that promoting free software primarily on the campus is a worthy goal, I do not think that prohibiting the teaching or usage of alternatives should be prohibited (even if the maker of the software is Microsoft). As others have noted, there is some great software that is not free or even open-source. Much can be learned from this software so it should not be banned completely. But beware the effects of embrace-and-extend business practices.
The primary goal of any learning institution should be to teach its students. The instructors can not do that if their hands are tied by political or philosophical agendas. I recommend encouraging free software for its open nature and the ability to share (especially for the CS majors), but don't lock anything out unilaterally...especially for the faculty. As anathema as it might be to say here on
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
You guys are overlooking the biggest point here.... If the university takes the money, they are stating that they are for sale. Curriculum should be based on the market/industry/etc -- whatever that is -- Who's to say that someone won't come in and say "I will give you 10 million" if you only teach american history but skip the civil war. This isn't about resources, chairs or desks, this is about preparing students for a job and one (rich) man shouldn't be able to decide what students should or shouldn't learn.
The dinosaur book already has a chapter on the design of NT, along with Lenix and BSD. So why not?
I think it really depends on the type of school
if it is a IT/tech type of school go for it as these students would probably love to have Linux on the desktop
if it is a business/marketing/teaching.... (Basically anything other than IT/tech/science) then I would stay with MS because these people just don't care about the OS, they just want to get the job done on a system that they are familiar with. Given that MS in on 90%+ of the desktops out there then the OS they are familiar with is most probably MS.
also consider the hidden costs like
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
No, he's claiming that forcing a place not to use MS is restricting choice. Can't see a problem with that argument myself.
You haven't applied for a typical office job recently, have you? If you haven't got MS apps experience, the automated CV scanners are going to rule you out in a heartbeat, because like it or not, that is what almost everyone uses. So yes, it does matter what you've used.
And you're wrong anyway; there are several common, everyday tasks where OpenOffice works very differently to Word/Excel. Word and Excel have both had very similar interfaces from Office 95 onwards, give or take the odd tweaks.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Because you can't *do* anything with NT other than look at it and say, "boy, that sure is an operating system."
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
who thinks this might be a less than subtle attempt to get Microsoft's team of crack PR monkeys to come swooping in scattering a few million dollars worth of licenses about the place? or am I just getting cynical...
One thing I've espoused for quite some time is to standardise on a technology, not an implementation. For example, rather than using MS Exchange, standardise on SMTP and IMAP. Rather than standardising on Mozilla, make sure all of your web apps produce valid HTML. This allows you to easily swap out one server package for another if you need to and allows people to choose their own clients (though you could always enforce specific clients for support reasons).
Now, certainly this is not always possible in all cases. There isn't, afaik, a standard for spreadsheet documents for example.
It seems to me that if more companies took this approach, they'd be better off. Email server overloaded? Add an additional server or swap it out for other software that scales better. The end-users don't even need to know.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Ok, maybe my mind is on hydrogen cars because of the recent article, maybe it's because I always compare computers to cars, but basically, this will look the same to many people as stating that you cannot drive a gasoline-powered car if you attend this University.
What does restricting your car choice have to do with education? Absolutley nothing! What does restricting your vendor choice have to do with education? Absolutley nothing! While I dislike Microsoft as much as any of you (I am currently unemployed, despite knowing I could get hired by MS if I wanted that), how stupid does this make the University look? You can only decide that something sucks if you actually get to see what it is. Remember how much we laugh at those religious organizations that boycott movies without actually seeing them? Censorship is bad, mkay?
What I would propose to the donor is that the University use their money to use for the purchase of Microsoft-free technology: Linux, Mac, Solaris, whatever. These purchases would not affect the normal purchasing of such systems, so that if they were going to spend $1 Million on linux boxes, this year they'll now be spending $3.4 million. And since Linux is largely free / low-cost, those millions can go quite a way.
Often what is needed in a situation like this is a beach head... if the board sees that they can get 10 Linux boxes for the price of one MS-equiped box, and that people aren't seeing any other major differences, which do you think they'll buy in the future?
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
As has been proven by every impartial study done (those funded by MS don't count), the TCO of a GNU/Linux system is just cheaper than that of a Windows system. I won't go into all of the reasons, but will list a few:
1. Upgrades are free ($).
2. Initial acquirement is free ($).
3. Support can be purchased on a competitive basis among competing companies, thus producing superior support. How many times have you called up inept technical support guys who obviously don't know what the fuck they're talking about, can't speak English, know less about the system than you do, and are obviously reading from a TO-DO cookbook, which ends in "if all else fails, tell them to wipe the hard-drive and reinstall everything"? The simple fact is, there's a reasonable solution for the vast majority of problems you run into, which doesn't involve reinstalling everything from scratch.
Call up a windows support guy and complain that your computer won't start up due to a corrupted IO.sys file. What will he tell you? He'll take you through the usual motions, and then -- invariably -- tell you there's nothing else you can do, back up your data, and reinstall the OS (conveniently ignoring the fact that it's difficult if not impossible to back up one's data when one can only boot into DOS and has no access to the CD-writer). He will tell you this despite the fact that there is a much simpler solution, which is simply to replace the corrupt IO.sys file with a valid working one. Why can't he tell you that, or send you the file that would allow you to do that? Because the technical support contract doesn't support that. Don't like your technical support contract options? Too fucking bad, there's no alternative.
Not so with GNU/Linux. First of all, such problems are rarely encountered, even in the rare case where a power failure occurs, due to journaling file-systems. Secondly, technical support can be purchased at a competitive price -- which means, ultimately, cheaper for you if you section out the tech-support aspect of your bill from a proprietary vendor. It also means better service.
GNU/Linux also provides the benefit of being able to run on much older hardware than does Windows, allowing the university to upgrade their hardware less frequently. Microsoft apparently thinks that it needs to provide hardware developers with motivation to produce better hardware by continually increasing requirements that it's software need to run acceptably. Though this is true with regards to some modern bloat-ware in GNU/Linux, there are always non-bloatware alternatives which are usually just as functional, if not more so. KDE and GNOME can be replaced with the lighter Xfce. The bloated WM's that come with them can be replaced by the streamlined and elegant WindowMaker.
Let's not forget some of the obvious benefits. Universities are big organizations, which can afford to fix their own problems if given the means. Because GNU/Linux uses FS and OSS software, universities can fix their own problems. Indeed, they need not even pay for the solution -- they can simply throw a problem at CS students to solve, making it a mandatory part of the course.
Let's not pretend that the university would be denying students choice by not buying MS products. These students could use whatever they want on their own computers. Exposing them to Linux at the libraries and other public areas would expose them to an operating system which is more likely than not the direction of the future. MS may be the dominant force, but it has no-where to go but down, and it's insistence on making crappy products, illegally using it's monopoly power, and depriving consumers of their rights will certainly accelerate its downfall. On the contrary, GNU/Linux is gaining more and more support. It is growing extremely quickly, and is a fertile ground for new ideas and innovation.
Finally, exposing students to Linux exposes them to the way computer's really work. Linux -- though it now has easy-to-use inte
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Given that this is not considered "a lot of money" why not instead see if you can come to a compromise. Perhaps a figure less than 2.4 million, to promise not to buy/renew any Microsoft new contracts for 7 years with a 100% refund clause on any significant violation.
7 years is an eternity for the computer industry -- if Linux cannot be able to hold its own accross the board in 7 years, then there's little point. It gives the school two possible outs -- forfeiture or just wait out the 7 year time limit before returning to MS.
Speaking as a Pro-Linux Manager in a university environment, money talks....the trick here is to show savings that exceed the switching costs.
The hardest past is to put a price tag on "soft dollars". Some things need to be done to make it happen right.
Costs
1. CIS instructor retraining
Develop training and perform for 2,3,4 below
2. Faculty Retraining
Necessary to aid in 3,4 below
Will require new lesson plans or updates, screenshots, etc.
3. Staff Retraining
Trails 1 and 2 because it will take time to switch administrative systems.
4. Student Retraining
Happens by 2 above as part of normal classes
5. Alternative Package purchases
Recommendations:
1. There's some training out there already, including StarOffice training provided by Sun
2. Get IBM, Sun, and Oracle onboard to help plan, supply, and rollout. They will probably jump at the chance to move an entire university, as a model for other universities and businesses.
3. Sun has training (see #1 above) and trainers for staroffice that could do large on-site training.
4. IBM has trainers who can do large onsite training at a very nominal cost for large groups, get them to donate some and pay for the rest.
5. Oracle has training, administrative ERP packages aimed at university management, etc. as well as Linux training and Support.
6.Ask Alumn for time frame for switching....you're looking at a 2-3 year project for the administrative systems, unless you get IBM/Sun/Oracle to supply a small army of consultants, trainers, etc.
7. Try to put a number on "soft dollars" i.e. "Look how much time and personnel costs we can save by moving to reliable, managable servers and desktops..."
8. Discuss the future of IT and business, desktop, and home users. MS may be in use today, but that's chainging faster than most MS fans would like to admit. People are hiring Linux users NOW...
Also, contrary to popular MS fan beliefs...Linux users can run MS with a minimum of trouble...
The reverse is not as true.
These funds do not just go for people getting CS degrees. Computer labs, art departments, secretaries, on and on. And i will tell you this, unless someone is in to computers, and youve all seen it, they are completly programmed for MS computing. At a web cafe, i recently added a linux machine, and the first customer to use it came up to the counter and said the computer was broken. Well i got the call, and it turns out he didnt see the IE icon on the desktop and could get no further. THIS is the problem, and id wager even people with a masters in some non computer related field do the same thing.
Why does this happen? Because people become homoginized on MS software, and dont REALLY learn how to use a computer. I made a web kiosk with only mozilla. It took a few tries, as people would fight tooth and nail to not use mozilla. The point of this, is the average user is brainwashed.
So, money aside, i think the point of this "gift" is to force people, no matter how they will use it, to learn the computer beyond the microsoft microcosm. To learn there IS a world w/o MS, you CAN use mozilla, etc. You are only doing students a diservice by having a computing platform where they dont have to think (since they all "know" how to use it already) and wont know wht to do if presented with anythign outside the teeny scope of that.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that old hardware is staying useable longer and longer. A 1ghz PC will IMHO do everytyhing you could do day to day 10 years from now. You could make all of these dual boot, and do a slow changeover from your current licenses.
I say go for it, change the face of university computing, be a pioneer. This is like a free ride to try something new.
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
Because you can't *do* anything with NT other than look at it and say, "boy, that sure is an operating system."
Exactly. You want to study the file system or memory manager of an operating system? With an open source OS, just look at the source code. Certainly can't do that with NT. The point of an operating systems class is to learn the internal workings and design of operating systems (not how to use them), and Windows NT simply doesn't allow for this.
In the operating systems class I took, we studied and made modifications to the source code of Minix. Adding features to the OS gave quite a bit of insight as to how things actually work. You'll never come close to that with Windows or any other closed source OS, no matter how much you read about it.
I posted the previous comment hoping to remind you that "Programming" is creating a program, NOT typing up an implementation on a particular computer language in a particular computing platform.
It doesn't matter if it's in your head, in paper, in a screen or in memory. It doesn't matter if it's expressed as a set of graphs, diagrams, mathematical symbols and numbers, strings of text in C/Java/COBOL/English, binary numbers that represent machine code, mechanical or electric operations....
A program is an algorithm is computation is symbol-manipulation is a program.
I see that I failed.
AI starts with an implicit question: "Is Intelligence Computation?"
For which it gives an implicit answer: "Yes".
All inquiries on the nature of intelligence after that have to do with which kinds of computation are we talking about.
Sure, this will inevitably lead to psychology, philosophy, and an area of knowledge and education that most engineers and scientists don't know as well as they should.
But don't forget that you're asking about Intelligence, to begin with, because you're studying/working on ARTIFICIAL Intelligence, which means you have a goal, "to simulate/replicate/create intelligence", and a fundamental method/metaphor to use, Computation. Philosophers study intelligence from a different POV.
Define "virtually anything else".
When I learned design, I learned all the methods you mention to achieve specifically two things necessary to solve problems: model knowledge (represent data), and model processes (represent algorithms).
That is computation.
Yes, you do the same thing in other fields of engineering. Yes, we can always learn more from their techniques. But what they're doing in that case is also computation, which is programming in the strict sense.
Computation is a very very VERY general concept. That's the reason we can even dare to talk about AI in CS and imply that cognitive process are basically computation (as Turing believed) or at least largely defined by computation.
That's the whole reason we invented a fundamental science (not engineering) to deal with the subject.
Yes, testing can be applied to other subjects. So can writing. And reading. And the ability to count. And they're all useful out of context.
But the reason CS people learn about testing instead of political science (also useful to understand) is because they need the first in order to test programs, not the second.
Yes, the rigours of math. The ability to know, when given a program, exactly what it does.
Except that this only applies to software, math, and formal languages which are... yep, symbol manipulation == computation.
You learn this to compute.
Of course.
Coding is literally writing code, and is to Programming what laying bricks is to civil engineering and architecture.
If you spend more than 10% of your "programming" time typing the code, even
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
The obvious immediate advice to your grandfather would be to question the board if the ever continuing and increasing amount of money they spend on mandatory upgrades to the OS of each computer will eventually out way the one time cost of changing over to another less costly OS. The same point goes for office and collaboration software from the software giant - and emphasise the point that if the software and OS's aren't upgraded (ie., expensive upgrades and service contracts renewed), support will be discontinued!
Financial considerations aside, what about the educational value of teaching students that there are other functionally usable software platforms besides MS and Apple? And, does the board really want to have a commercial, monopolistic company dictate how they are allowed to use their computing resources, what software they are allowed to run to accomplish any given task? Also remind them that not only does MS do this at the OS level, but are diligently pushing forward at the harware level with the same idea - that they can dictate what software is "trusted" and allowed to be run on the system. Does the board really want MS to tell them that they can only use MS software when another brand might do the job better and for less?
Just some food for thought about what "higher education" should provide or be subject to... Tell him to tell the board to chew on those ideas!
Any donation that restricts what tools the school can offer students is a bad idea. If MS offered a bunch of money to a school (and they probably have) with the condition that no macs can be purchased and no linux boxes are allowed, people would be up in arms. This is no different, and should be avoided such that students who want to use MS products are afforded the opportunity.
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