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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?"
I work in a Systems office at a univeristy, and understand full well cost savings over a students education. It is a problem that my office fights with all the time.
Perhaps though, Your grandfather is in a position to change this trend where the dollar comes before the student.
Perhaps, it would even be a good PR tool to boost enrollment in the future, bringing in more money and students.
Just a though.
My university, New Mexico State University, has it's entire Computer Science department running Linux. We don't use any Microsoft programs at all for our CS dept. We use it in just about every other dept (Journalism has Macs, if I recall correctly)
I think it's very nice. It gets us out of programming for just the Microsoft world, but a lot of students are upset because we're learning nothing about VisualStudio and stuff, which is what "we'll be using in the real world"
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
How much "alternate-os"..ok..linux..do you plan on using? Getting rid of MS altogether, in any capacity, is stupid. I don't have specific facts but I'm willing to bet that windows shop outnumber linux shops 10 to 1. So while it's great that they have all this linux experience, I fear the jobs will go to those that have windows knowledge. Not saying it's right, just saying it's how it is. Linux shops in honest, real world productive companies still aren't that common. And I mean true linux, nothing MS on the entire site.
I say prepare them for MS, it's the world uses, like it or not.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
You're thinking in binary. There are more options than Linux and Microsoft. Can you imagine people having problems running on Apple computers? Even OS X is simpler than Windows. Macs for the n00bs, Linux for the engineers.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
From the post: "...I'm told that the board will look at the decision in terms of cost, not for benefit to the students."
So, this is not about what's good for the students? Ok, so this is partisan, anti-Micrsoftism, at it's best then, yes? Looking at base of cost alone might be ok but perhaps they're not aware that MS does provide huge discounts to educational institutions (educational institutions get special pricing from MS.) If a University is so hell-bent to not assist their students, to not do that which is in the best interest of the students, then clearly this is a University I'm glad I did not choose to attend.
It seems to me that a college without Microsoft is just as bad, or worse than one without Linux.
Lets just ignore for a moment that certain software is only available from microsoft - or at least that there are no comparible products from other supplilers.
By having no microsoft you are forcing everyone into the same mindset. Microsoft is the predominant software supplier, but that does not make their products necesarily bad.
University's are there to broaden knowledge, not to stifle it. This seems to me like a great way to stifle knowledge, and restrict achademic freedom.
I have been in the Linux community since the MINIX days, so I am not a Microsoft lover. I just feel that diversity is needed, rather than uniformity
Forget the whole CS department, think about the other students who use the computer labs. So far, every place I have worked has used Microsoft software as the standard. Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, and so on are what 90% of the business world uses I imagine, on Macs or on PC's. Putting out 7,000 students who can't use the most widely used work software and are used to something like OpenOffice that, while great, isn't what they'll be using in their jobs, seems like a horrible idea.
That said, the Microsoft products are just better to use for most people as well. They have features that everyone else is trying to catch up with, and keep innovating more than anyone else. Not teaching Visual Studio to programmers is one thing, but not using Microsoft products is a totally different one.
doing fine. The school I went to only taught on unix/solaris/linux. We never once used Visual C++, Visual Basic, etc... I have a job and am doing fine. It doesn't matter what system you learn on, other than GUI programming, or even what language for the most part. I can pick up a new language very quickly, because it's just syntax, the actual design and architecture of your program is what matters.
I went through an entire CS program without ever directly using a windows-based technology.
Sure, we used NT workstations, but that's mighty quick to learn and most people know that anyway. Furthermore, with cygwin, it's as easy as extending your knowledge about X.
However, we used Java, and C, and other languages that were either free (beer) or free (libre).
The problem is a little more disconcerting for MIS students. However, how many programs do you know that teach troubleshooting skills, anyway? Usually, it's more business-oriented.
What I would suggest is asking the alum to further describe his vision, and how hee feels it can be accomplished without sacrificing the general quality of education.
___
That said, The cost depends on your current licensing structure. Assuming you don't have any renewable licenses, that all can be slowly transitioned.
The methodology you need is
1. The cost of new servers to avoid licensing issues.
2. the cost of training. (Faculty, student)
Macs or *ix/X servers?
3. If you plan on an *ix/X based technology, the cost of customizing a distribution and making an X desktop that minimizes transition anxieties will pay for itself.
The real answer is to engage the alum and have him help with the vision.
Other than strong arming them into an alternative they might not want? Because the major ramification here, especially for a small college, is that they won't be able to support students' machines that are running Microsoft operating systems.
There's little difficulty in getting them to interoperate. But that the support resources -- help desks, IT staff, trainers -- would have to switch to linux/OSS. And that means that the necessary knowledge base isn't there to help people out. If a student is using MS Word on his laptop, and doesn't know how to do something, you'd have to tell him "we don't support Windows because it's too costly." A very patriotic phrase. But it doesn't help the student. Which means it doesn't help the school.
I'm not saying "don't use linux in schools." I'm saying don't put all your eggs in ANY basket. The college I went to had about 600 Windows machines, 200 Macintoshes, 100 Sun stations and about an equal number of RedHat machines. A lot of savvy students used the Sun and RedHat machines, and I don't mean just engineers. My wife, who wouldn't know open source from cold sores, used to use the $9000 Ultras to check her email, because they had these huge trinitron monitors and didn't have lines around them like the Windows machines.
The hodge podge of machines meant that we each had our own preferences and our own specialties. I think that's the best situation for a school; a technical equivalent to a "liberal arts" education.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
1. Users can be given accounts on all the systems, so that they can change their settings without disturbing others. Security can work without being suffocating.
2. Those people that would have trouble with Linux probably don't know Windows. Despite layman opinion Linux can work in such a way that clicking on pictures causes stuff to happen.
3. $2.4 million - $1/Debian floppies = $2,399,999 cash.
4. The 8 grand a year will go toward buying winshit licenses for the school board.
5. A professor or CS class could admin the servers.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The extra cost savings over the 10-year period (not renewing/upgrading Windows, Office, no Windows viruses, etc) should also be factored in.
Not only will they have a lower TCO, but they're getting paid $$$ on top if it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Linux free, M$ expensiveblah blah blah. But it's not true.
First, what critical systems run under Windows? I work at a small liberal arts college. Our student registration and billing systems are Windows. There are no Unix versions of the software we use. Comparable Unix products cost, quite literally, millions of dollars. (Price Banner recently? Our IT director did: it's buy Banner or renovate the library.)
Oh, did I mention that we'd lose all the extensive customizations, support documentation and the like we've made to those products? Let's redo a few man-years of effort.
Then there's all the costs to switch the Windows software over to Unix. What various professors use *isn't* free. Rebuying SPSS alone would run a small fortune. Forget all the econometrics programs the Econ folks have, the CAD programs, the quantum chemistry codes...
Of course, some software simply isn't available, period. I'd lose Chime, a great plug-in that I can do all sorts of neat chemistry tricks with. There is no comparable Unix program.
Next, you've probably got close to 1000 computer using staff and faculty on that campus. How much will it cost to retrain all of them? Oh, and finding secretaries and office workers that know StarOffice is damn hard. We can hire MS Office-knowing temps cheap.
At least double the size of the Help Desk, to handle the increased volume of calls. You're going to need a full-time person just to handle the inevitable complaints about losing formatting on all of those Word documents the profs get mailed.
Now, how many of your current IT staff can handle the changes to Linux? We've got some good network admins, server gurus and programmers here, but they're Windows folks. Do you fire those staff or switch them to Unix, where their 10+ years of experience is suddenly null?
It's not enough money. Not even close.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I would be more apt to sympathize with the strings attached to this donation if it weren't so clearly going to dictate the educational doctrine of my school.
Am I missing the obvious?
Cheers,
-- RLJ
My mother was an educator, and this was one of her favorite sayings - - that the greatest gift you can give a student is an interest in continued learning. Learning how to learn is of the utmost importance. So, in the situation described here, one might put forward the idea that the potential for exploration through contact with Open Source software is inherently greater than that from working with restrictive, proprietary products. With Microsoft software, you have a tool. With Open Source software, you own a foundry.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Let me just present my own situation. I go to a college of 12,000+ and we have many computer clusters. Most are split between PC's and Mac's. The Mac's are used, but few use them willingly. It's mostly because the Pc's are always busy, so someone jumps on a MAc until a Pc opens up. We are presented with a choice between MAC and PCS, and I routintely see half a cluster comprised of unused MACs, simply to be fair and have a 50/50 ratio.
Inversely, our CS department is solely comprised of Linux and Linux programming. Everything is done in the console, and all programs are compiled with gcc. The result is that my roommate who's a CS senior with a high GPA is completely inept in Windows. I'm a business major, when he asks me for help routinely. While some will say that maybe he's dumb, the truth is that he doesn't play with computers in his free time, most of his work is done for school. Therefore, he has minimal Windows knowledge for his own computer in the apartment, and when presented with a problem is completely lost. I once asked him to create a "Hello World" program for Windows, and after 30 minutes he gave up, despite having Visual Studio at his disposal. His entire class and department has the same issues, because he's been taught in a Slashdot-type of community. His teachers routinely make fun of MS and all their tools, and refuse to use them. They have a vague premonition that their punishing MS and making a statement, but the only ones being hurt are the students. I left the CS department for these reasons, as did many others, being an overly passionate Linux junky is unfair to students dependant on the leadership of thier teachers. There's something to be said about intuitive OS and software.
and your grandfather for having the tenacity to take this to the board of trustees. Microsoft is guilty of violating federal statutes relating to conduct of free trade in capitalist markets. Given these circumstances, it is my view that no public funds derived from government grants or other taxpayer sources, or from private donors should be used to support the extension of Microsoft's criminal activity, especially in academic institutions. As long as alternatives exist it is important to use them to curb continued abuse and proprietary extension by Microsoft. Academics have traditionally paved the way in such anti-monopolist movements and should continue to do so.