Microsoft, Massachusetts, and IT

Andy Updegrove writes "A big story in Massachusetts last week was the announcement by Microsoft that it would give $30 million in software to Bay State high schools and universities. Less noticed was the fact that an important economic stimulus bill adopted by the legislature lacked the amendment that sought to gut the power of the State CIO to set any new IT policies that might require compliance with certain standards (like ODF) or favor open source software. Should these two dots be connected, and if so, how? After all, why would Microsoft reward Massachusetts for taking no action to curtail an IT policy that favored ODF and rejected Microsoft's own XML format, especially after Microsoft has by all accounts lobbied so aggressively to bring about a change? As it happens, the fact is that the game isn't over yet: I've learned that the IT policy language hasn't been permanently defeated — its just been shifted out of sight to an 'outside section' of the current budget bill."

Comments

Re:speaking of self interest

[Andy Updegrove]

Actually, yes. Unlike almost anyone else on line, I use my own name, so that people can tell when I (unlike, I'm sure, many others) offer their own writing. I've had c. 25 of my pieces taken by Slashdot, some submitted by me and some by others, presumably because the editors think I have something to say that other's would like to read - not just the news, but perspective on that news. Also, I have personally broken many of the most important stories in the ODF saga, such as Peter Quinn's resignation, the approval by ISO/IEC, and now the shifting of the public amendment to a budget bill, out of sight. - Andy (not "anonymous coward", not a pseudonym, and not with the "post anonymously block" checked)

Re:The kids are the winners here.

[xtracto]

Correct.

I remember in my undergrad years, I had a module called "Computing Fundaments 3" or somthing similar (but in spanish) where the teacher was supposed to teach how to use Excel. He gave us "Computing Fundamets 2" where we programmed in Visual Basic 6 (nothing fancy) and after finishing the module I told him it would be better for the students to learn the "guts" of a spreadsheet instead of learning just how to use the spreadsheet, we had a small discussion about it.

At the beginning of the "C.F.3" module, he told the grups that instead of learning something he was sure everybody knew (excel formulas etc etc) we were going to learn how to *make* a spreadsheet, so there we were programming a spreadsheet in C/C++. It was a really cool experience, it was de 3 semester of the undergrad and none of us had any idea about function parsing mechanisms and the like, the teacher gave us some photocopies of a very easy (albeit not efficient) algorithm. At the end of the course the different teams had different spreadsheets with differnt capabilities, it was really cool.

All this blah blah means that it is up to the teacher what students learn, and after all it is up to the students, I do not know how is in USA but at least from my one time undergrad experience in Mexico, almost all the students just go to the school for the score and the paper, and they do not care what the teacher will give, the other half do not have a clue of what the teacher will teach, so, it is up to YOU (the student[s] that know) to convince the teacher to focus on certain specific areas. It worked for me in a lot of courses during undergrad (granted, not for EVERY course) thus usually the "end of year projects" requeriments where fulfilled with my own home projects.

Re:Large Companies & Education

[duffbeer703]

The other reason to target public schools is that they are essentially a second layer of local government and have the ability to act on certain things without much oversight. Specifically, I doubt that local school districts are accountable in any way to the state CIO.

So if you establish Microsoft XML as the "standard" for politically powerful public schools, you've basically done an end-run around the state CIO. And when it comes time to ditch ODF, the teachers unions and school board associations will push hard to adopt whatever Microsoft is pushing.

Re:The kids are the winners here.

[Daengbo]

Regardless of the reasons why Microsoft donated the software the end result is that the kids are the winners.... is that such a bad thing?
I don't know.... About three years ago I was living in Thailand and actively involved in the hot Linux uptake there. The government had a five year plan to move to Linux and was promoting it everywhere. The Thais in the gov't FLOSS program were even talking about "official government OS" for LinuxTLE (NECTEC's distro). People were talking about the empowerment of the local IT business and over half of the computers on display in Carrefour and Lotus were running locally produced Linux. Thailand even famously broke MS's "one price around the world" policy. It was like a revolution under colonial rule, I kid you not.

After a year of this, MS walked in and offered a "deal" which legitimized all the currently installed MS operating systems within the government and promised lots of software for schools. Since the schools were mostly without computers and the government had the same problem with copyright infringement that the rest of the country had / has. It cost MS nothing but the price of the plane ticket and maybe some money under the table -- I don't know about that.

The FLOSS movement died right there. Nobody talked about it anymore, and I can't even find Linux in the stores anymore. The revolutionaries were quieted and the unrest was quelled. Everyone went back to being the good little MS users they were "supposed" to be.

There's something truly evil about a deal like this. The kids in Thailand certainly didn't profit by losing their empowerment to a foreign company. The IT industry is again dependent on one.

Now that I'm in Korea, I keep hearing the same kind of talk here, but I've never even SEEN an installed Linux system outside my own.

Too much talking on my part.