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How Microsoft Inadvertently Helps To Fund FOSS
christian.einfeldt writes "The State of California sued Microsoft for anti-trust violations, and now the proceeds of the settlement of that case are being used to fund the acquisition of computers for any school district in California. The terms of the settlement allow every school district in California to be reimbursed a set dollar amount for the purchase of computers with the software of their choice. Microsoft probably anticipated that school districts would mainly use the settlement to buy more Microsoft products, with a few Apple purchases sprinkled in here and there. But now that Free Open Source Software is being commercialized by hardware vendors such as Dell, System76, EmperorLinux, Zareason.com, and TechCollective.com, acquiring computers powered by FOSS is straightforward. I'm a volunteer sysadmin at a northern California public charter school and in my Slashdot journal I detail the step-by-step process for using Microsoft's money to pay for the Linux purchases of your school's choice." And then there's the Ubuntu team in Belgium that is raising funds by auctioning off a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate that a Microsoft rep gave them at a trade show. So far the bidding is up to 101.76 Euros, about $144.
...Linux funds Microsoft!
If they knowing sell on something with known defects (that copy of MS Vista) and it screws up someone's machine -- would they not be liable for any loss that they endured ?
Do you think there are people at Microsoft who go home and secretly work Linux by night?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
...now that Free Open Source Software is being commercialized by hardware vendors such as Dell, System76, EmperorLinux, Zareason.com, and TechCollective.com, acquiring computers powered by FOSS is straightforward...Isn't that conflicting with the definition of "FOSS?"
The fines Microsoft were given are being used to buy computers that have Linux installed on them. Rather simple to understand really.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
> using Microsoft's money to pay for the Linux purchases of your school's choice.
This isnt Microsofts money. This is the money Microsoft extorted from you and is now being forced to give back a tiny amount of this. Any cent that is not going to Microsoft (or even worse, to Apple), but to someone distributing Free Software is great, though.
I've seen (at least in Utah when I lived there) schools transitioning from NetWare servers to Linux-based ones, but the classroom pretty much was all Windows, all the time.
Now when will we see OpenOffice being taught in the High School and collegiate business courses, instead of you-know-who?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
But Microsoft owns all of the copyrights for Linux anyway, according to Ballmer, remember?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Why would anyone be trying to promote Linux here at Slashdot? Everyone is either converted or never will be.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
with the Gates Foundation grants. Unless the process has changed since the last time my organization went through it, it's possible to spec out alternate equipment and software instead of accepting the "recommended" equipment. That, and if you have funds remaining after your purchase, you can buy more equipment, so long as it's for public computing. I funded a LTSP-based thin client server that way...
Oh, come on... that's like not talking about God at Church. There's lots more insight for us all to gain, even if we are a bunch of calcified stuck-in-their-ways old farts :-)
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Not to sound like a dick but this sounds pretty anecdotal. I'd be willing to bet 90%+ will still be going right back to Microsoft.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
-- Julie
Microsoft Subnet: the independent voice of Microsoft customers
What? Can someone translate that for me?
Why is Apple "even worse"? Just curious -- Apple has various unappealing qualities but unlike Microsoft they don't have a monopoly which they've been found guilty of abusing to extort money from you. "Even worse" would seem to be a pretty high bar.
In Slashdot form, here's a (bad) car analogy translation: Say your computer is like a car. Just like your car needs gas to do anything useful, your computer needs an operating system to do anything useful. What Microsoft did was pretty much muscling all the gas stations out of town so they could jack up the price, which is illegal. California made them give some of the money back. What this is is basically taking the money Microsoft is giving you as their fine, and using it to buy Linux gasoline.
Jenny's got a new number! 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Are you insane?
Do you know how many copies of Ubuntu that'd buy you?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
... they insisted on being exclusively Windows... I think Linux vendors just need to do a better job of marketing themselves
/. "If only GIMP had feature X...." Well bad news, even when GIMP gets feature X, they'll have a new reason for not switching.
This is the equivalent of the Photoshop/GIMP discussion that's endlessly recycled on
In both cases they are so single-minded they happily accept all of the limitations/expenses they bring upon themselves. Trying to convince them otherwise is a steep, nasty, uphill battle that probably can't be won.
Pick your battles very carefully and figure out what the school needs and is ready to pay for then provide it for free. An excellent start is the domain controller. An even simpler start is a dumb file server.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
yes it seems stupid, but that is exactly what Microsoft was expecting to happen.. after all they got away with "rebates" for overcharging in other cases. That doesn't really hurt their market much does it? I think this is still a MINIMUM impact and most are probably going to more Windows PCs.
When your employer pays you he is basically trading money for the efforts of your labour. So it is more accurate to say you funded the purchase of the car through the efforts of your work.
If schools use the proceeds of a fine to purchase computers, in my opinion it is fair to say the company who paid the fine funded that purchase. The money the schools received was a wind fall; the computers may not have been purchased if the company was not fined.
I don't care why you're posting AC
The government says smoking pot and driving a 'gas guzzling' SUV funds terrorism.
I think we should trust the government on this one. Its definitely funding.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
How the money got into your hands, or why you thought you had a right to decide how to spend that money, is beyond the scope of this thread
Slipping shoelaces ?
The headline and Christian's summary are pretty misleading. They make it sound like the voucher money is being used for a massive adoption of FOSS in California. But all Christian really knows about is his own efforts to implement FOSS at his own charter school. I suspect that most of the money is actually getting spent as Microsoft thought it would: on Microsoft technology. This would be particularly likely at the non-charter schools that still make up the vast majority of the California system. The educational bureaucracy in these schools in particularly aversive to experimenting with alternative technologies.
Which is not to devalue Christian's hard work bringing FOSS to his charter school students. He's not only saving his school money, he's bringing the kids technology with a greater educational impact. But his story is really a How To item, not news item about Microsoft being hoisted by its own petard.
Ah yes, just as a friend of mine got an Amiga for Christmas in 1988, so it would best prepare him for the future.
So far as I can tell, what's growing increasingly important is exposure to Google. Windows is just another GUI and Word is just another word processor, but students will likely need the ability to do smart searches far more than learning which icon means Print or navigating the latest variant of the Start menu.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Just where do you get the idea that FOSS software must not be charged for? Really - can you give us any reference that says "Thou Shalt NOT Charge Any Gratuities For Free/Open Source Software"?
We're waiting...
And I quote (from the GPL FAQ over at the FSF):
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Novell owns all the copyrights. Ballmer just wishes they owned the copyrights - just think how much money they could make on copyright infringement. Have you ever heard of companies having copyright cross licensing agreements? Didn't think so. MS could keep all the money for themselves!!!
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
What they are supposed to be teaching is how to use a computer. The person who only learned the specific steps without understanding what those steps mean is not going to really understand the finer points and be able to adapt to different software. Teach someone how to use the help menu, and they can find out for themselves how to do things that were not covered in the class. And if the teachers can't do the same, they need to spend the money on better teachers instead of new hardware and software.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
You wrote: In an article which recently appeared here on Slashdot, Pamela Jones posted to Groklaw a link to an MP3 (MP3 warning) of a panel discussion of the negotiators for the parties to the Novell - Microsoft deal. One really interesting quip from about three-fourths of the way through the 1.5 hour discussion is an off-hand remark by one of the Microsoft reps to the extent that Microsoft claims to have the largest server farm west of the Rockies.
I thought that was an odd statement to make. But maybe it's true. After all, Microsoft runs Hotmail on Linux. At least that is what a Microsoft employee told me during a cable car ride on the California cable car line in San Francisco, which runs from near the foot of Market Street (San Francisco's main street) up the hill toward Van Ness on California Street. Supposedly, he took that cable car line to and from work every day, because Microsoft apparently has an office near Spear and Market in San Francisco, according to this guy.
At any rate to answer your question, there are apparently lots of Microsoft sys admins who are paid to work on Linux during the day. Well, and I'm sure that there are also plenty who are paid to work on Linux during the night, too. After, Microsoft isn't going to trust its mission-critical operations to anything other than the best. snicker.
So, Selfbain, if you would like to help make sure that 90%+ do NOT go back to Microsoft-based products, please feel free to send them to send them to the California State Education website to find out how they might be able to get some free FOSS computers.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/et/st/etvfaq.asp
Equally important, send them to a FOSS vendor who has experience with the process of working under the Microsoft Anti-trust Settlement Agreement. I happen to know that Zareason.com has that experience, but System76 or TechCollective.com or EmperorLinux might also have serviced some California schools. Shop around.
You wrote: This program is still early. There is still time for other schools to use this program. Many FOSS vendors and school administrators and FOSS advocates might not know that this program exists. That is why I submitted this story to Slashdot. We need to get the word out. Slashdot is good at that.
You wrote: This Microsoft Settlement Agreement is still in the early stages of disbursement. If Linux sys admins supporting schools don't know about the program, they can't take advantage of it. Of course, there is no budget in the settlement for advertising the settlement. So we, the FOSS community, need to do the public outreach ourselves. That's why I submitted this story to Slashdot.
Thanks, but I meant I was confused by these points made:
- dog slow bloated
- pushes forward MS codecs and respects patens
- very unstable (makes windows look stable)
- binary-only extremely insecure (makes windows look secure)
So it this guy saying that Linux is very unstable and makes Windows look stable? That Linux is Binary only extremely insecure (huh?) and makes Windows look secure? (Double-huh?)
Isn't Dell paying Microsoft for every non-Windows based PC it sells?
I'm not criticizing you for publicizing your efforts (which deserve to be publicized). But please don't portray your work as part of a trend. You need more than one data point to draw a curve. And you're following in the FOSS tradition of claiming your success before it's actually happened — a tradition that is not good for your credibility.
You wrote: Thanks for the nice comment in that first sentence. With regard to portraying my work as a trend, I'm not sure that I did say anything that would say that such a trend existed. Please read the summary carefully. I said that getting a pre-installed FOSS box is now "straightforward." I said that I think that you made a good point there about protecting our credibility: Except that IMHO, I did not make any statement about a trend, other than the fact than, yes, there are now lots of vendors selling FOSS pre-installed. Since the number of FOSS vendors has increased, and the number of major vendors offering more than one product line with FOSS pre-installed, IMHO that *is* a trend.
So I appreciate the fact that you are trying to keep me honest. It is important that we in the FOSS community keep our standards of accuracy high. But IMHO, you are slightly off the mark here. I did not imply that the trend was in adoption per se, but I did state that there are more vendors. If you believe that where there is smoke there is fire, it might be reasonable to conclude either that 1) these FOSS vendors *are* selling more boxes, which is the cause for the proliferation of FOSS vendors and pre-installed product lines; or, 2) these FOSS vendors are *offering* FOSS boxes, but not *selling* them.
It is true that Dell has increased its offering of pre-installed Ubuntu. That was widely interpreted in the press as a sign that Dell was making sales on its initial product line offering. So, in this case, it seems as if there is sound empirical evidence to reasonably infer there were there is smoke (Dell's increased offerings) there must be fire (increased sales).
And yet your point is well-taken. We still have no publicly-available empirical evidence that sales are increasing.
In the final assessment, though, my point was that it is now possible for schools to use the California Microsoft Anti-trust Settlement Agreement (CMASA) to acquire free (as in beer) FOSS boxes. And I wanted to give people a few tips as to how to do that. And, most important, I wanted to gently urge people to spread the word about the availability of this program.
You miss the fact that more talented kids tend to perform better amongst their peers. The charter school can be average, the very fact they skim off the top will make those students perform better because they aren't being dragged down to the lowest common denominator.
You make the standard mistake in this sort of discussion, assuming that money or facilities is the overriding factor, it is not. Far more important is the attitude of the people who surround you. Forget looser regulation allowing them to more efficiently spend money, the key factor is by putting the top 10% together that section will improve greatly just by being placed together (without any real, absolute, hindrance to the average I might add though there may be a relative disadvantage because the best suddenly got better).
Anyway the mental environment is vastly more important than the physical reality. A well motivated person will do far more with less than a unconcerned person would manage with brilliant equipment.