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UK Schools Warned Off Microsoft Deal
rs232 sends in a BBC piece on the UK computer agency Becta advising schools against signing up for a Microsoft educational license because of alleged anti-competitive practices. "The problem was that Microsoft required schools to have licenses for every PC in a school that might use its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else." We have discussed Becta's role in British education here several times as they have acted as a watchdog warning of perceived Microsoft excesses.
Sort of, kind of, not really? Schools are supposed to teach children skills that they can apply in the real world. One of these skills is keyboarding, and honestly, how many typing training packages have you seen on 'nix? Or even Mac?
Kids' software needs are significantly different from that of adults, with the possible except of a good Office suite, which everybody needs. Where's the equivalent of your doodling software, trivia games, and all that stuff you would find in a primary school computer lab?
While I agree MS's tactics here are pretty low, it doesn't immediately lead us to "switch to Linux", because honestly it's not a viable alternative.
On the other hand, Apple has traditionally had the support of children's software publishers. Maybe they can leverage this situation to their advantage...
Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? Linux teaches students about computers Windows teaches students how to use Windows If someone learned UNIX 10 years ago, they could pick up a modern Linux distro and have little trouble with it, if you take someone who learned Windows 98 and put them on a Vista system, they would be confused and have no clue how to do the most basic things. Same thing with Office, if a UNIX student learned on vi, they could edit text files with ease on a Linux system, take someone who learned on Word 97 and put them on a Word 2007 machine and they would be confused. Not to mention practically anyone knows how to check e-mail, surf the web and get around an operating system, that doesn't get you ahead, now if someone knows PHP, Perl and Server Administration, they could be an entry-level sysadmin for a small company, while the other student would be more or less a data entry clerk, Windows leads to more dependence on MS products, Linux leads to more solutions and more opportunities.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
And if you had simply RTF Summary, not even RTFA, you would have noted that the issue is not whether or not to use Windows, but the draconian, monopolistic terms that Microsoft tries to force on schools with their educational subscription licensing models. The idea that they force schools to buy licenses for every single machine regardless of whether or not it is running Microsoft software is just this side of extortion, and BECTA was simply pointing out that it is not in a school's best interest to sign such terms, and should opt instead for the normal perpetual license that people purchase. Not over whether or not to use Windows (and Office in this case too), at least not in the short term.
> "The problem was that Microsoft required schools to have licenses for every PC in a school that might use its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else."
Microsoft can't "require" this. Same as the BSA or CAAST can't just show up at your doorstep and "require" anything. Not even a "license audit."
Good for Becta.
I already replied above, but on an unrelated note, it just occurred to me that this license would brilliantly require schools to pay Microsoft subscription fees for all their macs with Intel CPUs. As education is one area where Macs are close to dominant, this is a brilliant move. Kudos.
Insert self-referential sig here.
Well I'm a Sys Admin / Network Manager in a school in the UK.
Truth of the matter is I have approximately 2% of the school budget made available to me; this equates to about £150,000. Using that money, I run a 2000+ user network, with nearly 750 attached devices (thin clients, fat clients, printers, etc).
I run an almost entirely Microsoft shop - 2000/2003/Exchange/XP/XPe, with Office 2003 / Encarta / Project as well. In terms of non-MS OS, take your pic from Debian, Thinstation and a host of Linux-based thin client devices (Neoware, Wyse, etc).
My Microsoft licensing costs come in at around £12,000 per year, this also includes my terminal service licensing. Is that a lot? Not really - the buy price for 650+ copies of XP, Office, plus CALs for Exchange, 2003 and Terminal Services is prohibatively high imho.
BECTA can complain about the terms of the agreement, and suggest we spend our money 'up front', but unless they are going to provide funding, I'm afraid to say I'll stick with the Schools Agreement for now.
I'd love to have the money to buy outright, don't get me wrong. But for a school with a relatively low income (ie our students come from a high socio-economic area) I simply can't afford to do it - £12,000 a year is however a manageable cost.
Why haven't schools switched to all Linux? Linux teaches students about computers Windows teaches students how to use Windows
...) is also available for Windows.
No. Linux and Windows are equivalent in the sense that neither teaches students about computers, they both teach students about an operating system.
if a UNIX student learned on vi, they could edit text files with ease on a Linux system
Again, Linux and Windows are far more alike than you claim. The student who learned DOS EDIT can open a console and run EDIT under Windows.
More importantly, much open source software (OpenOffice, GIMP, Apache, MySQL,
Schools should not be teaching Windows or Linux. Neither is appropriate. Common business and productivity tools are appropriate, but only to the degree that a student could write and print an essay, solve some math problems with a spreadsheet, etc. Expertise in such tools should be reserved for some sort of business class. Teaching kids to be admins is *not* something K-12 education should be doing. We have already stolen too much time from basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and science.
Hey! I practiced my typing with 'touch' and it put tons of empty files all over my /home! grr... buggy software
On a more serious note, KTouch is a useful program, and you will likely find an open-source program equivalent to pretty much everything.
Slashdot covered a very similar predicament a while ago:
Clicketh
Given the timestampdiff between the two it looks like it is taking people a while to wake up to the reality of Microsoft licencing.
Couldn't stand the weather
Probably a reference to the collective sigh of all /. readers after simultaneously wondering if the editors are illiterate, or if they simply don't read what they post.
Few read the articles, many don't read even the summary (see the recent "Apple Makes $831 On Each AT&T iPhone"), few make use of the preview button, and our editors don't read the submissions. I wonder what it is any of us are doing here?
Slashdot is the graffiti on technology's bathroom wall.
Discuss.
Haven't you ever known somebody who speaks mostly because they like the sound of their own voice? Same principle applies to the text from their fingers.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
There, fixed that for you.
Kids who use IM clients, text messaging on cell phones, etc. develop a very early crutch on short forms, symbols, letters in place of words, acronyms for anything common, a complete lack of syntax and a dozen other nightmares preventing the proper development of language skills. The younger they're exposed to this the worse off they are.
My younger brother is guilty of all of the above and I insist that when he talks to me via IM he use proper sentence structure or I'll ignore him. I don't want to hear about "2day wen i went 2 da part wit ma bffls ... " and it serves no educational purpose to him or his friends to continue in that fashion.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Its also trivially easy to bypass such server side login scripts. :)
Pulling out the network cable about 5 seconds after logging in usually does the trick.
Windows then defaults to a 'allow all' state.
Yes Windows is fully scriptable but it will only allow you to lock down the really obvious things.
They are extremely simple to work around if your determined enough.
Hint: At a school, there will be plenty of bored kids who are determined.
At my university their are XP machines locked down so that one cannot even open the file manager, they are web-browser only (supposedly). To access my disk on key, I found that I can simply browse the filesystem in IE's File -> Open dialog.
When I decided that I'm sick of that setup, I tried to boot Slax but discovered that the BIOS is set to boot from the harddisk first, and is password protected. So I unplugged the machine, and using a broken mechanical pencil managed to pop to battery off the motherboard through air vents in the locked case. Five minutes later, hehehe, I opened the now-default-settings BIOS, set it to boot from CD, and away I was.
Moral:_ANYTHING_ can be bypassed so long as the intruder is determined, and having physical access to the hardware (locked case or not) certainly helps. Linux probably might have helped prevent me from using the disk on key, but it would not have helped prevent me from defeating the BIOS.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.