How Microsoft Beats GNU/Linux In Schools

twitter writes "Ever wonder why schools still use Windows? Boycott Novell has extracted the details from 2002 Microsoft email presented in the Comes vrs Microsoft case and other leaks. What emerges is Microsoft's desperate battle to 'never lose to Linux.' At stake for Microsoft is more than a billion dollars of annual revenue, vital user conditioning and governmental lock in that excludes competition, and software freedom for the rest of us. Education and Government Incentives [EDGI] and "Microsoft Unlimited Potential" are programs that allows vendors to sell Windows at zero cost. Microsoft's nightmare scenario has already been realized in Indiana and other places. Windows is not really competitive and schools that switch save tens of millions of dollars. Because software is about as expensive as the hardware in these deals, the world could save up to $500 million each year by dumping Microsoft. Now that the cat is out of the bag, it's hard to see what Microsoft can do other than what they did to Peter Quinn."

Comments

Product dumping

[PitaBred]

Microsoft has already been ruled a monopoly... isn't dumping an illegal tactic for monopolies?

Re:Product dumping

[goombah99]

It's not dumping if the competition (Linux) is free. They are not going to put Linux out of bussiness by undercutting linux's profit margin. It might be possible they are however dumping with regard to software support (red hat, IBM, Novell, ...) But I think this would be hard to argue succesfully.

Even the memos from MS state MS cannot and will not compete soley on the basis of price.

The thing is their products are agile in price since they have high fixed costs and low marginal costs. Airlines are classic example of this. Airlines try to create price structures (e.g. saturday stays, advance purchase, limited kinds of seats, luggage limits,... ) so that they integrate the area under the demand curve.

Far from being unfair this is actually socially ideal. In the ideal limit people pay for something exactly what it is worth. depsite the fact that some folks pay more than others, over all nearly everyone, including the people paying the higher price, are paying LESS than they would have to pay if it was sold for a fixed price, because of the increased demand lowers the per capitia fixed costs.

I also question broad statements like " Windows is not really competitive and schools that switch save tens of millions of dollars.". Anecdotally maybe this is has happened. But it's not really clear that this is true in general. School systems are one of the most budget limited govt run orgs. They try everything to shave dollars, like fees for art supplies, to hot lunches paid for by PTO fund raisers. I find it hard to believe the schools would somehow be so blind as to over look an easy "tens of millions" if the case was clear cut.

" Windows is not really competitive and schools that switch save tens of millions of dollars. "

Re:Product dumping

[postbigbang]

It's not the operating system that pays, it's the sum of platform applications and infrastructure where Microsoft makes money, coupled to the students that know nothing else but Windows. The tip of the iceberg is Windows. The cash cows are Office, SQL Server, Exchange, and the add-ons, upgrades, and other platform products.

You don't 'lose' to Linux, you lose revenue that represents lots of infrastructure, server licenses, CALs, and so on.

There are few professional organizations that can do an end-to-end Linux infrastructure for educational needs (including school administration software costs) but the list is growing, if by populism alone.

Part of Microsoft's loss is the horrible security problems of 1998-2007, as they're less than before. That damage hurt Microsoft-- coupled to support costs for the products. Macs have always been a fractional part of the educational market, and Apple's done a lot to damage their own relationships with schools-- but students love them.

Microsoft has a lot to learn about love, rather than feigning leadership.

Re:Product dumping

[ZombieRoboNinja]

>>School systems are one of the most budget limited govt run orgs.

This is true, but there are often a lot of state or national funds available specifically for technology that don't come out of the school's (local) budget. So there are actually a lot of public schools that have more money than they really need sloshing around for computers, even if they're scrambling to pay their teachers and replace horrendously outdated textbooks.

Re:Product dumping

[Gerzel]

Adding the word objective to your argument does not make it any more objective.

You need to show WHY it is objectively more or less of a monopoly than the Law says and ALSO show why we should consider your definition of monopoly rather than the legal one.

Objectively strangling an infant or elderly person should be less of a crime than strangling a young adult because the young adult is harder to replace than the infant and has more to provide to society in terms of man-hours work.

While objectivity can help justice; justice is not necessarily objective

Re:Product dumping

[v(*_*)vvvv]

Great post, but I have to challenge this statement:

are paying LESS than they would have to pay if it was sold for a fixed price, because of the increased demand lowers the per capitia fixed costs.

No. Companies maximize profit by charging the maximum price a consumer tier will permit. It has nothing to do with saving anyone any money. The increased demand lowering fixed costs is a separate matter that also holds true, but companies simply bank on the lowered fixed costs, and do not pass it on to consumers. They may say so, but the only time companies are supposed to lower prices is when they need to be more competitive. Of course, when they raise prices they love to put it on increased costs, but we all know from the oil companies that in their case the increase in oil prices was directly proportional to their obscene level of profits.

No one should second guess the intents of any large corporation. They are required to squeeze every dime out of the consumer. The economy is built around this behavior. If a private company is charging less than it can, they are a great M&A opportunity. If it is a public company, the shareholders would not allow it. It is only a matter of time until prices are adjusted to their maximums.

Re:Product dumping

[gbjbaanb]

It's not dumping if the competition (Linux) is free.

Last I saw, Linux wasn't free, RedHat, Novell and Canonical all sell it (plus assorted support and licensing offerings) for quite a sum. Therefore, this dumping is illegal. surely?

plus, Macs certainly aren't free, and they're also part Microsoft's of the competition.

Re:Product dumping

[diegocgteleline.es]

Indeed, and consider how MUCH money on training Microsoft gets for free when public schools teach with Microsoft products.

It's not just the license. It's all the taxes you pay to train your own childs for the benefit of a private company.

Re:Product dumping

[memco]

Education, however, is a place where Apple holds a substantial portion of the market, and is the market.

Re:Product dumping

[gustar]

Macs are the main competition to Windows, not Linux.

I do not think that is true. Plenty of people and organizations use Linux on the desktop/laptop.

With Linux (or say FreeBSD) you can deliver a functional platform with *all* of the applications a typical (and not so typical user) needs for *no* acquisition cost.

Definitely an attractive value proposition which continues to attract attention.

Re:Product dumping

[Anonymous Coward]

Unbiased from someone named 'AppleOSux'. Allthough I use linux at home and personally think it's better on price and technical merit than windows or OS X, Apple wins at schools for the same reason schools use windows. OS X runs photoshop students use in photo class, it runs MS Office that everyone has their documents in (and before you say OO, our school switched to office 07 this year and OO has had problems on at least half of the documents, allthough usually its just formatting problems and you can still read it). Our school is about half macs right now. They decide the OS based on the applications. OS X runs office, photoshop, eclipse, audacity (I know those last two are cross platform/OSS), and the rest of the software they need, except for the teachers grading software that runs on windows, which is why every classroom has one windows comp in it.

Re:Product dumping

[0100010001010011]

The main competition to Windows Is Windows N-1.

Re:Product dumping

[Lulfas]

Except in the non-first world countries, where they aren't.

Re:Product dumping

[dubbreak]

It's not dumping if the competition (Linux) is free.

Last I saw, Linux wasn't free, RedHat, Novell and Canonical all sell it (plus assorted support and licensing offerings) for quite a sum.

No kidding. At the university I went to the linux lab with Red Hat cost more to license than an equivalent sized XP installed lab.

Granted the linux lab was licensed as workstation installs (more expensive, but desktop didn't allow multiple users remoting in) and the windows labs were desktop install so we're not comparing apples to apples (and I vaguely remember there was some weirdness with the RedHat licensing for education that made them jump up one level further, missing options for education licensing as opposed to commercial). Still, one would assume the linux licensing would have a slight edge regardless of the install type.

Re:Product dumping

[silanea]

I can only speak of the situation here in Germany, but throughout my whole education so far, including several terms in computer science, I have encountered exactly 1 (read: one) Mac in a publicly-funded institution, and that one was located in the arts faculty of my grammar school. Over here Macs are very much limited to visual arts faculties and (usually private) specialised arts and design academies, and even there they hold no monopoly.

Is the situation in other countries that different?

Re:Product dumping

[gustar]

Linux might make headway for that cost reason now that we're in economic downturn, but right now Mac has over three times the users.

Linux began making headway long before the economy went South. The value proposition of low, or no acquisition cost is just icing on already very appealing cake.

As far number of users, I have heard OS/X has anywhere from six to ten percent of the *OS market* depending on which survey you happen to believe. I would say its not hard to believe that market use of Linux/BSD on the desktop rival this at least.

Honestly I am not sure how people are counting number of Linux/BSD desktop/laptop users since there is no license to buy. You download, then go using one copy of a download to install numerous times/instances. For all either us know there could be many, many millions of users.

Mac OSX is a very small part of the cost of a Mac. And all the major desktop GNU/Linux apps run on Mac OSX

According to the Apple site, a copy of Leopard costs $129. Not exactly trivial. though I am not sure what percentage of the cost of a new Mac is the OS.

I have no problem with Macs, or OS/X but for my money I can get a lot more value through commodity hardware coupled with Linux, or FreeBSD.

Many folks are discovering the same.

Re:Product dumping

[EdelFactor19]

That's a meaningless and effectively incorrect point. Seeing as the schools are not going to run hackintosh's and OS X is really only sold with hardware (aside from upgrades) the hardware cost and OS cost is inseperable just the way they like it. That way whenever we complain there hardwear costs are bloated they can BS about how they are charging us for the OS itself.

OS X is just as expensive as windows; and thats not the point of this article.

Re:Product dumping

[Tubal-Cain]

Uhhh...
Most of the first world is on Windows $LAST_VERSION (XP), and a non-trivial portion is still on $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF (2000).

Re:Product dumping

[Lonewolf666]

True for the "enterprise" versions, which usually are supposed to include some support. But it is legal to use a free Linux distribution (even if not promoted for organizations by the Linux vendor).
CentOS is even advertised as being identical to RedHat except for the name, and free for download.

There is your free competition ;-)

Re:Product dumping

[Tubal-Cain]

I would say its not hard to believe that market use of Linux/BSD on the desktop rival this at least.

I would.

Honestly I am not sure how people are counting number of Linux/BSD desktop/laptop users since there is no license to buy.

The current favored method is tracking web users across large collections of websites through cookies and the browser's User Agent.

Linux has <1% marketshare and declining (enable javascript for hitslink if you use NoScript)
Of course, this metric is skewed somewhat by the fact that Firefox users can fake their user agent (for sites like fafsa.ed.gov, for instance)

...then go using one copy of a download to install numerous times/instances.

Is that so very different from your average XP install?

According to the Apple site, a copy of Leopard costs $129.

To be pedantic, that is supposed to be an upgrade disc.

Re:Product dumping

[QuantumRiff]

I used to work at a small college. They didn't teach classes in Office applications, they taught classes in Office 2007. They taught intro to MS Word. The teachers, (who attended all sorts of MS training for free) didn't think there was a difference. They got PISSED when I suggested to students that couldn't afford office to try openoffice. MS gave our entire campus all the software we needed for less money than we gave the local bus service so students could ride the city bus at a heavy discount. This was at a 2 year college that had more technology per capita than most schools in the state. Hell, our main "Operating systems" class covered Windows 2003, 2000, and XP. The teacher got upset when the students came to me (I was network admin) and asked for Linux, so I handed them Ubuntu's live cd's... Why would we want to use something that's free, when we get to use something so valuable, for free. they thought MS was obviously a better value!

Re:Product dumping

[JohnBailey]

Except in the non-first world countries, where they aren't.

Except in non American countries, where they aren't.

Re:Product dumping

[Mozk]

we're not comparing apples to apples

First Red Hat and Microsoft, and now you're bringing Apple into this?

Re:Product dumping

[Bob9113]

It's not dumping if the competition (Linux) is free.

That is only true with price competitors, which Linux and Windows are not. With quality competitors, dumping must be gauged by other criteria, which actually don't work too well here either.

The most "perfect" definition of dumping is selling below the marginal cost. Since the marginal cost for Windows is somewhere between a few bucks (packaging) and the marginal cost of support (moderate - a few tens of dollars at most), it is difficult to say what exact price constitutes dumping. It can, from this, be said to be greater than zero.

For companies that have high fixed and low marginal costs, one could theoretically calculate the effective per-unit cost. But with a company such as Microsoft which sells many goods in diverse markets which have shared fixed costs, this would be an exceedingly difficult calculation. You'd have to get into lots of guesses about incidence rates and it wouldn't be much better than throwing darts.

In a quality competitive market of imperfect competing monopolies (all copyrighted works are monopolies), another possible definition is selling below the market price. Simultaneously, though, it is difficult to gauge the market price of a low marginal cost good which uses monopoly pricing. The natural price is probably somewhere between the $60 or whatever OEMs pay and $320 for a full retail copy of Ultimate Edition.

As for competitor prices, in a quality competitive market the natural price of each good is different. Therefore it is possible for a competitor to be selling for less and not dumping, or to be selling for more and dumping. The competitors' prices are not relevant in quality competition, except inasmuch as they promote natural pricing.

Finally the question of harm - with some goods dumping is actually beneficial to the target market. If customer loyalty (lock-in being one example) is low, and barriers to competitor entry and exit are low, dumping is a good thing. It doesn't harm the competitor and it benefits the customer. In this case the reason it makes sense for MS is the customer loyalty angle - as long as they have most of the market they can continue to dictate things like de facto standards, and hence continue to inhibit competition.

In summary; the price of Linux is not directly relevant, and dumping harms this market. Whether they are in fact dumping is not definitively answered here, but it cannot be ruled out based on the price of Linux alone, and if they are regularly selling for $0 then they are almost certainly dumping (the only possible exception being $0 marginal price for per-seat licenses if MS's marginal cost is zero (no packaging, no support)).

Re:Product dumping

[Bert64]

Teaching specific apps in schools is a poor idea, since by the time these kids venture into the workplace the apps they used in school will be horrendously obsolete and no longer used... I used wordperfect (for dos) in school, and before that we had acorn archimedes systems running riscos and some apps i forget the name of.

What the schools use isn't important, because whatever they use will be different from what people have to use after school. How they teach is what matters, teach general concepts rather than specific apps.

Re:Product dumping

[Silas is back]

Except in non American countries, where they aren't.

Wrong, here in Switzerland Apple holds more than 50% of the educational market and the top spot in several other European countries. That was 2006, I doubt the rate has dropped, but have no data at hand.

Re:Product dumping

[silanea]

Thanks for your post. Though I strongly disagree with the following part:

[...] If you can use one operating system, it is (and should be) Windows. For younger students, the school's objective is to teach computer literacy, so they want to have Windows computers. For older students, the school's objective is to use them as a tool and not have to worry about showing the classroom idiot how to use GNOME, so they want to have Windows computers. [...]

Conditioning someone to click at certain screen elements to achieve a certain effect is software training, not an exercise in computer literacy. Computer literacy would be to teach students the concepts and paradigms behind modern software. Then they could find their way around Windows, OS X and Linux by themselves (with a little help from the respective manuals) - by understanding what the hell they are doing instead of mere repetitive training. Basic concepts are shared amongst all mayor desktops: Some kind of menu-based application launcher, a bar that collects open windows, a file manager...they have different names and look (more or less) different in each OS, but GNOME's application menu applies the same paradigms as Windows' Start menu.

Many companies who want to ditch the Windows eco-system or at least parts like MS Office face enormous obstacles in their employees' computer illiteracy. They may know the Office toolbars by heart, but they cannot transfer their knowledge to competing applications because they don't really understand what button X does. Microsoft rewards training over understanding. And that alone should be reason enough to make it unfit for educational use.

Re:Product dumping

[JohnBailey]

unless your into digital media, then its basically mandatory...

And if you are into making hand crafted woodcuts, it's entirely optional. If you narrow the specification enough, you can support just about any premise.

Re:Product dumping

[etnoy]

The teacher got upset when the students came to me [...] and asked for Linux, so I handed them Ubuntu's live cd's...

OMG! It's YOU!

Re:Product dumping

[Bert64]

As you pointed out, msword 2007 is massively different, so learning an older version in school wouldn't be much use.
And what guarantee is there that the interface present in 2007 won't be changed again?
What guarantee is there that ms will be so widespread in the future?

No, you should teach general concepts that apply to multiple apps, teach kids how to write documents on computers, not how to specifically use a particular version of msword.

Also, in 1994 wordperfect was still extremely common, teaching exclusively msword then on the assumption that it would be more widely used in future would be the equivalent to teaching exclusively openoffice today. The future looks bright for openoffice, with moves towards standardised formats (even ms plans to implement odf) eliminating obstacles, and tough economic conditions pushing companies to try and reduce costs.. But that's no guarantee.

Re:Product dumping

[robot_love]

And if you are into making hand crafted woodcuts, it's entirely optional. If you narrow the specification enough, you can support just about any premise.

You have been warned, John. Unless you bring your MacBook Pro to the next Woodcutting meeting, your membership will be revoked. I think we've been very lenient until now, but enough is enough. Get a Mac or get out.

Re:Product dumping

[mikael]

On a bannser seen outside a Silicon Valley conference center:

"Objective objectives objectify objectivity".

Re:Product dumping

[visible.frylock]

I also question broad statements like " Windows is not really competitive and schools that switch save tens of millions of dollars.". Anecdotally maybe this is has happened. But it's not really clear that this is true in general. School systems are one of the most budget limited govt run orgs. They try everything to shave dollars, like fees for art supplies, to hot lunches paid for by PTO fund raisers. I find it hard to believe the schools would somehow be so blind as to over look an easy "tens of millions" if the case was clear cut.

No offense, but this couldn't be further from the truth. I work in a public school. They don't really try that hard to save money on certain things, for whatever reason. These things include: technology, special ed, construction, and sports departments, to name a few.

Not sure if you're in this situation, but a lot of people know a teacher who isn't that well paid and have heard them complaining about lack of funding they get, and so they get the idea that schools are really hurting for money. From everything I've seen, this usually isn't true unless you're talking about inner city schools. But just because money isn't going to the right places doesn't mean that money isn't being thrown around left, right, and center. Trust me, it is.

Even if wine was perfect tomorrow, it wouldn't matter. "Who's going to give us our support contract?," they'll say. Red Who?

In short, it has relatively little to do with money, software quality, etc. This is especially true being that, at least here in the US, spending money on Microsoft licensing is not generally seen as wasteful. This perception matters. And yes, we live in a fucked up world.

Or

[jayhawk88]

Schools prefer to use Windows because it's what the vast majority of their faculty and staff know, it's what the vast majority of their software runs on, and it's what students will encounter on the vast majority of computers they will use in the real world.

Re:Or

[slugtastic]

And why is that? Because Microsoft has a monopoly over the market.

Re:Or

[the_enigma_1983]

Or maybe the vast majority of [the worlds] software runs on [Windows], and [Windows is] what students will encounter on the vast majority of computers they will use in the real world because that is what schools have used, and how Microsoft helped build their monopoly.

Re:Or

[duguk]

In my experience (I worked in a school for 7 years and went to the same one for 5 years; and worked in a primary school for about 18 months), the only reason they use Microsoft is out of habit. That's what they're used to, what the staff are used to, and what the IT Technicians are used to. If anything breaks, there's Microsoft to blame.

Fact is, most of the time, all they use is a Word Processor and a Web Browser. Occasionally using presentation software, and maybe some spreadsheeting and database software. Have a guess what most of the staff are used to; and how much trouble they have with MS Access for teaching GCSE. Serious problems come up with the less experienced staff just with Microsoft's software. Now imagine trying to suggest using something new.

There's no reason they couldn't use Linux aside from the installation and support; switching from OpenOffice to Microsoft Office really isn't much different than going from Windows to Mac. I finally managed to convince them to have a couple of Ubuntu machines that the students had no problems with using, I wanted the students to have an experience of all operating systems; surely that's the idea of being at a school? Experiencing as much as possible? Most of the staff wouldn't even try. Some would, but most wouldn't. Some even wanted Windows 95 back.

Microsoft configuration just isn't cut out to be used in schools, it's hard to tie down the operating system as much as the staff really want it, Linux would be a god-send, but I can't see it happening any time soon. It'd save a lot of money and effort overall, and a lot of time if the staff were able, and the governors were willing. Most IT Techs aren't even trained and get the job because they know someone on the inside; or like me; proved themselves when they worked there. Not for the will of trying to change, but getting a school to do anything is damn near impossible.

Oh, the reason I left? The pay and conditions were terrible; most things just weren't working right, security was a joke, almost daily re-installs in some of the rooms, and no-one was interested in doing anything about it.

Re:Or

[CannonballHead]

They have a monopoly or they gained a monopoly?

Apple and Microsoft and Unix were all small time operating systems "back in the day," right? So ... what's the deal? Why didn't the ever-so-more-amazing Linux, Unix, or OS X become the monopoly? You can't argue that Apple doesn't do *cough* "weird" *cough* business practices. Many of the mainstream unix flavors (Solaris, AIX, HPUX) were never really consumer oriented but server oriented, and Linux is somewhat new as far as compatibility and consumer-usability goes, as far as I understand it (the earliest I started using it was around 2000).

So it came down, in the late 80s and 90s, to either Apple's OS or Microsoft's OS. Apparently, people liked Microsoft's.

Whether or not they have a monopoly now I guess is debatable, but even if they didn't do any of monopoly-ish business practices now, they STILL would have a large share of the market. It's not necessarily because "they are a monopoly" but because it is hard to break a large market share. Case in point: search engines and Google. Or for a while, search engines and Yahoo. A lot of search engines just plain died or never were popular. Usually only one or two survive and become the "giants," and the others get a few percentage of the fun.

The fact that Linux (and OS X) is growing is good, but I grow tired of the constant complaints that somehow, Microsoft is paying off all the old grandma's to stay with Windows... as if Dell could suddenly ship Linux on a desktop and not have TONS of technical support calls asking "Why can't I use iTunes?" or "Why doesn't [insert something] work?"

Re:Or

[mikael_j]

Actually, UNIX used to be for anything "serious" along with VMS (Workstations, minicomputers and general server duties), not just "small time" or "server oriented".

A large part of what happened was that MS managed to gain market share by 1) Widespread piracy and 2) Being not nearly as good as the UNIX systems but also a lot cheaper. Point no. 2 is also why a lot of us who remember the days of MS-DOS, Win 2.x/3.x and other horrors may grudgingly admit that Microsoft's current operating system offerings are usable but still prefer *nix systems, because MS "won" by fighting dirty...

/Mikael

Re:Or

[onefriedrice]

I think you're suggesting that Microsoft "gained" their monopoly fair and square. As if "apparently people liked [Windows]."

Unfortunately, that's not very apparent at all. Apple had a viable, easy-to-use operating system at the same time. It eventually became outdated, yet it had a lot going for it including some nice killer apps (desktop publishing for one). You can't simply shrug that off as 'people just liked Windows better' unless you know what you're talking about.

In actuality, Microsoft gained its monopoly using questionably dubious, but well documented, business tactics, and now they use that OS monopoly in yet more questionable and dubious ways. This is generally known and accepted, but maybe your "apparently people liked [Windows]" comment isn't so well supported.

Re:Or

[turbidostato]

"Schools prefer to use Windows because it's what the vast majority of their faculty and staff know, it's what the vast majority of their software runs on, and it's what students will encounter on the vast majority of computers they will use in the real world."

I can accept points one and two but point three, "it's what students will encounter on the vast majority of computers they will use in the real world" is and always has been total utter bullshit. Whatever the students are using now will have only minor correlation to whatever they'll found in "the real world" few years from now. When I were in school it were the days of Microsoft DOS. How much does it resembles Windows Vista to Microsoft DOS except that there's "Microsoft" in the name? Is it really so much similar Windows 98 to Windows Vista than it is to current versions of Gnome or KDE upon Linux?

In fact, the reverse is truer: whatever I learnt about DOS on my school days serves me nothing on current versions of Microsoft OS and apps. On the other hand, what I learnt on my university days about NFS, X Window, DNS, SMTP, Vi... is still serving me now almost word by word about fifteen years later. And this is not per chance: Microsoft, being the principal actor and living out of selling licenses is *forced* to add new features and change the way of doing things just "to stay the same" while others, specially if not competing on selling usage licenses, can maintain whatever is already working just the same for ages.

Re:Or

[Anonymous Coward]

I was the sysadmin for an elementary school for one year, then the same for a high school [my alma mater] for 3 years. I ran away because of office politics so severe I could barely do my job. The terrible pay and work conditions didn't help either.

As my final year came to close in spring 2007, my plans for the next year were for the lowest PC in wide use school-wide to be a P4/1.6 with 256 MB RAM, with a smattering of Celerons 1.7, 1.2, and 433 with 128 MB RAM--more than enough for Ubuntu 6.06, the latest LTS at the time.

I thought about converting the whole school to Linux all the damn time. Aside from the political side of it ("This isn't the Microsoft computer I had last year!"), I thought of the F/OSS equivalents to EVERYTHING I was using. Several were easy, but several were not...

Windows 2000 or XP Professional -> Ubuntu LTS

Office 2000 or XP -> OpenOffice.Org

MSIE -> Firefox

TN3270 -> plenty of options

Windows 2000 Server or Server 2003 -> Ubuntu LTS server

Altiris Deployment Solution -> ADS can deploy Linux images and deb/rpm packages, but is not itself F/OSS--and it requires a Windows server. Is there a F/OSS solution out there that can install a small partition similar to WinPE, boot to it, and image--all without having to physically visit the computer to insert a boot volume?

IIS -> Apache

SharePoint -> ???

Exchange server/Outlook -> ???/Evolution

AutoCAD [drafting] -> ???

Genesis School -> A "master database" for student records, class scheduling, attendance, grading, gradebooks, and Web-based frontends to allow administrators to create reports, teachers to do attendance and grading for their students, and students/parents to check their gradebook rows. Moodle?

AsureID Express -> Link to an SQL server holding students' and employees' names, numbers, and pictures--or import pics from a USB camera, and make cards that can be printed with a plastic-card printer.

I've found http://www.osalt.com/, but finding F/OSS alternatives to these situations isn't exactly easy...

Re:Or

[Technician]

In actuality, Microsoft gained its monopoly using questionably dubious, but well documented, business tactics

In reality, much of the Windows is from white box computers. Computers on a budget, a pirated copy of an OS, and lots of free downloadable applications, plus an open interface.

Macs were sealed boxes with the OS pre installed for the most part with little 3rd party hardware support.

When the PC clones were all the rage, they could run Windows, but not Mac software. This is where the PC and the Windows culture outgrew the Mac. Weak copy protection on Windows and DOS were a huge reason for the growth of the OS as the system of choice.

Now that Microsoft is reigning in on Piracy and naked PC's are not as common as pre-built boxes are cheap, many machines are migrating to alternatives as Windows now has relibility and dependability issues for pirated copies.

I stopped using Windows at home on home built stuff for this very reason. I no longer transplant the old OS to the new box when faster hardware comes out. I use Ubuntu instead. MS shot them selves in the foot when you could no longer transplant the OS from the old box to the new one without phoning home and begging. It's much easier to simply install Ubuntu.

Re:Or

[Richard W.M. Jones]

You can mount the home directory (*) with noexec which means they cannot run anything even if they can compile it. However this doesn't prevent people from writing elaborate Perl scripts, unless you take away Perl/Python/etc, at which point the whole thing starts to get counterproductive.

In any case, what the GP meant is that you can lock down Linux so that users cannot make unauthorized modifications to the base OS, and so that it doesn't need to be reinstalled. To be fair you can do that with Windows too, but it's likely to be easier with Linux because that's how most Linux distros come by default.

Rich.

(*) You have to do this with all user-writable directories, eg. /tmp

Teachers

[religious freak]

Um, I think one of the perhaps very good reasons they don't use Linux is because the teachers are clueless as to how to use it.

Yeah, mark me as troll, but it's F'in true.

Re:Teachers

[Penguinisto]

The sad part is... as a former teacher myself, I cannot help but agree, but with one caveat:

...because the vast majority of teachers are clueless as to how to use it.

...which is more accurate, but just as bad, methinks.

/P

Re:Teachers

[religious freak]

It's been a long time since I've been in high school, and I really am curious. Do they even know how to use Windows?

I've got a baseless and unsupportable hypothesis (based on my lack of personal experience and lack of research) that teachers are afraid of technology, because their students know it better than them. And as a result, students are not getting the exposure to tech they need.

So really, how good is computer literacy in teachers today? Even for something as basic as Windows? (I remember in high school, my Spanish teacher was so afraid of the VCR, he didn't want any of us to touch it, not because we were vandals, but because he didn't know how to work it, and probably assumed the same of us)

Re:Teachers

[Hatta]

Teachers are clueless on how to use windows too. Teachers shouldn't be administering the things, just using apps that they're probably going to need to be trained for anyway.

Re:Teachers

[frank_adrian314159]

Um, I think one of the perhaps very good reasons they don't use Linux is because the teachers are clueless as to how to use it.

Um, I think that the teachers are pretty clueless as to how to use Windows, too. I'd almost go as far as saying they're pretty clueless on how to run any hardware more advanced than hamster cages, but they generally can get students to do that for them.

Not to denigrate teachers - they are fine at what they're actually trained to do (i.e., teach), but most of them are the "typical computer user" (read clueless).

Re:Teachers

[apoc.famine]

I'm a teacher. Probably one of the top tech-savvy ones at my school, and also a linux dork.

My sister's BF uses linux a lot now, since I pointed him to it. My sister also uses it a lot. As does my mom, who now, instead bitching about her "computer" bitches specifically about Microsoft. The linux side of her dual-boot gets nothing but praise.

In any school, 80% of the teachers don't really know how to use a computer. They really are novices. In this case, there is NO difference between Linux and Windows. They probably wouldn't notice a difference if you swapped out their Windows machine for a KDE machine. (Gnome is enough different that they might notice. MIGHT notice..)

Flashaback to my mom's computer. My sister (Windows-only librarian) wanted to steal some of mom's Christmas CDs. I suggested she infringe on the copyrights by making a copy. (She's got both eyes, and both legs, so I couldn't suggest piracy.) She booted into Kubuntu, popped the CD into one drive, a blank into the second, found K3b, and burned herself a couple of CDs.

If she can do that, with 0 assistance, I'm confident that most teachers could use linux as well as windows. But why does EVERY school run windows?

It's a combination of a few factors.

1) The Admins know that Windows runs on 80+% of the computers in the world, and have used it exclusively.
2) A technology grant (in my State, a lawsuit against MS got it for us) buys both the hardware AND gets free MS software with it.
3) One essential piece of software (Gradequick, in my case) runs on Windows only.

I talk to my head tech guy often about different flavors of linux, and our collective playing around with it. He's not ignorant. But when a settlement from MS pays for all the hardware AND software for our school, why would he reformat it to run linux? It would be incompatable with a few major applications, and a major pain in the ass, as we'd then be running two operating systems. For a small tech staff, with limited resources, homogeneity is a necessity. (But he's still made sure that my linux laptop can connect to the wireless.)

Re:Teachers

[betterunixthanunix]

I would argue that it is really just that they are not aware of Linux. Perhaps my view is skewed by my experience with university professors and researchers, but I have found that most people really just are not aware of free software or what they can do with it. People are unaware that they really have choices in these things. I have met researchers who were shocked to discover that the basic software in any Linux distro -- a shell, the POSIX userland, and Perl/Python -- can serve as a replacement for dozens of proprietary packages they were using for converting and formatting their data, and even more shocked to discover that those basic utilities were more efficient because large numbers of tasks were easily automated. These are not people who were clueless about computing, either: they were very skilled at programming Matlab, and picked up bash and Perl very quickly.

The lack of awareness about computing is more of a general problem, though it is particularly noticeable with schools. I have drawn the conclusion recently that anyone majoring in any subject that is likely to involve computing -- basically, any science, engineering, or business major -- should be required to take a CS course where they use a Unix or Unix-like system and program in a language like Python or Perl. Just being raised to a basic level of awareness of how a computer can be used would be invaluable for many people, and would go much further in terms of saving money and increasing productivity than simply install some Linux on everyone's computers.

Re:Teachers

[theheadlessrabbit]

I've got a baseless and unsupportable hypothesis (based on my lack of personal experience and lack of research) that teachers are afraid of technology, because their students know it better than them. And as a result, students are not getting the exposure to tech they need.

my personal experience would support your hypothesis.

back in my high school days (nearly 10 years ago now) I took a lot of 'computers' classes, because i wanted to learn about computers. but, i didn't. instead, I learned how to use things like 'corel word perfect', some power point clone, and 'turing' a programming language so limiting, it makes BASIC seem like C by comparison.

rather than learning about building computers and general computing concepts, i was taught how to use specific and now obsolete software. those courses and that knowledge are now useless to me.

how clueless were the teachers?
this was back in 1999, so not knowing about linux was still forgivable, but the misinformation i received, was not.

over the course of 3 years and 3 different computers classes, these are the highlights:

On a test, this question came up:
how many companies sell differing operating systems:
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. more than 3.
apparently, the correct answer was b, not d. silly me...

i got 150% for participation, because i taught the teacher how to use computers before she could teach the class.

i got kicked out of class for playing computer games. but the assignment was 'to write your own computer game' and i was testing my own game! she refused to believe it was mine, even after going through my code line by line.

and finally, i got suspended for 'hacking'. some random 'error' dialogues were popping up on every system every hour or so, and i disabled them on my computer.

My experience shows me that you are correct. most teachers do not understand the technology that the students are growing up with.

last year, when booting up my laptop for one of my lessons, one of my students saw my ubuntu desktop and yelled out 'that's my system, too!'

Apps!

[Jjeff1]

One of my customers is a K-12 school. They have 10K students, and 390 different windows applications.

Most educational software simply isn't written for Linux. Most educational software is poorly written for Windows. Running as a non-admin user is always a hangup. I can't imagine trying to get all these apps to run under Wine. The chorus of "why don't we have windows" would be deafening.

The reason Windows beats Linux in schools is because the apps they need, work under windows. When the superintendent wants an application, he gets it. No matter how poorly written or insecure it is, we always end up installing it. If linux is somehow responsible for it not working, linux gets tossed, 100% of the time.

Re:Apps!

[at_slashdot]

Totally agree, people are interested in applications not in operating systems.

Re:Apps!

[drspliff]

It would be incredibly interesting if some people with more experience of school education software could put together a top 10 or top 20 list of common applications which are used throughout the country.

I'm sure the majority of them aren't very complex apps, and the learning material could be easily put together (perhaps with bounties for completing modules, it'd be a nice alternative source of income for teachers).

Anyway, with the goals in hand the problem of "Most educational software is poorly written for Windows." shouldn't be an issue, it's hard for me to write educational software because I don't have kids or experience teaching them... but with the right organisation I'd be happy to oblige.

Re:Apps!

[Mr Z]

This is something of a chicken and egg problem isn't there? I don't recall Windows having any sort of natural advantage when I was in school. It was all Apple ][s, except in the business department where they had some PS/2s running MS-DOS. A couple people thought Windows was interesting, but nobody was in a hurry to switch.

All of this Windows software has developed through the traditional "network effect," and that was nurtured through programs such as Microsoft's that put Windows on many desktops throughout the 90s. That doesn't mean it can't be brought to Linux someday, though. There has to be some demand before it happens. Either that, or some open source efforts to replace the poorly-written software that you mention.

Re:Apps!

[nbates]

Many school applications are web applications. Or Java applications.

Also, many of those applications are easy to reproduce, take for example Carnegie Learning's cognitive tutor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Learning ), not only it is easy to replicate, it also has many interesting challenges from the point of view of a computer scientist. Lot of room for improvement. It is a great job for an open source project.

The only problem is marketing. Most of this solutions are actually not that great, I have tried one Cognitive Tutor application and it has many flaws (wrong answers in some cases, enforces only one kind of solution to each program and doesn't consider alternative paths, very repetitive and boring, and so on). But if you have a sales team and good marketing, you have a hit.

Now, that's harder for an OS project.

Re:Apps!

[Yvanhoe]

When Bob fail at math, Bob is bad at math. When Alice fails at math, girls are bad at math.
When an application crashes under Windows, the application failed. When an application crashes under Linux, Linux fails.

I may sound pompous, but the first bias is being fought by using techniques that could be used in the second as well. The most simple method that yields results is incredibly cheap : show people they have a bias. Most people don't like to feel that they are being sexist and try to correct their bias if they perceive it. Most people (especially teacher, where I live) don't like to feel they are doing the job of a corporate lackey, or helping a monopoly. Microsoft does have a bad rep, not only among geeks. People also don't like to feel that they are being cheated in paying too much for so few.

That, and I was really impressed by wine progresses (under the standard Ubuntu install) these years. Most of your old Windows applications will work better under Ubuntu than under Vista. Even file sharing through netbios/samba worked more easily.

Re:Apps!

[Jjeff1]

The problem is that software is often written by companies who have an educational base, not a software development base. It's also often very, very old. Lets face it, your core K-6 education has changed very little. Kids still need the 3 R's. The primary app for this level of education at the school I mentioned above was last updated in 2001, and the core educational components are significantly older than that.

But, there are other factors involved. A school might have more than one app that does the same thing. Why? They get grants, and state funding, and federal funding, and a volunteer donates a couple copies. None of those people talk to each other, and even if they did, you'd end up with a committee of 2 dozen people, nothing would ever get done.

You'd think that even on the administrative side, things would be similar. But no. There are only a few companies who make software to track attendance and grading. But there is a huge amount of customization which goes into this software, because each district tracks information differently, and reports to the State differently.

You also have to keep in mind how schools buy things. If a fantastic new learning package came out that schools all over were using, each school would have to justify that purchase. There would probably be a bond initiative. You'd have to explain to voters how product X is going to replace product Y you just had them vote on 5 years ago. In the software world, 5 years is a lifetime. In the voting on a tax increase world, not so much.

You also have to remember that teachers don't like change. They're being asked to do more and more with little compensation. The NCLB act is horrible. So much time is spent teaching to pass tests instead of teaching to learn and think. You're asking them to learn something new, again. You can send them to professional development, but chances are, their contract specifies they're only required to do x hours a year (probably 40). Why should they spend 1/4 of that time re-learning things they already knew how to do instead of learning better teaching which might directly impact education.

The thing that might work is the web. With google docs and all, we're already moving that way. A lot of schools use apps like Plato or e-chalk, which are entirely web based. Get everything on the web. Make it so the school can host the software itself on appliances (capitol cost vs ongoing, e-rate, etc...). Then the client doesn't matter. You can replace your windows desktops with a linux desktop, still running firefox, and there will be little difference.

Anyway, that's my piece. It'd be nice if the problem were simple, it isn't.

Re:Apps!

[artor3]

During college, I worked as IT support for an association of special education preschools. While I did get them to adopt OpenOffice, I immediately realized that I couldn't even recommend switching to Linux, because essential programs weren't supported.

One program that comes to mind is Boardmaker, by Mayer-Johnson. It's an extremely popular tool for helping autistic children, and not a complex program at all. It wouldn't be hard for open-source devs to replicate, but there is just no interest among developers. Unfortunately, without it, few special ed teachers will ever consider using Linux.

There is certainly demand for a free alternative as well - in part because of Boardmaker's $400/license price tag. Searching for "Boardmaker linux" or something of the sort reveals that people have asked for it, but gone unanswered. Perhaps the saddest request is this:

"My 11 year old son has autism and his a communication therapist has recommended Boardmaker by Nova logistics to help him communicate. He has had a great affinity for computers since he was 4 years old. He has a Pentium III 1Ghz powered Intel D815eea computer which I built for him.

Boardmaker sells for over $500 and we live on low, fixed income. I have been told that there may be an equivalent, Linux based program. If so, can you tell me what it is and where I can get it? Thanks for your help."

There were no responses.

Re:Apps!

[Score Whore]

I think you missed my point. It isn't that some form of each of those are functional under some linux distro. It's that users don't want to have to fuck around with shit to make it work.

And gnomemeeting? I'm thinking you don't actually use it, as it's been called Ekiga since March of 2008. And you want to compare Ekiga with the simplicity of MSN messenger? And mplayer with iTunes or Windows Media Player? I'm fond of mplayer, and have contributed code, but get real.

Re:Apps!

[ion.simon.c]

It's that users don't want to have to fuck around with shit to make it work.

I didn't *have* to fuck around with anything to get Mplayer, Thunderbird, and Pidgin installed and running. I said "Package Manager, make it so! (and install all the eeeevil codecs, while you're at it)".
I agree that mplayer's frontend sucks. But, have you used Amarok? I have. It's pretty fucking awsome. It claims to have iPod (and other music device) support, but I don't have any such devices to test that claim. IMO, Amarok's waaaaay better than iTunes, and -as a music player and organizer- parsecs beyond WMP. I simply asked my package manager to install that one, too. ;)

And gnomemeeting? I'm thinking you don't actually use it,

You caught me. :/ *has no reason to be videoconferencing.* I don't have a webcam, but did have Ekiga installed -for some damn reason-, so I ran the "Configuration Druid" and accepted the defaults at every page. It ended up autodetected my sound hardware and my NAT, and then enabled STUN.
I then called sip:500@ekiga.net as suggested here, and heard my voice! I called sip:520@ekiga.net as suggested here and found out that I could, indeed be reached from the outside world. I even had a friend call me from his Asterisk site. After thirty mintues of him futzing with his mis-configured Asterisk server, we got a couple of crystal-clear calls in!

I tried to have a Windows using friend call me with Windows Messenger. Following these instructions failed at the login step. Windows Messenger claimed that it couldn't establish a session with ekiga.net. Installing Ekiga and the GTK Runtime worked wonderfully, though. Just like it did on Linux, after my buddy fixed his Asterisk setup.
Are you behind a NAT? If not, would you like to try a SIP call using Windows Messenger?

Can anyone explain the link?

[damn_registrars]

I clicked the link from the end of the story and was unable to find anything on that page referring to "Peter Quinn", "Quinn", or even just "Pete".

What information are we supposed to glean from that link?

Re:Can anyone explain the link?

[domatic]

A couple of years back, Massachusetts attempted to mandate open formats in state government. ODF was to be the office piece of this and MS pulled every dirty trick in the book to reverse or subvert that up to and including pulling strings to get the people pushing for this pressured to leave.

I suggest "massachusetts odf" as better set of search terms for Google.

Re:Or ... it could be that MS gives it away!

[whoever57]

schools prefer to use Windows because it's what the vast majority of their faculty and staff know, ...

A couple or so years ago, I asked a university lecturer why they used so much MS software, when the obviously had knowledge of Linux and Unix -- the reply was something like "we get it free" (or perhaps "almost free").

In this case, it is free as in beer trumping free as in speech.

Key applications

[lordeveryman]

At the High School I volunteer at there are key applications that teachers feel they can not do without. One such example is Microsoft Publisher. This is a loathsome application that does not export to any other known publishing application, but is used to teach publishing in the school. :-(
We are making progress though. The school switched to Open Office this year for all but the business lab. I am working with the business lab teachers to get them familiar with Open Office so they can make an informed decision about what software to use in the future.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a monopoly is neither illegal nor I would argue immoral. It's what you do with your monopolistic power that makes that determination. In this context it is also important to mention that MS is the original 'give it away for free or close to free' people. This was true even way before Windows had a lock on PCs.

I would agree with the comments above about Windows being what the student will encounter and add further that this reasoning extends to the OLPC and similar products, which is why we are seeing Windows on those platforms instead of a free OS.

office suite

[mehtars]

Maybe its because office suite is simple, easy to use and works very well with graphics embedded within documents.

Re:office suite

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAHAHAHAhaahehheh*sniff*, good one.

Wait, were you serious? Even with all that "ribbon" crap they've been replacing the menus with?

90%+ of a market is a monopoly

[Nicolas MONNET]

Hell even 50%+ is considered a monopoly for all intents and purposes in most jurisdictions.

Re:Or ... it could be that MS gives it away!

[drsmithy]

A couple or so years ago, I asked a university lecturer why they used so much MS software, when the obviously had knowledge of Linux and Unix -- the reply was something like "we get it free" (or perhaps "almost free").

So they were using it because it was better ? Because they certainly wouldn't have been paying more for Linux or UNIX...

Re:Den of paranoia?

[drsmithy]

And kudos to ScuttleMonkey, who had to remove all the creative spelling and grammar errors from the submission.

Whoa, back up there. Are you saying a Slashdot Editor actually edited something ? That's crazy talk.

More Microsoft is Doomed Retric

[Prep_Styles]

Now that the cat is out of the bag, it's hard to see what Microsoft can do other than what they did to ...

I like Linux as much as the next guy ( I run it almost exclusively) But seriously how many times do I have to read M$ is doomed! DOOOMMED!

Windows is popular in schools (as is mac) because the experience is more seamless then it is in a flavour of Linux. Schools are not trying to just teach computers to kids, their trying to get them to read, write, perform arithmetical, or other tasks that are SEEN as separate from the computing experience. As soon as you have to explain to teaching staff that Gnome isn't Linux isn't GNU isn't RedHat ... you've lost the case because the teachers are just going to say "This isn't a computer class! Why do I have to learn this!?"

I think Linux would be great is schools but until you have a reasonably seamless experience your not going to get anywhere.

The arguments always come down to cost: "Linux will save you money". Sure it will. But these institutions are used to spending money to get what they think they need. Your not going to win this argument with cost benefits alone, you have to convince them that Linux will do a better job then Windows and Mac and as of right now I don't think that's an easy case to make.

Re:More Microsoft is Doomed Retric

[maugle]

I don't know about you, but my newspapers constantly have articles on how the schools have no budget and the teachers are poor and the buildings are falling apart and yadda yadda yadda.
You'd think they'd jump at a chance to save some cash, no matter how little.

I put Microsoft's continued dominance down to momentum ("everybody uses Microsoft products") and fear ("if I decide to save some cash by moving from Windows to Linux, but the migration fails, we'll be out a lot of time and money and I'll be out on the street").

Re:Dumping.

[El Lobo]

Well, if Linuzzz can be installed for free at schools and Windows cost a little bit (MS Select and Campus contracts are really a good deal at schools and universities), how do you explain the fact that Windows and Macs still have the edge in education over GNU/Linuzzz?

Couldn't be that this is the tool (I repeat, the TOOL, not the religion) that is, for good or bad, the defacto standard out there in the real world? Couldn't be a good think that you are preparing your students to use the tools (I repeat, not the religion) that could help them to face the real world market?

Sure, it could be a cool think to get Basquian language to be obligatory for all schools in Sweden, but I think (and correct me if I'm wrong) that students would be more happy having a good English language education, just for their future sake. Basquian? Sure, be my guest, get a book and learn.

Treat Microsoft like the Cable company then.

[AppleOSuX]

When your contract with Microsoft is about to run out, just tell them you're switching to Linux. Then you can get more Microsoft products for free.

When Microsoft stops offering freebies, then switch to Linux.

Problem solved.

Re:Treat Microsoft like the Cable company then.

[mabhatter654]

but that's the catch. "Freebis" like Sharepoint tie Server, AD, SQL, and Exchange together in a way that simply can't be migrated to OSS. Sure it can be replicated, but you would have to rebuild everything done before to move off it. There are dozens of other MS products that tied in a similar manner. Not bad products, but the combine products can't be got away from easily.

Re:Be glad to have an OS

[FrostDust]

As mentioned in the blog, the main strategy Microsoft is using is to offer licenses for it's OS/software for cheap, or even free, so that the users will be more likely to buy future products from them in the future.

Ideally, people should be learning how to use computers, not Microsoft software. That way, they would be more open minded toward, and technically capable of, using different software when they get the chance to chose. In government (and school) situations, this is important because it's a waste of money to pay for expensive software licences when free and competitive programs are readily available.

In a world where >85% of PCs are using some form of Windows, however, this doesn't put most users at a disadvantage, as they'll probably never be exposed to alternative software besides Firefox. Or, we get people like Mac converts, who treat a non-MS OS device as the relic of some sort of technological messiah, instead of just a computer with different ways of doing things.

twitter == BoycottNovell Shill

[Anonymous Coward]

Check his posting history (with all his 40 sock accounts), the guy does nothing but paste links to that blog. Recent example. Look at his comments, submissions and journal entries. Aside from "M$" what you'll see are links to that blog. And surprise, it's AdSense-enabled!

I think someone just figured out:

1. Collect underpants
2. Bash Microsoft
3. Profit!

Lame, lame lame.

and OLPC/Negroponte will still think MSFT is good

[Locutus]

it shows that nothing has changed at Microsoft in the past 20 years. There is no "new Microsoft", there is no "kinder, gentler Microsoft", and there is no "Microsoft is a friend to open source".

It's all a lie for the purpose of furthering their goal of making sure Windows is the only OS for the vast majority of the populations.

surprise!

LoB

Re:let's do lunch

[grcumb]

because MS have more experience of wining and dining (and bribing) than generally less dishonest Linux companies?

I wouldn't impute any dishonesty to these sales people. Generally speaking, it's not necessary to be dishonest in order to win.

I suspect that most people's conception of the way things work in government (and education in particular) is altogether too jaded. Many people working in education policy do so out of interest and generally show a degree of commitment to the principles of learning and development.

That doesn't mean they're necessarily brilliant, insightful or even competent. Some are, some aren't. But the vast majority of them make decisions in what they consider to be the best interests of the young people under their care.

The folks at Microsoft are smart, organised and effective. The links in the summary documents show that they've got a clear game plan, and the tables attached indicate that they were executing well on it.

Compare that to the work done by FOSS organisations. With the exception of IBM, there's hardly anyone who has established contacts in Education. FOSS is typically touted by mid-level technical folks who have expertise in their field but little political experience. They almost certainly don't have the resources, the planning or the operational intelligence to keep pace with Microsoft.

Add to this the fact that Microsoft is the incumbent, and you'll see that they've got the advantage in almost every respect: resources, position, momentum and intelligence.

Microsoft's played dirty in the past, and they likely will again in the future. I'm only suggesting that it's not necessary to play that way every time.

The corrupt practice in this particular case is dumping, and that decision is being made at the corporate level. While corruption taints everyone who participates in it, that doesn't mean they are suddenly guilty of every manifestation of it all at once.

Re:Dumping.

[gustar]

Who says they Microsoft has the edge? Where I work we hire a number of kids out of college, *all* of them have higher degree of comfort implementing various solutions on a Linux/BSD platform then Windows. That tells me they are getting a tremendous amount of exposure to these platforms during their college years.

Quite frankly I manage to do my own job quite effectively without having to rely on Microsoft products at all, this includes technical aspects as well communicating, documenting, etc.

So by all means use the tools you are comfortable with, but do not imply that they are the only choice for the *real world* when that is not even close to being the case.

rear guard action

[the_B0fh]

Look at what's happening across the world:

http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/newsletters/first-quarterly-e-newsletter-jan-2009/at_download/file

the government's documented savings is US$10mil last year. And there are numerous undocumented savings, as well as followons, schools are now putting OSS in, etc etc.

Re:Dumping.

[gustar]

The majority of *market domincance* surveys boil to little more than highly slanted, carefully filtered marketing campaigns. Given that, why do you feel anecdotal experience is essentially worthless?

I have worked for many companies, I have seen a tremendous amount of Linux/BSD on the back-end, and now I am seeing it on the client-side as well.

None of the organizations for which I have worked have been ten person shops but rather larger enterprises looking to maximize their investment in infrastructure from initial purchase to full depreciation. All of them recognized open source as a viable means of achieving these goals in some form or another.

Re:Dumping.

[gustar]

Maybe they (or their resume) tells you that to get the job? I'm not doubting their Linux/BSD skills, but people tailor their resumes to the specific job they are applying for.

I am sure they did tailor their resume, that is exactly what people interested in getting a job do!

The fact is they landed the position because when we interviewed them they demonstrated strong Linux/UNIX skills.

I work with these folks daily, as they continue to demonstrate strong Linux/UNIX skills, and knowledge.

rambling comments from a labtech...

[Anonymous Coward]

I made the switch to Linux with Ubuntu because, for most things, it works just plain better than Windows. But, getting this point across to the people I work with is, well, proving rather difficult.

Why is that? Because:

1) People are gullible. The people that make decisions about purchasing first look at a glossy sales brochure or pick what they saw advertised on TV. Then they then ask "Is this okay?" Linux doesn't have any shiny brochures, we never get asked if it's okay.

2) People are terrified of change, any change. They won't admit it, but they are. It's not that Linux is still harder to use than Windows (honestly, it's the other way around now, and I've proved it to people); it's that people don't want to change, even for the better.

3) People are lazy. I had instructors DEMANDING that I dual-boot to Linux (so I used a VMware image instead) and then they went off to teach MS Office instead of Open-Office... because there's a course-pack/textbook that includes online testing and grading (so they don't have to do any work).

In short, the problem is inertia. Unfortunately, Linux is going to have to get way better than Windows before the Educational "ship" can start to make some course corrections. Dumb, fearful, lazy people have to be beaten over the head with the obvious before they will change direction.

Now, the appropriate tool to beat said people over the head with is a turn-key Linux distribution that integrates into an Active Directory domain, right out of the box. One that includes an image-casting process that allows 100s of computers to be managed (deployed, updated, etc.) from a central console (PXE boot, the works). If I had that (turn-key), I might make some progress around here... though it would still take a while.

FOSS will eventually dominate education. It is inevitable. The Linux distributions out there are making phenomenal strides towards ease-of-use and overall functionality. In most aspects, they have already bested Windows. But, it will take time to overcome the inertia in Education. Honestly, I expect the business world will actually turn first. Education, despite its best efforts, is surprisingly conservative.

        David...

Choosing Apple for Education - nobrainer

[john_chr]

I'm a parent rep on a school ICT sub-committee that looked at ICT for the extension of our school that will extend into High School (grades 7-10, current school is only Kinder - 6) here in Australia. They were already heavily into Macs but we looked at equivalent Windows laptops and they came with no additional software and a heavy admin cost. For creativity the iLife software could not be beat. The iWork software was also dirt cheap for edu use. Then when it came to also using iPod Touch as handheld media devices for the students, any Windows solution was nowhere near for the price. Sure - you can get really cheap windows laptops but add on software and admin costs and there was no comparison.

Re:Or ... it could be that MS gives it away!

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone can get Linux for free. Most people have to pay for Windows, but Microsoft is giving it to you for free. Don't you feel special?

bitter, much?

[toby]

n/t

Re:Dumping.

[guyminuslife]

Not to point out the obvious, but you are hiring college-educated kids to work at a tech firm.

You must be aware that most people who use computers are not "implementing various solutions." Of course computer science majors know something about Unix. One would expect philosophy majors to know something about Kant. Most people don't spend much time evaluating the Categorical Imperative.

Re:Or ... it could be that MS gives it away!

[mabhatter654]

because "teachers" really do get it nearly free... or at least not under per-pupil costs. Of course Universities pay big money in the name of "piracy" for site licensing.. but that goes under the IT or legal funds, not "teachers" funds.... see the difference.

Like the Forrester survey below this article, people use Microsoft software out of habit, not even because they like it. For most people, using even MS Word is really hard, and re-learning it is even worse. MS knows Linux or Mac is better but as long as they keep the price of upgrades less than the price to go some place else, and the pain of upgrades less than the pain of learning Linux they will keep their customers from sheer bureaucratic inertia.

Re:Dumping.

[JohnBailey]

While I admit the GP is a troll you are just as offbase. Your anecdotal evidance does not disprove that Windows is still dominant. Does it suck? Heck yeah, but schools only have so much time and sadly windows skills are crucial many industries. I hope that changes, but until then your 10 person shop does little to change the trend.

So what are Windows skills? As opposed to basic computer use skills.

Linux for the blind

[Britz]

I have not heard of a program for autistic children, but Klaus Knopper, one of the popular Linux engineers over here in Germany (if not the most popular for Knoppix) works on Linux for blind people. His wife is blind. There might be more Linux people out there that are handicapped themsleves or have close relatives that are. That can be a very high incentive to create useful tools.

Central management a problem

[ikekrull]

Linux is pretty bad when it comes to central management.

Its possible to roll a managed solution for a mixed Windows/Linux network with authentication based on LDAP and file sharing based on NFS and SAMBA, web apps authing back to LDAP, homedirs shared by NFS with a single client image installed from USB.

But its pretty ugly, insecure and requires a hell of a lot of application-specific configuration to get it to work seamlessly.

I know this, because I am responsible for administering a school network using Linux for servers and desktops (I inherited the system after a former disgruntled sysadmin left), and it is a hell of a lot more tricky than it could be.

Everything we have pretty much works, but i'm the only one associated with the organisation who can come remotely close to knowing how stuff works or what to do when stuff breaks. At least my business model is 'recession-proof', but frankly, the people running the school are powerless, and disenfranchised, and i find it pretty difficult to articulate any actual benefits of keeping the system on Linux beyond the expense involved in switching back to Windows - this is not the picture a lot of OSS advocates paint, or the way it should be.

It's been nothing but pain setting the system up - Its a good deal for me as they're kind of stuck paying me to admin the system, but does it really have to be this complex?

I'm a huge linux geek with a lot of real world programming and admin experiences, and the bottom line is if i had to do it again for another school, i'd pass and suggest they use Windows.

Thats why Windows wins in schools.