All the textbook vendors do this. It's such a rackett. God forbid they leave any money on the table. BTW, they SUCK at software. Many of their packages require local installation of software to each workstation. No web-based options. Works for any OS you want as long as it's winderz. I HATE dealing with those jack-wagons. CDE and CA state legislature would be wise to either promote open source textbooks or start holding the vendors' feet to the fire., esp given the current fiscal climate.
Or, it's a set of clustered servers that provide abstracted and elastic resources to guest applications and services.
The more I read your contributions to this story, the more it's becoming apparent that you're either a troll or a shill.
Things are similar on this side of the pond. Teachers and Admins only seem to want what they already know, and most will not even look at anything beyond that. However, we can throw macs, unix, or windows in front of kids. They don't care, they learn it. It's another fun, new thing to explore.
I have attempted to generate interest in OpenOffice.org and Linux at the school where I work. Students - no problem. Teachers and staff: "It's not what I use at home". Plus, in the case of staff workstations, much of the state-provided and state-mandated software, esp in business services, runs on anything as long as its windows. That being said, I still believe that we will see a growing trend towards Linux workstations for students, with a lot of that in the thin-client arena. With much of the student-facing educational software moving to a web delivery model, workstation platform choices are starting to gradually broaden. Except in those cases where vendors look at cross-platform capabilities as an afterthought. It will take some time before this reaches a tipping point.
Apparently those of us that have purchased volume licenses will now have to run some kind of auth key server to take away the pain of authorization. I bet anything they will charge for teh necessary tools to "manage" legitimate licensing on their behalf. Typical. The more of their stuff you use the more of their stuff you "have" to use. These bastards seem to think we have nothing but spare time to enforce their intellectual property rights. No offence to alternative lifestyle enthusiasts, but, to quote Jeff Spicoli, "Those guys are fags!". This may come as a shock to the powers that be at Microsoft, but I have better things to do with my time. They need to get over themselves. Their stuff is just not that great, and incredibly nauseating to manage. Linux or OS X is looking better and better all the time.
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All the textbook vendors do this. It's such a rackett. God forbid they leave any money on the table. BTW, they SUCK at software. Many of their packages require local installation of software to each workstation. No web-based options. Works for any OS you want as long as it's winderz. I HATE dealing with those jack-wagons. CDE and CA state legislature would be wise to either promote open source textbooks or start holding the vendors' feet to the fire., esp given the current fiscal climate.
Or, it's a set of clustered servers that provide abstracted and elastic resources to guest applications and services. The more I read your contributions to this story, the more it's becoming apparent that you're either a troll or a shill.
Finally an accurate description.
Things are similar on this side of the pond. Teachers and Admins only seem to want what they already know, and most will not even look at anything beyond that. However, we can throw macs, unix, or windows in front of kids. They don't care, they learn it. It's another fun, new thing to explore.
Their required/supplied apps all run on windows-only. And for the most part, poorly.
I have attempted to generate interest in OpenOffice.org and Linux at the school where I work. Students - no problem. Teachers and staff: "It's not what I use at home". Plus, in the case of staff workstations, much of the state-provided and state-mandated software, esp in business services, runs on anything as long as its windows. That being said, I still believe that we will see a growing trend towards Linux workstations for students, with a lot of that in the thin-client arena. With much of the student-facing educational software moving to a web delivery model, workstation platform choices are starting to gradually broaden. Except in those cases where vendors look at cross-platform capabilities as an afterthought. It will take some time before this reaches a tipping point.
Apparently those of us that have purchased volume licenses will now have to run some kind of auth key server to take away the pain of authorization. I bet anything they will charge for teh necessary tools to "manage" legitimate licensing on their behalf. Typical. The more of their stuff you use the more of their stuff you "have" to use. These bastards seem to think we have nothing but spare time to enforce their intellectual property rights. No offence to alternative lifestyle enthusiasts, but, to quote Jeff Spicoli, "Those guys are fags!". This may come as a shock to the powers that be at Microsoft, but I have better things to do with my time. They need to get over themselves. Their stuff is just not that great, and incredibly nauseating to manage. Linux or OS X is looking better and better all the time.
(somebody had to say it...)