Windows on an iMac (says the invoice); Red Hat's Alternative

A user writes "According to a story at The Register, schools who want to take advantage of educational bulk licensing agreements with Microsoft have to count all PCs (and Macs!), even those not running Windows." One package of software applies to all installed PCs and Macs, including those running Linux or BSD, so schools end up paying for stations that Windows (and other programs) cannot or do not run on. Microsoft's justification is that the agreement requires an "institution-wide commitment." Coincidentally, bc90021 points out that "RedHat announced its Linux Pilot Program for schools today. Designed to improve the overall learning experience for children, seven North Carolina school districts have already joined. One county director is quoted as saying: 'With the money we saved from not buying proprietary licenses, the school district purchased additional resources that directly [a]ffected the learning experience of our students and brought us into the 21st century.'"

Virtual PC

[cliffy2000]

I wonder if the school could buy the stripped down (OS-less) Connectix Virtual PC for their Macs... and use the Microsoft Windows license through emulation. Just a thought and a way to at least somewhat compensate for the additional expenses.

Is an AMD a Pentium?

[MagnaMark]

From the article [theregister.co.uk]:

In the US "Microsoft Schools Agreement 3.0," for example, "100 per cent of all Pentiums, Power Macs, iMacs or better" are specified, whereas the FAQ document for the UK Microsoft School Agreement says "You need to count 100% of all Pentiums, Power Macs and iMacs."

So AMD's are OK? Phew!

Office

[tombou]

The Microsoft agreements provide other software than the OS. Most Mac users use Office and therefore can benefit from an agreement. At the University level, it is most beneficial to have agreements that cover entire campuses. It is too bad Apple has not been as aggressive in the educational markets (like they used to be). Now Apple just has token programs like the iBooks in Maine. Too bad we dont live in Maine. Lets not talk about Star Office for Win32---Yukk. And LInux (believe it or not) does not have serious market penetration...just the way it is.

Does MS Realize They Are In The Middle Of A Trial?

[burgburgburg]

When you keep seeing this stuff coming out, each time a more egregious, ridiculous example of monopolistic greed run crazy, you have to keep asking: Do they remember that they are in the penalty phase of an antitrust trial? That there are 9 brave states looking to cut them off? That the EU can still take a crack at it? Are things so isolated up at Redmond that nobody there recognizes how astonishing bad all of this makes them look?

Is this legal in the USA?

[theolein]

I'm not excatly sure how legal something like this is and what rights MS has to prosecute if the school simply ignores them and only notes PCs runnning windows?

Don't the schools ever bother to contact their lawyers when faced with something like this? Don't any of these people write to their political representatives over issues like this? I was under the impression that in the US you can sue over something like MS "requiring an institution wide commitment". Isn't that criminal in the US? Since when does MS have the right to require *anything* whatsoever. Isn't this in the legue of charging for services not rendered, or goods not sold?

I am shocked and amazed by the arrogance of that company. I wrote a post asking if someday MS would make it a criminal offence to not have a PC in your house with Windows on it. This does seem very close to that sort of behaviour. I would assume that others would be too because it the future of their children that is at stake.

Re:Educational software for Linux?

[cduffy]

Much of the software that gets run on school computers are stuff like web browsers and word processors. In fact, I'd expect that they'd feel more of a gap with regard to desktop publishing software than educational software -- offloading students to "educational software" rather than actually teaching them is just bad practice, and none of the teachers I know (and I've a few in the family) are guilty of it.

Okay, there is software that's genuinely useful in an educational setting -- stuff like logo, for instance, or Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Logo runs anywhere, and Mavis Beacon has (less pretty, but more portable) Free equivalents. Math Blaster and their ilk try to be a replacement for classroom instruction, and suck at it; no school worth their beans will try to use that stuff anyhow.

Revenge of the Consent Decree?

[bluestar]

Wasn't part of the old Consent Decree that MS thumbed their noses at, that requiring OEMs to pay MS for every PC they sold, even those without Windows, was illegal and had to stop?

How is this different?

Thin Clients Are Exempt

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that computers running as UNIX thin clients are exempt from having to pay. To be a thin client the computer must have no harddrives and must boot from the server. We are working on a project using ltsp to get Unix labs around having to pay the per computer license. Oddly,we will still have to pay $50 a year for the Linux server, but its better than paying for the other 10-25 boxes as well.

Interestingly, I wonder if macs would be exempt if the harddrives were stripped and they were booted using OS X Server and NetBoot as thin clients.

Re:Are we teaching the kids...

[Dephex Twin]

For kids who want to learn what makes computers tick, sure.

In driver's ed you don't learn to build a car, you learn to drive it. Likewise, in junior high/high school computer class you learn to operate a computer, not program it.

Kids who want to delve into computers further should be able to do so, in specialty courses.

Not to say that the general classes should be Windows. I think you'd have more kids be genuinely excited to use computers if they were Macs, because Mac OS (X) is just such a pleasing, non-intimidating platform.

mark

Re:Oracle and California explained!

[BeBoxer]

I paid $25,000 to your campaign, and I want my $95M in revenues, dammit!"

Ya know, it doesn't suprise me that much that politicians are for sale. But I never cease to be amazed at how low their prices seem to be.

Age Old Microsoft Business Practice

[nautical9]

Although it's absolutely amazing Microsoft is still getting away with this, it's certainly business as usual.

As detailed in Jerry Kaplan's excellent book Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure [amazon.com], about the rise and fall of the GO Corporation, one of the first anti-trust cases to be brought up against Microsoft involved a very similar license (circa late-80's, early-90's).

Basically, every retailer who wanted to sell Microsoft products (and who didn't - even then it was very popular software) had to sign a contract with Microsoft stating that for every competitor's product they sell, they had to pay a 100% royalty back to Microsoft! (you read that right - here's a quick example: if the retailer buys both a MS product and a GO product for $50 a piece, and typically doubles the price to $100 to make a profit, they'd have to pay Microsoft $50 if they sold the GO product, so the retailer is basically forced to sell the GO product for double their usual markup ($150) - 50 to GO, 50 to Microsoft, and 50 to themselves). And as icing on the cake, the retailer wasn't allowed to mention the terms of the contract to anyone.

The only way GO eventually found out was from a rare retailer who had seen the contract, but decided not to sign it (and therefore not to sell any MS products in his store).

Bizarre? I'd say. Illegal? Oh yeah. I think that's a text-book definition of anti-competitive behavior. And it's basically the exact same thing they're doing to the schools - the school still has to pay Microsoft for using a competing product.

Sadly, the DOJ didn't pursue it to closure because they couldn't get enough witnesses (they were too scared to lose Microsoft's business).

(OT: it's a great book, read it if you get a chance - it should have been required-reading for all dot-coms).

Re:How much money can be saved . . .

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

But in elementary school??? Pffft, why bother. You might as well have a TV and a nintendo too while you're at it.

Well, if you use the computer like a TV or a Nintendo, then yeah. And alas most educational software doesn't rise even to that level. But if the computers were used as real data-loggers, real info-miners, and real automation-control units, then those kids would be learning to cope in the world of 2025 (their eventual home) than currently is the case. Computers are way more important for their conditional-logic abilities than for number crunching... and no matter how well the old pen-and-paper has served us in the past, it clearly is not the info tech of the future.

Re:Virtual PC

[moosesocks]

Does installing WINE on a *nix machine count?

I mean, after all, it provides virtually the same functionality as windows.

Yeah, it sucks, but did you look at the pricing?

[Corporate Drone]

OK, it strikes a nerve to see them set those kinds of terms and conditions, but look at the prices:

Windows upgrades $18

Core $15

Office $24

all three of the above $48

SQL server, Visio, FrontPage, Project, Publisher $5 (each)

Vis Studio $2

Looking at their education main page, I believe that this is an annual license fee. However, let's assume you're the head of I.T. for a school district. Do you really think you're going to get a better deal than that for those licenses?

Don't think so. So, you swallow your indignation (if you have any), and buck up...

Re:Are we teaching the kids...

[Dephex Twin]

if id been using linux since 1st grade, in 10th grade computer classes would be more like, "Honors Compiler Design" not WORD!

Yes, but is this an essential course for everyone to learn? Will most people need to be able to program compilers in their professional lives, or use Word?

I say have the advanced programming classes. Have good teachers to teach them. But I don't see why even most students would want or need to take them.

mark

Re:Are we teaching the kids...

[pohl]

How many public K-12 schools need to go into how an OS works? How many elementary and middle school students can take programming classes, so they can get into OS design and implementation in high school?

There are many aspects of learning about computers that can be considered "learning how it ticks" that are nowhere near learning about process scheduling and memory management. Take, for example, the command line. I'm teaching my 12 year old to program in java on OSX. I'm not using any of the fancy GUI development tools. Instead, I've got Terminal.app configured so that it gives a Matrix-esque translucent green-phosphor appearance, and I'm having him learn to use a handful of simple commands and the bare minimum emacs commands (^X^C to get out of it). He compiles on the command line. He invokes his programs on the command line. He's learned more in the 3 weeks that we've been at it than he has in his entire life of pointing and clicking -- and he's been using computers since he was 4. And he's hardly past HelloWorld yet. Schools could benefit from seeing the value of teaching kids to interact with computers through the language of the CLI instead of the point-and-grunt semantics of the GUI.

This is just wrong.

[jettaman16v]

It seems to me what MS is doing is just WRONG. Windows, like it or not, is the standard and children need to learn it. MS knows this and is exploiting the situation, effectively holding our already under funded school system upside down until all the change falls out. What I find worst of all is that school systems who acquire alternative OSes are being punished by Microsoft's licensing system. What are the chances of any school system trying an alternative OS if they either have to get screwed on licensing by MS or make a switchover to Linux or Mac in one fell swoop?

how can one teacher teach 200 students?

[HanzoSan]

We will soon find out, because the population increases and the amount of teaches decreases.

As the difficulity of the work increases the need for teachers increases.

Dont you think, interactive software would teach a student just as well as a teacher could?????

Heavy handed BS

[Nonillion]

This is exactly the kind of heavy handed bull shit that is turning me away form Micro$oft. Micro$oft has no right to charge licence fees for machines that don't have Windows installed, or demand that donated computers keep the Windows installation. Micro$oft didn't make the computer, it just ran their OS.

It would be like Sun comming in and demanding them to pay licences for Solaris. Just how many more billion$ does Micro$oft need? Using these kind of tactics against schools is just uncalled for. The time has long since come to get schools and government off of Micro$soft software and on to Linux.

Re:How much money can be saved . . .

[mpe]

MS brought in the idea of 'training for business'. Instead of just using a word processor to produce a report or essay it became 'necessary' to learn to use computers as a help to later getting a job. This 'meant' that students had to learn what business wanted: Word, Excel, Access.

In other words, replace education with training.

The assumption was made that when the student went looking for a job 6 or 7 years later the MS software will still be what everyone is using.

How will knowing details of Office 2000 or XP be much use with using Office 2009 anyway?