[huskerlug] Re: Open Office?

There are high schools in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest that decided
their costs for maintaining their existing Windows desktops and servers
were too high.  They realized that Microsoft was eating almost their
entire hardware/software budget each year, leaving little left over to
add workstations or servers.  

So, they decided to try Linux on both the desktop and for servers.  The
cost savings were immediate and dramatic.  With the money they saved
they could buy workstations for many more students (I don't recall the
exact number but it was significant).  They decided to leave a couple
PCs running Windows so they could use those apps that they couldn't find
good replacements for in FOSS (this was over 5 years ago, when
replacements were harder to find).   Microsoft sent them a bill which
charged them, IIRC, $100 for each PC that run Linux, basing their claim
on the fact that a single installation of Windows was sufficient to
"seed" the other PCs with "illegal" copies of Windows.  They were
calling the high school teachers and administrators pirates!

Some schools backed off Linux and returned as dutiful slaves to the MS
plantation.  Others eliminated Windows from all their PCs and told MS to
take a hike.  They grouped together and formed K12LTSP.   Here is how
K12LSTP is doing today:
http://k12os.org/?q=node/29

"Brandon Elementry School in Atlanta, GA faced problems typical to
schools with traditional PCs running Windows. William Fragakis, a parent
volunteer at the school, said that computers were, "slow, frequently
frozen and fraught with hardware, software and malware issues." Fragakis
talked with principals of schools using K12LTSP, who said their
computers just worked all the time. Fragakis decided to give Linux and
K12LTSP a try.

The results were impressive. Fragakis says that, "the school went from
maybe one working PC per classroom to now five or six, with some
classrooms having eight or nine. The teachers started integrating them
into a lot of the curriculum. If you have only one or two it's more of a
novelty. With five, now you can take one-third of the class and create a
center of activity. That was the tipping point.
<http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/07/10/2115242.shtml?tid=37&tid=138>

Test scores also went up. The Atlanta School Distict will pilot K12LTSP
labs in 6 more schools this year."


The trend started by the K12LSTP organization is exploding around the
USA and the rest of the planet.   All it takes are some administrators
who aren't on the take, and have some fortitude to tell Microsoft where
it can go, and Microsurfts to get with the program or find another
teaching job, unless they want to contribute, say, 30% of their salary
towards paying the Microsoft tax.

Look yourself in the mirror and admit it:  The idea that Microsoft
should be allowed to "tax" computers that ARE NOT running Windows is
both unethical, immoral and should be illegal.   In a recent patent that
I posted info about on this LUG mail list Microsoft is working itself
into an attitude that it has the RIGHT to CONFISCATE your PC if you
don't watch the ads that its monitoring technology will supervise. 
You'll give them that right by blindly and stupidly clicking throught
their EULA, just like when you did with XP, and gave the BSA the right
to enter and search your premises WITHOUT a warrant if some one who
doesn't like you lies and claims you are running illegal copies of Windows.

The reason why Microsoft does and, and the campus administrators allow
it, is because this outrage isn't being brought before the student body,
the faculty, the administrators and the public in a forceful way.   In
other words, evil exists because good people turn a blind eye or refuse
to do nothing even if they admit to its existence.

Keep paying that "tax".  Someday, you'll be complaining because you've
received a warning from some 3rd party ad vendor that you've been
monitored "clicking through" or somehow NOT WATCHING those 30 second ads
that pop up on your box every 5 minutes even when you are not online.   
You'll whine and complain, but they'll point to the EULA you clicked
through but didn't read.   If you continue to refuse to watch those ads
they'll come in and confiscate your computer.

Who will you whine and complain to then?


Carl Lundstedt wrote:
> 1) Microsoft tells the University it'll audit all computers on campus
> unless they buy into the 'Microsoft Campus License', thus taxing EVERY
> computer purchased by the University $150, whether it runs M$ or not.
>   

-- 
=========
GreyGeek
=========
Remember, a consumer is a customer with no choice.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that jail 'manages freedom.' 


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