Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[tom poe <tompoe AT renonevada.net>]

Hi, Leon and others:  You've got me curious, now.  I think it's time I found 
out what "killer app" level stuff that is on M$, that the Open Source 
community doesn't have.  Does anyone want to volunteer a few of them for me?  
I'm not in education, per se, so don't really know what to expect along these 
lines.  Would sure appreciate a quick, six or seven fundamental apps to look 
at, and maybe get a feel for how wide the "Open Source Education Divide" 
really is with MS.
Thanks,
Tom Poe
Reno, NV
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/
http://renotahoe.pm.org/



On Monday 22 April 2002 19:08, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Tuesday 23 April 2002 02:43, Dan Kolb wrote:
> > On Monday 22 Apr 2002 19:11 pm, Paul Nelson wrote:
> >> The 24 largest school districts in Oregon and Washington are being
> >> audited my the Microsoft marketing department for license compliance.
> >> Along with the letter from MS came an invitation to lease software from
> >> MS as part of a school agreement that requires MS licenses for every
> >> Pentium and PPC computer, even those running Linux or Mac OS.
> >
> > Who signs such agreements? Surely you should only pay for the number of
> > MS licences you use/have? If a company had, say, 200 computers all
> > running Linux (no MS software), and Microsoft decided to audit them,
> > there's absolutely nothing they could do about said company not paying
> > them any money for software.
>
> The deal works like this: Method A is that you can pay $200 a machine for
> XP, for each of your thousand machines, or Method B is that you can pay $30
> per machine per year, regardless of what it runs. Cost of Method A:
> $200,000.00; cost of Method B: $30,000.00 a year. Well and good, your
> organisation saves $80,000.00 presuming an OS turnover every 4 years, and
> spreads a $200k lump sum out over 4 years.
>
> Comes this petitioner from the Open Source movement, hawking software which
> may not be completely compatible with everything else, definitely doesn't
> run a lot of the educational apps we're used to, and doesn't save us a cent
> until we replace more than half of the machines in the school. Appealing?
>
> Proprietary alternatives have an even harder row to hoe. This is *eactly*
> the sort of arrangement that Microsoft were *convicted* for monopoly in
> court on (over OEM deals), and they're still doing it! But `we're not a
> monopoly, just misunderstood'. )-:
>
> Visit your congressman.
>
> Cheers; Leon