Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[tom poe <tompoe AT renonevada.net>]

The Red Hat's alternative proposal includes the following:
Microsoft redirects the value of their proposed software donation to the 
purchase of additional hardware for the school districts. This would increase 
the number of computers available under the original proposal from 200,000 to 
more than one million, and would increase the number of systems per school 
from approximately 14 to at least 70.
Red Hat, Inc. will provide free of charge the open-source Red Hat Linux 
operating system, office applications and associated capabilities to any 
school system in the United States.
Red Hat will provide online support for the software through the Red Hat 
Network.
Unlike the Microsoft proposal, which has a five-year time limit at which 
point schools would have to pay Microsoft to renew their licenses and upgrade 
the software, the Red Hat proposal has no time limit. Red Hat will provide 
software upgrades through the Red Hat Network online distribution channel.

Hi: It's the phrase, "- - -through Red Hat Network online distribution 
channel" that makes me wonder if there are hidden costs to schools, and what 
they might end up being?
Thanks,
Tom Poe
Reno, NV
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/
http://renotahoe.pm.org/



On Thursday 25 April 2002 11:51, Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
> At 02:38 PM 4/25/2002, Tom wrote:
> >On Thursday 25 April 2002 11:06, Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
> >- - -snip - - -
> >
> > > I have to agree with Alan and Michael.  While I think a simple,
> > > self-contained educational ISO is a great place to start (and we still
> > > haven't def
>
> [snip]
>
> >Hi:  I have set the "try to get informational interviews" thingy aside [as
> > an outsider, my requests, I am sad to report, have gone unanswered from
> > school principals - must have been a bad idea], and am now working with
> > two fellows that understand the tech end, to put a "starting block" demo
> > in place.  We have a server and one, maybe two x-terminals as our
> > starting point.  We are thinking, today, about whether the server will be
> > Debian, or Slackware.  Any consensus out there, yet?  The hesitation I
> > have about the RH approach, is that I have the feeling that their
> > "support" package is significantly higher than we might arrange for, with
> > some other distributions?  In other words, I think there was talk at some
> > point, that the networks would somehow be tied directly to RH "in house".
> >  Much along the lines of an ASP setup.  Anyone know, what the situation
> > is at this time?
>
> I don't think you will ever get consensus on what distro to use...
>
> What are you talking about regarding "in house networks" and support?
>
> Steve