Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["William F. Geschwind" <geschwin AT email.unc.edu>]

All of your arguments make sense, however this is not clear from the
Microsoft page about accepting donated computers (which pretty much is the
gist of this whole discussion).

Now, if MS discourages institutions from accepting donated computers, this
does bring up another question: what to do with those millions of computers
that were built and sold during the 80's and 90's and are now hopelessly
obsolete? Regardless of what software is on a computer, it's generally not a
good idea for an institution to accept something that is more than a few
generations out of date (Cliff Stoll has an excellent discussion about this
in his book "High-Tech Heretic"). So regardless of whether institutions can
accept donated computers or not, what will happen to all of that hopelessly
obsolete equipment that is cluttering up your closet in a few years, a
decade or several decades down the road? My closet is already full of old
junk, and I just don't have room in it for one more generation of computer
stuff. Are we going to eventually have computer junkyards littering the
countryside or outskirts of town like we have automobile junkyards today?
What about the environmentally hazardous materials inside the computers
(lead solder, batteries, etc.)? Has there been a discussion on this subject
here in the past before I joined, and if so, any good suggestions?

- Bill

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Minton" <dminton AT mindspring.com>
To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 11:09 PM
Subject: [internetworkers] Re: FUD alert!


> I don't think MS counts your first example as a real computer, since it
> didn't come with MS software pre-installed. I don't think they really care
> about the box, they just want to keep track of installs of their OS and
the
> install disks.
>
> In your second case, I don't think MS cares if the software is installed,
> just that the original install disks come with the computer. This is
> probably to make you buy additional licenses for any new computer you buy
> (can't build your own, as in your first example, and use the MS OS license
> from the hardware you are donating).
>
> I suspect this is to encourage institutions to buy new computers, with a
new
> license, rather then accept a donation, which would not contribute to the
MS
> bottom line.
>
> David
>
> On 4/18/02 10:59 PM, "William F. Geschwind" <geschwin AT email.unc.edu>
wrote:
>
> > I'm sorry, but this is the biggest crock of nonsense I've heard in a
long
> > time. What if somebody wants to donate an old PC that was built from
> > scratch? (basically by going to your local friendly computer parts store
and
> > buying a motherboard, case, memory, hard drive, etc. and bolting all the
> > parts together - I have done this time and time again over the years).
No
> > operating system comes with a PC of this type straight out of the box
(well,
> > actually an ABit mobo I bought two years ago did come with some version
of
> > Linux on the driver CD!!). Should a cash-starved institution
automatically
> > reject something like that just because it didn't come out of the box
with
> > an O/S? What if you put either a store-bought full version of a MS OS or
> > some sort of open source OS on it? Is it suddenly not legal anymore?
What a
> > load of $hit!!
> >
> > Or looking at this from another standpoint, my boss at UNC tells me that
> > when I prepare to take old machines to surplus, that I should wipe all
of
> > the software off of the hard drive, including the OS, mainly to avoid
> > liability issues in the case that sensitive information should be on the
> > computer when it was taken out of service. If I have a batch of
computers
> > (usually a dozen or three at a time) to take to Ye Ole Surplus Shoppe,
I'll
> > be damned if I spend a day installing an OS on each of them. They get
them
> > on a pallet with empty hd's. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from
what I
> > understand, computers from UNC's surplus shop end up at central surplus
in
> > Raleigh, where they are refurbished with prison labor and then
distributed
> > to more needy school districts throughout the state.
> >
> > - Bill
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Josef Komenda" <joe AT komejo.com>
> > To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
> > Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 5:45 PM
> > Subject: [internetworkers] FUD alert!
> >
> >
> >> This is interesting:
> >>
> >> http://www.microsoft.com/education/?id=DonatedComputers
> >>
> >> "If you feel it is in the best interest of your school to accept the
> > donated
> >> PCs, make sure that the hardware donation includes the original
operating
> >> system software. Keeping the operating system with the PC is not just a
> >> great benefit - it is a legal requirement."
> >>
> >> Joe K
> >>
> >>
> >> ---
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