[vox] On cheap MS licensing for schools

[Karsten M. Self]

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on Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 04:27:04PM -0800, Bill Kendrick (nbs@sonic.net) wro=
te:
>=20
> At last week's meeting, someone mentioned they were speaking to head of
> a large school district who was interested in Open Source, but didn't
> see the point, since they get MS software for extremely cheap
> (I think I heard $27/seat for the OS?)
>=20
> If I understood, and recall correctly, the money coming in was probably
> from somewhere like the Gates Foundation, and therefore could only be
> spent on stuff like that.  e.g., if they decided NOT to use the money to
> buy MS software, it's not like they'd suddenly have lots of left over cas=
h.
>=20
> I asked on the K12OSN (K-12 Open Source NOW!) mailing list, which is host=
ed
> by RedHat.com, and got some feedback I thought I'd pass here in case anyo=
ne's
> interested...

There's pricing from a California state software website indicating a
standard educational price of about $45 for OS and Office, each, XP Pro
WS and MS Office XP.

    http://ca-soft.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/

I'd return with questions about maintenance, license compliance,
viruses, and the like.  The LTSP is really slick:  a lab's worth of
systems can run from a single server, replacements are "drop-in", and
expansion is trivial.

Other benes:  no CALs, no license compliance, no license renegotiation,
no single-vendor lock-in.

The forward makes some very good points, snipped.


> Linux has a more powerful software package management tool - rpm.  And=20

I believe he misspelled 'apt-get' ;-)


Peace.

--=20
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
    They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an
    immunity to iocane powder.
    - Princess Bride

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