Re: [school-discuss] License Flipping

[Richard Andrews <bbmaj7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

--- Daniel Howard <dhhoward@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Another school district here in the Atlanta area considered moving to 
> Linux thin clients after watching APS, but initially doomed the 
> adventure because some folks insisted that every Windows app they 
> currently use must also be supported.  Later, I gave their senior 
> leadership in IT and in Instruction a briefing on how to make the 
> change, and one of my bullet points on a final slide on "How to kill a 
> pilot effort" was to insist that all current Windows apps be supported. 
>   Rather I argued, moving to web-based apps would free them to choose 
> any OS (Linux, MAC, or Windows) as the preferred OS in the future, 
> wherever the industry went.  That notion apparently sunk in, as they're 
> doing a pilot of Linux thin clients as we speak.

Given that desktop PCs already run Windows, maybe another transition option is
to run X under Windows, eg. cygwin. I would setup everyones common desktops as
remote X sessions on a central server. Then Windows apps could be used locally
for particular purposes but you could keep the works-the-same-everywhere X
desktops.
In this fashion general-purpose lab PCs could run Linux natively and the same
desktop could be reached from Windows as well, and staff could keep Windows for
those I-really-have-to-have-that applications.

Has anyone tried this approach?



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