[seul-edu] MS targeting schools for software audits...

[Paul Nelson <pnelson@riverdale.k12.or.us>]

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.

Steve Duin, a writer for the Oregonian has a column at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/all_wire_stories/101386428029222529.xml

If that url is too long try this one:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/

Portland Public Schools, after a successful test of K12LTSP in one
middle school, is installing K12LTSP in 10 more labs this week. They
have plans for 100 more next year. 

To give you an idea of the scale of the problem facing a large district
like PPS, they have 25,000 PCs. A MS school agreement lease of software
could cost the district over $1,000,000 a year. Just buying a virus
package would cost $250,000 a year.

Use of K12LTSP and other open source, free software is a viable
alternative. Schools are starting to figure this out. 

Quoting Steve Duin and Scott Robinson, CIO of PPS in the article above,
"... Thus, it's not surprising that several schools are asking, along
with Robinson in Portland, "whether we want to continue with the
Microsoft platform."
..."

If there ever was a time when using Linux on desktops in schools and
public agencies makes sense, it's NOW when MS is shooting itself in the
foot with predatory pricing practices.

What can you do?

DOWNLOAD a free copy of K12LTSP, get together with your local Linux User
Group and plan a demonstration for your local schools.
http://k12ltsp.org/download.html

TALK with your local government and school leaders and let them know
that you expect fiscal responsibility when it comes to buying software.
Review their purchasing guidelines to see if open source solutions are
given priority over proprietary solutions.

DEMONSTRATE - Offer open houses for schools and government agencies to
showcase open source success. If we all did this on the same day all
over the country we could make a bigger splash. We released K12LTSP 1.0
on July 4th last year and had a standing room only open house.

We have better software because it comes from a more effective and more
responsive development model. Users are encouraged to collaborate and
improve the code. This represents a paradigm shift that may be hard to
understand for many. We have to demonstrate success stories and let
folks know that the open source revolution is not a fluke. It's just a
better way of producing the software we all use every day.

;-) Paul
K12LTSP.org
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Paul Nelson................................pnelson@riverdale.k12.or.us
Riverdale School..............11733 SW Breyman Ave. Portland, OR 97219
(503)636-4511......fax(503)635-6342.....http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us