Re: [seul-edu] Draft Review

[Ed Lawson <elawson@lawson-philpot.com>]

I have been following this issue silently and have a few comments:

1.    According to the Register article, MS does say on its webpages 
that a donor can, in lieu of supplying all the license docs, provide a 
statement that the software is valid which will be accepted as proof of 
license.  

2.    Does anyone have any evidence that schools are not accepting 
donated equipment or that organizations that refurbish donated equipment 
are stopping or feel they are being hindered?  I know one operation 
which refurbishes computers for schools which has an 
agreement/understanding with MS that it can install Win95 on older 
machines without licenses as such.  No problem at all.  On machines 
capable of running Win200/XP it is another matter.

3.    I believe it is more important to rationally and accurately 
dissect the statements concerning the donation of equipment being made 
by MS than it is to use the issue as a springboard to parade out the 
usual list of horribles about MS and its products.  The real issue is 
that people could be misled into thinking they cannot accept donated 
machines unless the machines have an OS installed and a valid license 
for that OS.  

4.    Before talking about security, consider the recent alert 
concerning Mozzilla.

5.    IMHO it is not easy to convince someone to move to Linux/Open 
Source by saying how bad their current software is.  It might not be 
great, but they use it, it works acceptably, and you are making them 
look bad.  Sell your product, don't badmouth the competitor's product. 
 Pointing out differences and presenting you product in a favorable way 
when comparing them is not badmouthing.  Nobody cares for nor pays much 
atention to the person who reactively and negatively peseverates.

My $.02

Ed Lawson