[PLUG] Micro$oft at it again.

[Jeff A. Henshaw]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Preston Crawford" <prestonc at crawfordsolutions.com>
To: <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 3:46 PM
Subject: RE: [PLUG] Micro$oft at it again.


>
> On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, sendai wrote:
>
> > I would pay to volunteer.  I have two kids in PSD and it makes me really
> > angry that the schools can't get the money together to get decent
teaching
> > materials, but M$ expects them to pay hundreds of thousands more for a
piece
> > of fricken software.  Stupid.  I looked at the K12LTSP site and found no
>
> That's the important part, "fricken software". Even though I love
> computing and profit from it, at the end of the day class size, teacher
> quality, materials are far more important to real-world skills than being
> knowledgable about Windows. Especially since so many kids have computers
> at home. Why not Linux? It seems like a no-brainer. If it comes down to
> teachers or books or MS Word, I'm sorry, but OpenOffice will have to do.
>
> Preston

Perhaps a massive investment in Myoursoft stock by the pension fund clouds
their thinking somewhere in the chain of command at the ESD?

Or is their any stock in M$ owned by the Teachers Retirement Pension Funds
in Oregon as they are in other states?  Last time I checked the CA Teachers
were 50%  M$ stock for their Pension.

I can see where they might think being up to their neck in M$ fees helps
their pension fund value somehow,  but at a cost that is way too high in the
long run.

Anyone know who decides which software the schools use?  Why not ask them
directly if possible,  why they spend any money at M$?  Are they accountable
to anyone?  To the Taxpayers?

M$ software is kind of like a boat,  which we know is nothing but a hole in
the water that you must constantly dump ( Taxpayers ) money into.