[PLUG] Micro$oft at it again.

Jason Van Cleve jason at vancleve.com
Wed Apr 24 07:30:43 UTC 2002


You may be right, Terry.  The military analogy came to mind just because I
see a number of people like me who want to fight this thing but don't really
know how.  If they had a weapon, they'd use it.  I may write my congressman,
but will it really help?  I mean, it isn't very direct, is it?  And this
issue calls for direct and immediate action.

I'm sensing the basic idea among this group is, let's try to save these
schools some money (well, save ourselves money, ultimately) by installing
Linux on some of their computers before Microsoft comes after them.  Now I
would bet most of the people who've offered to help have some computer
skills.  I do Web development and have for years.  And I run some services
on a Linux server here at home.  I am not, as you know, very knowledgeable
of Linux, but with a little assistance, I could learn to install and
configure Red Hat or Mandrake on a variety of hardware, and I would be
willing to support schools learning to use it.  If we could form an actual
network of Linux admin's, geeks, and enthusiasts, maybe some sort of
hierarchy of expertise, then perhaps we could approach some of the schools
under fire (sorry, I can't help it--the battle metaphor just works for me
here) with a promise to help them get on their feet with a non-M$ platform.
The time is right, yes?  We could give ourselves a name to make it official,
or we could work on behalf of K12Linux.  BTW, anyone know if those folks
have a plan for this sixty-day ultimatum?  What resources have they?  It
seems to me what would make Linux most attractive to these schools is
on-site assistance and a commitment of time, and that's what I see being
offered in this list right now.

(Personally, I've had a hard time getting Linux down very well, but I'd like
to eventually; so for me, the knowledge I would accumulate would be worth my
time.)

Of course, I suppose this is just what you say should be taken to plug-edu,
Terry.  I presume that list has been more or less dormant, though; so again,
I wonder how many of us would follow the discussion there (I've read the
five messages there currently).  It seems we have about sixty days to do
something about this.  I suspect if anything's going to happen, it's
likelier to happen here.  And while I appreciate your insight into open
source development, I doubt whether telling us willing participants to work
on what interests us will do much to alleviate the costs our local schools
are facing in the very near future.

So this is just me taking a pathetic little stab at it.  I'm sure I've
overlooked some obvious points, but above all, I'm willing to invest myself,
at least in the short term, to countering this M$ audit BS, but I need some
direction if I'm going to be effective.  Just so.  Education is one of the
few things that really matter to me, and I've been watching our schools
falter for too long.

--Jason


> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-admin at lists.pdxlinux.org
> [mailto:plug-admin at lists.pdxlinux.org]On Behalf Of Terry Griffin
> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 10:26 PM
> To: plug at lists.pdxlinux.org
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Micro$oft at it again.
>
>
> There's giving useful instructions (better, useful ideas) on what
> people can
> do, and then there's coming up with those ideas in the first place. My
> thinking was to move the latter off the main list.
>
> Keep in mind also that a lot of people that would otherwise be inclined
> to participate in PLUG activities don't because of the high traffic (and
> sometimes very low signal-to-noise ratio) on the main list. It's
> just more
> than some people can grok every day.
>
> I think the army/commander analogy isn't going to fly. Open Source and
> Linux is driven by distributed processing, human style. Linus doesn't
> tell people what part of the kernel to work on. Whenever asked he just
> says "Work on what interests you." Out of that one command to the masses
> he gets a pretty nice kernel.
>
> This MS offensive has sparked *my* interest. Before this episode my
> attitude was that open source would inevitibly win out over closed source
> Actually, I still think that's true, but this MS thing has really
> cheesed me
> off and I'm in the mood to speed things up a little. Problem is,
> I lack for
> ideas beyond the usual set. (Write your congressman, phone the neighbors,
> wake the kids, etc.) PLUG-edu seemed like the place to start some
> discussions about this. In the mean time I might just write my
> congressman.
>
> So what interests YOU? There are lots of ways to help out in the
> Open-Source
> world without being a programmer. Here are some (though not
> directly related
> to the immediate problem with MS in PDX):
>
> - Writing documentation
> - Translating documentation
> - Testing software
> - Teaching others how to use the software
> - Teaching others how to get connected to the open-source community
>
> Do what interests you.
>
> Terry
>
> On Tuesday 23 April 2002 07:56 pm, Jason V.C. wrote:
> > Terry,
> >
> > Perhaps, but this would seem a pretty relevant issue to PLUG at large.
> > It's cool that so many people are coming out of the woodwork to fight in
> > this battle, but I suggest if their help is really needed, they must be
> > kept in the loop, even if they don't bother or are not able to join a
> > separate list. And they ought to be given useful instructions
> on what they
> > can do (myself especially), according to their skills.  I
> suggest to fight
> > effectively, this willing army will need a commander.
> >
> > --Jason V. C.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: plug-admin at lists.pdxlinux.org
> > > [mailto:plug-admin at lists.pdxlinux.org]On Behalf Of Terry Griffin
> > > Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 3:00 PM
> > > To: plug at lists.pdxlinux.org
> > > Subject: Re: [PLUG] Micro$oft at it again.
> > >
> > > davin may wrote:
> > > > I joined this list yesterday after reading about the
> > > > school audit thing on slashdot.  There was some mention
> > > > of volunteers helping some schools switch to linux .. is
> > > > this actually  happening?
> > > >
> > > > I'm going to have some free time as my current contract is
> > > > up in a week or so....
> > >
> > > I think it's time to revive the old PLUG-edu discussion list.
> It's been
> > > around a long time but not used much lately. I think
> Microsoft has just
> > > given us a very good use for it. Subscribe at:
> > >
> > >    https://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-edu
> > >
> > > The first time PLUG-edu got a lot of use one of the results was the
> > > the K-12 Linux project which you can find here:
> > >
> > >    http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/
> > >
> > > This is probably one of the things that got MS sniffing around here in
> > > the first place. The question now is, who's going to learn the lesson
> > > from out of this episode? Portland Schools for experimenting
> with Linux
> > > and attracting the attetion of MS, or MS for obnoxious behavior?
> > > Personally, I'd like to go for the latter. PLUG-edu anyone?
> > >
> > > Terry
> > >
> > > --
> > > Terry Griffin <griffint at pobox.com>
> > > http://www.blindchicken.com/~terryg/
> > >
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> > > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
> >
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