[PLUG] RE: Steve Duin's column of 5/21/02

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Ted Mittelstaedt                                       tedm at toybox.placo.com
Author of:                           The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
Book website:                          http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Eric Harrison [mailto:eharrison at mail.mesd.k12.or.us]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 1:17 AM
>To: PLUG
>Cc: Greg Long; KLUG; pdx-freebsd at toybox.placo.com; Steveduin at aol.com
>Subject: Re: [PLUG] RE: Steve Duin's column of 5/21/02
>
>
>
>As a general rule, one should avoid extrapolating a single quote in a
>news article into a whole theory.
>

Um, the other 3 quotes plus the article title all fit the tone of this
one.

>First, Scott's new on the job, he comes from the corporate world.

ie: comes from the Microsoft world.  OK that answers where he got his
initial bias from, why is he still keeping it?

>
>PPS had made *MAJOR* investments into Linux long before this whole audit
>fiasco. They can use Linux as a serious hammer because they KNOW that
>it is a serious hammer.
>

Then Scott's quotes are even more strange.  He's been exposed to Linux, he's
seen it's usefulness.  Yet he had not one good thing to say about it in the
article.

Of course, I'll allow that it very well may have been that 95% of what
Scott said to Steve Duin was in praise of Linux and 5% was condemming
Microsoft, and Steve simply scrapped the 95%.  That is, of course, why
Steve was cc'd on this.

>Linux is the *ONLY* rational option in many cases right now. Only one choice

I've never disputed this assumption.  What I see is a situation where
clearly Open Source is superior than Windows in almost every way for most
everything.  Remember I did write a book with this very premise.  Yet,
despite this clearly demonstrated FACT, there's still a ton of foot-dragging
among the majority of corporate, government, and educational users.  And worse
is a lot of Linux supporters ignoring this and pretending that all Linux
adoptors are running full speed to Linux like it's the greatest thing since
sliced bread.  According to this article they aren't, they are being forced
and dragged kicking and screaming.

>is often bad news, even if it is Linux.

More Linux blinders.  All open source is not Linux, there's the BSDs,
remember.
Also there's freely available Solaris licenses too (or used to be although I
think that program finally went away)

There's a lot of other options besides Windows and Linux, but they are
lumped in the "It's not Windows" category.  Are you saying that if a
school district dumps Windows that all they have left is a single choice?

>
>MS never gave schools software for free. MS has historically, and currently
>still does, give big discounts to schools. They seem to trying hard to change
>that, but that is not the primary issue.
>

Microsoft never gave anything away free, not officially.  But unofficially is
a totally different story.  All DOS versions were effectively designed
to propagate themselves through pirate copies.  They even gave you the
software
and instructions to do it in the manual.  Even Win 3.1 was like
this.  They didn't even bother making a logical serial number a requirement
until Win95.  And they could have easily serialized NT and tied it into the
MAC address of the NIC card, like Sun does with it's license manager and
the MAC address for sparcstations, because there's no point to running NT
without a network.  (except for modded embedded copies would of course
would have serialization modded)

There's many, many little tricks that Microsoft could have done over the
years that would have made piracy of it's products a lot harder (not
impossible, just harder) but they did nothing until XP.  It's not surprising
that licensing is now a big hairy issue, coincidential to Windows Product
Activation.

Until the AntiTrust trial, Microsoft followed a policy that greately
encouraged
piracy of it's OS.  You may disagree but this is the same thing as giving
away copies for free.  Post-AntiTrust Microsoft suddenly realized that it
would be a good idea to make some people not run Windows anymore so the
OS market would no longer be monopolized.  Those illigitimate copies all the
sudden became a huge liability.  It's no coincidence that WPA came out AFTER
Microsoft lost the Anti-Trust trial.

>>2) They still think the world (including Microsoft) thinks that schools
>>are a perfect advertising venue for products and will do anything to
>>get them placed, and that when they roar about what they are doing, the
>>world trembles.
>
>Nope, the "advertising" piece is a secondary issue at best. Apple made huge
>inroads by giving away software/hardware to schools.

For 2 decades Apple followed the "as the bough is bent so the tree grows"
logic
hoping that schools would graduate hordes of rabid Mac users that would
rise up and smash the corporate Windows dominance and create an All Mac
corporate world.  Heck they even made a commercial about it.

It never happened.

> Red Hat is kicking
>around doing the same right now. It makes long-term sense.
>

There is no proof that shoving your product down school kids throats will
result in
greater sales long term.  Ask Apple who finally had to turn to the Open Source
UNIX crowd to make sales, a-la MacOS X.

>The primary issues are that 1) current MS software will not run on 90% of
>the computers in schools,

So what.  Is there now a virus that renders all Win95/MS Word 95 installs
nonfunctional?  Is there a reason that we need to keep upgrading the system
software into nonfunctionality?

>2) it is not currently possible to buy new
>computers, and 3) the licensing requirements change over time and are never
>clearly defined, making it almost impossible for most schools to PROVE that
>they are 100% compliant no matter how hard they try.
>

Which is a great argument for turning your back on all Microsoft software and
letting it slide into the history books.  Let it go.

>There is simply a huge disconnect between what MS demands and what the
>schools are capable of dealing with. This is driving MS out of the school
>market, which is the jist of the whole thing, for better or worse.
>

What is driving Microsoft out of the school market is that Linux
and FreeBSD and Open Source are simply BETTER.

Disguise it how you like to make others feel better but there's nothing that
Microsoft sales is doing that is causing this to happen.

It's Microsoft development.  To put it simply the newer and newer versions of
Microsoft software products are piggy, buggy, and offer no additional
functionality of any consequence that the older versions have.

Everyone else has recognized that Microsoft hit the area of diminishing
returns
in the Windows architecture with Win98 and Win2K.  That is why Costco has
4 piles of Win98 and 1 pile of WinXP for sale.

If current Windows was so spectacularly better than current Linux then we
wouldn't be having this discussion, instead the schools wouldn't be using
Linux at all.  At some level even the school admins recognize that Microsoft
software is legacy garbage that's holding them back, they just are too
afraid or scared or whatever to say that they are switching to Linux because
it's
lightyears better than Windows, rather than this disgusting "Microsoft is
driving me to Linux" handwringing.  Ugh, it's enough to make me throw up.

>>3) They think that "getting serious" about Linux is going to give them
>>some sort of club they can use to beat pricing lower with Microsoft.
>
>Nope, even if MS "gave" us all the software we wanted, it still wouldn't
>fix the problems. The driving force behind the Linux in Schools projects
>has never been licensing costs. That is a big benefit, but it is not the
>driving force. The problems I see are:
>
>1) As noted earlier, most school's PCs are ancient. They won't run
>the latest-
>   n-greatest MS software. There is NO HOPE of replacing these machines in
>   the near future. We have to live with what we have. What we have to live
>   with is no longer supported by MS.
>
>2) Schools are almost always cross-platform, and MS software STINKS at
>   cross-platform compatibility. This causes a huge amount of headaches for
>   the schools, just dealing with different versions of Word documents can be
>   a nightmare
>
>3) Windows desktops take a lot more manpower to keep running than anything
>   else. Walk into any lab and 9 times out of 10 a machine with a "out of
>   order" sign on it will be a windows machine - even in predominatly Mac
>   schools. The folks responsible for maintaining the labs are SICK of
>   dealing with windows problems and are often quite excited to use ANYTHING
>   ELSE.
>
>4) Every major disruption we've seen in the last two or three years has
>   been due to MS bugs/security flaws.
>
>5) Everytime we come up with a way to mitigate one of the above problems,
>   MS comes up with a new way to license their software to make the "fix"
>   financially impractical. Wanting TWO licenses for machines with imaged
>   (such as Ghost) drives, for example. MS's licensing for their Terminal
>   Services is the #1 reason I hear for failed and/or aborted deployment
>   attempts.
>
>With the exception of the last one, licensing is not a factor. Licensing is
>just the straw that broke the camel's back. The fundemental problems run
>much deeper.
>
>>In short, the quote above is a perfect example of someone still clinging
>>to that Microsoft pacifier.  He may not be sucking on it every day of
>>his life anymore but he's very unhappy as all get out that he can't.
>
>I don't quite get this one, it seems like grasping at straws to me,
>so I'll just skip it.
>

This is the heart of your problem.  Re-read your 5 reasons.  Not one is
a Linux positive, EVEN THOUGH they could be rewritten as such.  All are
sour-grapes Microsoft negatives.  Even reason 3, you use the euphamisim of
"anything else" instead of just saying "Linux" even though we all know that
MacOS Classic is a has-been that 99% of your students over age 12 probably
can't
stand.  But I guess you got to say "anything else" to not upset the retrograde
Macophiles that would come out of the woodwork and drown you with lattes
and run over you with their New Bugs if they thought you wern't including
their
precious baby.

You know, NetBSD is there for you, I've got it running on a Mac right here.
And I even heard a little voice out of that Mac saying "Thank you" when I
booted it for the first time.  Heresay I know.

You are just hating letting go of Windows aren't you!  Admit it to yourself
and the truth will set you free.  Linux is simply better than Windows.  Come
on, you can say it, see it's not that bad. ;-)

>
>>Um, why do they care?  Just embrace Open Source and you don't have to pay
>>attention to Microsoft or worry about figuring them out.
>
>We care because we have to. My whole goal in life, and the K12Linux project
>in specific, is to not care. Note that the "mascot" of K12LTSP is a toaster:
>http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/toaster/ ... do you really care what
>brand of toaster you have? Do you have to worry about what type of plug your
>toaster has or what brand of bread it is compatible with?
>

Don't you see what you are doing here?

You are simply saying that not having to care about Windows is a goal, meaning
that your not there now.  Well with this attitude you are simply
self-reinforcing
yourself that you aren't there.

YOU ARE ALREADY THERE NOW!  YOU DON'T HAVE TO CARE!!

If every single Windows system in the school district save the ones that
the kids owned were to be switched off tomorrow, would anybody die?  NOOOOOO!

All it takes is switching them off.

Say the word and I'll show up tomorrow morning and start deleting
Windows partitions on every school district owned system you have.  In
a week I will have permanently fixed your Windows licensing problem - you
simply won't have one anymore.

You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs.  You can make the fanciest
long-term gradual transition plan you want, people will still complain.  It's
like ripping the bandage off quickly or slowly.  Your trying to rip it off
a millimeter at a time and the patient is screaming to death.  Just pull the
thing off all at once and the whiners will all have to take a number to
get to you, and by the time that their turn is up, time will have made their
problem irrelevant.

People find ways to cope with any change.  Your under the mistake impression
that you are somehow morally obligated to be there for all your poor Windows
users when their toy gets taken away, and you don't realize your letting the
biggest chance in the world get away from you.  You also don't realize that if
you be there for them that they will consume all your time with their
problems.

Your chance is simple: tell all users that as of August 1st, no school
district
in Oregon will have licensing permission to run Windows.  It will be close
enough
to the truth for government work, and if YOU can't understand the Microsoft
licensing, do you think anyone else can and know the truth?

Anyway, all the politicos out there that might be a problem in an election
year are too busy with the
material given to them by the Oregonian on PERS to bother going after you
guys,
so all your going to have to deal with is the internal users that go
ballistic.
And you can brush those guys off easy by telling them that if they want to
complain then the licensing fee for the software can come out of their
budgets.
Then just transition the major stuff over which you can do over the summer.
The rest of the chicken scratch will either go away permanently, or
people in the schools (like parents) will show up to help you move things over
to Linux.  You could be finished by the end of the year.

Don't forget the lesson of Y2K.  Y2K came just the same whether you were
prepared
for it or not.  Most people wern't totally prepared for it and a lot of people
had some problems, but the Moon didn't eclipse the Sun and time didn't stand
still.
People survived.  You will too.

>
>>"...suggested that Microsoft's licensing tactics were pushing them toward
>>Linux..."
>>
>>So Linux is something that you have to be pushed towards?!?!
>
>Push from one side, pull from the other. One could summarize this as "we
>have been implementing Linux because it solves big problems for us. Now
>MS has made a couple really stupid moves which have pushed us to accelerate
>our Linux efforts". Is that bad?
>

First sentence was what you need to be doing, too bad you wrecked it with
the second one.

How about:

"we have been implementing Linux because it solves problems that Microsoft
software has never been able to solve.  We have some new problems coming up
this fall that Linux software is even better equipped to deal with so we
are accellerating our efforts to complete the transition to it."


>>"...we have to look at open-source software..."
>>
>>So, Open Source is something that you _have_ to look at rather than
>_want_ to
>>look at?  Sounds like an unwelcome homework assignment to me.
>
>Only welcome homework is worth doing? I remember most homework assignments
>as being unwelcomed...
>

Tee Hee Hee I like that one.

>>Hell, the title of the article is in this same vein.  Why wasn't it
>>titled:  "Schools finding Linux is better and cheaper than Windows"
>
>Is Linux better and cheaper than Windows? I and a large number of the
>schools here in Portland and around the world are working hard on making
>this true.
>

You can't _make_ something true that is already true.  You can, however,
make yourself understand the truth in something.

Ted