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

Eric Harrison eharrison at mail.mesd.k12.or.us
Thu May 30 06:52:17 UTC 2002


On Wed, 29 May 2002, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Eric Harrison [mailto:eharrison at mail.mesd.k12.or.us]
>>Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 11:02 PM
>>To: Ted Mittelstaedt
>>Cc: 'PLUG'; 'KLUG'; pdx-freebsd at toybox.placo.com; Steveduin at aol.com
>>Subject: RE: [PLUG] RE: Steve Duin's column of 5/21/02
>>
>>
>>
>>It's not that there is no money, its that there is less money and it matters
>>how the money is allocated.
>>
>>For all of the schools I work with, hardware and software come out of the
>>general fund. The vast majority of the general fund goes to teachers
>>salaries.
>>The net effect is that for every ~$50K/yr more spend on technology means one
>>less teacher.
>>
>>It would be nice if it was as simple as "use Linux" or "nothing", but that's
>>not the reality.
>
>But really, it is the reality.  It is that simple.
>
>>Converting between technologies is expensive, it takes techs
>>to do the work, it takes training. All of which cost money and
>>divert resources
>>from other areas, such as teaching kids.
>
>But it seems that either way the kids are going to get screwed, at least
>this year's students.  On one hand you got enormous licensing cost increases
>if you stick with Microsoft.  On the other hand, you got enormous conversion
>costs if you just go ahead and do it.
>
>If I were you I'd be scared to death of this apparent "lull in the war" that
>seems to be Microsoft backing off from a conflict by shitcanning the audits.
>You know that company just never lets up.  They haven't forgotten their
>bloody nose over this, they have just crawled back under their rock and are
>brewing up some new devilry that's ten times worse than the audits.  A year
>from now if you don't dump MS software now, your going to be wishing you
>had never fought them on the auditing, because they will be eating you alive.
>And the next time they come back after you, they won't be sending in the
>amateurs.

You might want to read up more on the subject. There is no "lull in the war".
We, meaning both schools and business in this case, can probably survive
about two years or so on current investments in MS software. We can buy
into the "software assurance" or "school agreement" or what ever they want
to call it, or we can use those two years to get rid of MS software in an
orderly fashion. Surveys and the press seem to indicate that a large percentage
of businesses are opting for the later. I can verify that many school are
opting for the later.

>>In the short-term, if we can hold
>>tight with existing infrastructure, we do.
>
>But you can't.  Microsoft is going to let you think you can and get
>complacent,
>then just when you start breathing easier they are going to come back and
>SPLAT your going to be bugkill on the MS windshield.
>
>Get off the .NET now, while you still can get out alive!!

Complacent? "we'll let our existing bits rot while we do the development,
infrastructure, and training to get rid of it" is not complacency.

We have many years of hard work into this. We have a very good understanding
of where we are at and where we are going.

-Eric





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