Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (150 mails)

[ian <ian.lynch2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 10:55, Gary Stainburn wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 Apr 2003 8:51 am, ian wrote:
> [snip]
> > 3. We need some focussed lobbying and political strategy. I currently
> > have the OFT investigating MS schools agreement and I have enlisted an
> > MP and former minister to help reinforce the case. While MS schools
> > agreement requires every Pentium to pay annual licenses to MS whether or
> > not it runs any MS software its going to be difficult to add some extra
> > low cost Linux thin clients to a network in a school operating schools
> > agreement.
> 
> How many people have really looked into this issue of licensing *every* 
> pentium PC?
> 
> When we were looking at the beginning of this year to upgrade our group to XP 
> we questioned this as we have a number of Linux PC's - PC's that were going 
> to stay Linux. We too were originally told that we would have to license 
> these too. When we pointed out that this would be a show-stopper they said 
> that they'd look into it.
> 
> After our suppliers checked internally and (I think) with MS, we were told 
> that we would only have to license the PC's running a MS O/S (including a 
> freshly installed WFW3.11 system).

Its really about what it says in the licensing agreement. It says *any*
Pentium computer. Now if you get it in writing from MS that certain
machines are exempt, fine, but if you got into a legal wrangle what if
they say a) Our reseller was not authorised to do this or b) We know
nothing... Ok, probably unlikely but then so is getting done for
deliberate piracy. Seems to me much better to get a definitive ruling
that will stand up in court given how keen MS are to take their
customers to court. If MS are saying that MS Schools agreement does not
apply to Pentium machines running Linux they need to explicitly say so
in their licensing agreements.

> I just wanted to throw this into the pot to get people's opinions, partly 
> because we still haven't signed up for anything yet and would appreciate 
> other people's experiences and opinions.

In the end its down to personal decision making but as it stands I
wouldn't touch MS agreement with the proverbial barge pole. Its tie in
on a grand scale.If they officially say that it doesn't apply to non-MS
machines I think it will be a good way to go because you can have a
strategy of gradually reducing the number of machines running MS
software and therefore reduce licensing costs. Such a policy will of
course affect other MS corporate agreements and reduce their income so I
doubt they will like it as a universal principle.

Regards,

-- 
Ian