On Tuesday 12 February 2002 04:16, Malcolm Herbert wrote:

following on from the earlier posting, also at the NAACE event last week there took place a discussion between DfES, Becta, NAACE and Microsoft on the subject of license costs...

this was not a public meeting, but i think its the start of discussions on licensing costs since Campus and _hopefully_ not a nationally negiotiated agreement.

If it is we want to fight tooth and nail to get it properly tendered through the EU, and at the same time campaign with the EU and the OFT that it constitutes unacceptable anti-competitive practice. Its also very bad news if it substantially lowers the price of MS software licences - mind I can't see it affecting the fundamental WS operating prices since they have never been part of any of the education agreements.

Despite any misgivings we have with StarOffice (costs etc) it presents the best alternative for schools for any M$ solution currently and should be supported (eeekk what i am saying),

Yes get out there and get as many SO6s on as many desktops as possible. Win that battle and the server battle and the Desktop OS is going to be squeezed more and more. I also heard of a test case in the US coursts which said that no matter what it says on EULA the owner of a license is free to transfer it to anyone else. ie if you have a Windows 95 machine and scrap it but have the licence you can transfer it to another machine. eg School buys new machine but has a few old 486s with 95 on. So moves 95 to new machine on network dual boot with Linux. 95 runs all the CAL CDROMs etc locally, Linux runs Star Office Internet security etc. Set up the server with an image of the Win 95 partition and every morning have a scheduled re-install from the server before the pupils arrive. So no need to worry about Win 95 security, run all your old ed software and have a low cost up to date OS :-) If you haven't got any Win 95 licences you should be able to buy them at a fraction of the cost of XP. Regards, -- IanL