We have fought with this issue and there are no easy answers. Come on by SchoolForge.net or Seul.org and poke through the archives for our lists. You are welcome to join the lists and help the dialog along. We look forward to hearing from you soon. Bill
! -----Original Message----- ! From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ! [mailto:redhat-list-admin@;redhat.com]On Behalf Of Robert P. J. Day ! Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 6:16 AM ! To: redhat mailing list ! Subject: conflict-of-interest/legal issues with MS donations to public ! schools ! ! ! ! ... and continuing my stream-of-consciousness lifestyle ... ! ! i just today suggested to my local LUG about trying to promote ! linux in the local public schools, either through the schools themselves ! or higher up at the school board level. (this is in kitchener-waterloo, ! ontario, canada, in case any followup depends on the country in ! question). ! ! one respondent mentioned that he thought it would be difficult ! to do this in his rural school system, as MS and compaq/HP had ! already dumped a pile of software and hardware on the schools, ! with the effect of creating a computer lab and classes obviously ! designed around MS products. because of that, he thought it would ! be nigh impossible to get linux in the door. (he claimed that all ! of this was at no cost, and i haven't yet heard whether that ! represents just the initial cost, whether it covers future ! licensing, or what). ! ! i vaguely recall this sort of thing happening elsewhere, and ! it seems to raise serious conflict-of-interest issues. in ! establishing a MS-only lab and curriculum in a public school, ! one can argue that taxpayer-funded, public facilities are ! being used to promote one corporation's interests to the ! exclusion of others. ! ! i asked him to, if it was possible, approach his school or ! school board and offer to, at no charge, install linux on one ! or more of those PCs, to see the response. ! ! if they say sure, terrific, we're in. if they say no, that's ! probably because they've entered into some sort of exclusionary ! agreement with MS, and that's where the sh*t really should hit ! the fan. ! ! even if both the HW and SW were donated, the entire infrastructure ! supporting it (school facilities, teacher time, etc.) is publicly- ! funded and this should raise some troubling legal issues. ! ! does anyone have pointers to similar cases, how to approach ! this, what others have done, whether they were successful, etc? ! i think it's time to start making some noise about this sort ! of thing. ! ! rday ! ! p.s. yes, i *still* have better things i could be doing. ! ! Robert P. J. Day, RHCE, RHCI ! Eno River Technologies, Chapel Hill NC ! Unix, Linux and Open Source corporate training ! ! http://www.linux-migration.org ! ! ! ! ! -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@;redhat.com?subject=unsubscribe https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
