[Linux-aus] Young Aussies say pirated software is OK

[Arthur Marsh]

Glen Turner wrote, on 18/02/09 21:32:
> Arthur Marsh wrote:
> 
>> Aren't IT services at South Australian TAFE colleges out-sourced to EDS?
> 
> That confuses administration and teaching.  Even if TAFE internally use
> SAP or PeopleSoft that doesn't prevent them teaching MYOB.

True. I was thinking of student desktops as well as servers.

What I hadn't thought of until after I'd posted was the idea of a room 
full of student desktop pc's that could be completely re-imaged between 
ms-win and gnu/linux via multicast so that effectively ms-win was only 
installed if it was needed for particular applications used by 
particular classes, and that their existed a licensing scheme that only 
charged for actual concurrent installations.

> 
>> Do EDS offer managed GNU/Linux IT services?
> 
> Yes. The big firms have been supporting Linux for some years now.

I know that EDS, an HP company, use linux servers. HP claim that a 
sizable fraction of desktops for their employees run Linux also, but HP 
seem a bit disconnected from offering their own (well Neoware's) Linux 
thin clients as a service for customers and have so far only done 
toe-tipping into offering Linux on non-server machines.

> 
>> Should bidders for government funded IT services be required to have 
>> competence to deliver solutions based on Free software?
> 
> It would depend on the particular work being bidded for. Hopefully
> the next time a tender for desktop support is written it will
> include Ubuntu and RHEL.  I can't see that any of the firms that
> currently bid for such large business would have any trouble filling
> the requirement. The point would be more to not make the support
> an expensive ex-contract item.

Indeed.

> 
>> The other invisible elephant in the use of software is how costs of 
>> Microsoft software are met - it is automatically assumed that there will 
>> be licensing (and maintenance, including extra staff, hardware...) costs 
>> and the costs are passed on in such a way as to obscure their 
>> blood-sucking effect on the local economy.
> 
> Ah. Here's the problem -- if you don't want a headcount-based license
> fee then you need to somehow count machines.  And since the use
> of not-Microsoft software varies considerably by profession the
> count of machines would need to be more like a census than a
> survey.

For "tied down" desktops and servers, in an educational institution it 
should be possible to count machines with ms operating systems. The 
possibility of running ms-apps remotely as I did from "tied down" sun 
machines at Flinders uni around 2000 also makes it easy to actually 
count the number of concurrent users of ms-apps.

> 
> At the prices a large business pays for Microsoft licenses the cost
> of the census would run at about 20% of the total costs.
> 
> Note that I totally agree about the lack of incentive arising from
> headcount-based license fees. The trick is to negotiate an alternative
> with an implementation cost which is not large and which you can
> convince Microsoft to accept.
> 
>> Arthur (imagining billboard posters with slogans such as "Free as in 
>> Freedom" and "Don't fear the penguin").
> 
> IHMO all vendor-PR signage in inappropriate unless you are a vendor.
> I particularly wince when I see Microsoft and Cisco posters in
> state government offices (as I recently did). These imply an unhealthy
> lack of objective evaluation.

I wasn't thinking of inside educational institutions.

I was thinking of billboards such as the one on the western end of 
Blythewood Road by Torrens Park railway station - it would be good to 
have a linux penguin (and possibly logos for other Free software) with a 
simple URL to an Australian site with links to obtaining and using free 
software and information about using it.

Arthur.