Open Source in Politics? 68
tetraminoe asks: "Spread Firefox has a story about a student at the University of Florida running for student government promising to promote open source on campus. His platform includes expanding F/OSS on campus, using open file formats, etc. Is this the first time 'free culture' has become an electoral issue? Has anyone else made open source an issue at their university?"
It's a non-issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, Open Source ought to be about freedom, which would mean that it should be as far away from politics as possible to ensure that everyone has the Freedom to choose whatever software they liked. Now, if the "IT director" in the computer labs wants to screw everyone over by installing a minority OS on all the campus computer lab PCs, that's an IT decision. It ought not be handled at the student government level.
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:1)
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2, Funny)
Why yes, I am a Democrat. Why do you ask?
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
The lab systems and such all run office and such but its not like they pay for it as stated by another poster. There are tons of sun thin clients displaying what looks like a windowmaker desktop running mozilla/f
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:4, Insightful)
I use openoffice and have never ONCE had a problem moving a document between here and the Word2000/MS machines at school. This tells me that there could be room for an alternative, especially when computer seats are so expensive. You could take dated hardware and convert them to word processing/web browsing stations for cheap.
I don't know why I'm wasting my time with you, you are an obvious troll. Academic institutions are the places where freedom SHOULD be pushed. Open document standards should be the norm. This doesn't mean no MS machines at all. But there is room for OSS there. It's only a non-issue for those who can't wrap their heads around concepts like freedom, cost savings and portability. And freedom is a political issue. I suggest you take a class and learn what politics really are.
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
grandparent: "My school spends millions of dollars on MS contracts and has to upgrade their contracted Dell computers all the time just to keep pace."
parent: You don't seem to have any argument other than "I WANNA".
Well, the MS-driven waste of money looks like a very strong and practical, real-world argument to me.
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
Your statement that "freedom should be pushed" pretty much captures the essense of "free" software's idealistic double-speak.
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
You sound like Stallman. Would society be freer if everyone were forced to remove their front doorlocks?
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what a per seat license for Microsoft Office Pro costs at the educational rate? $6.00 and no, that's not a typo. It's 6 bucks, which is usually cheaper than my lunch on campus. Now that's if I want the disks. If I just want a license, it isn't even a whole $1. Retail for the same product is $450 per seat.
You know how much the license is for Windows XP? Well, there is no "per seat" charge. We pay a few hundred bucks a year for the right to install it on as many University owned machines as we can. Retail for it is nearly $200 per seat.
All of the other Microsoft products are priced similarly for education. The whole reason being that if they are cheap enough, we will use them and crank you out already assimilated. Welcome to the collective.
If you want to whinge about Microsoft's TCO to a Universtiy, whinge where it will do some good. Complain about the additional costs of anti-virus "solution", the anti-spyware "solution", the patch management "solution", the anti-spam "solution" etc. Since *none* of these products come from Microsoft, we pay out the a$$ with your tuition dollars to cover them. That's what you ought to be mad about!
Frankly, even at an initially higher purchase price, we'd be better off if everyone had a Mac. Still runs most of the proprietary software, runs Office for Mac, and doesn't need any of the above to remain in good working order 99+% of the time.
2 cents,
Queen B
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:1)
>> Seriously, Microsoft gives them to us. I should know,
>> since I'm in IT for a university.
Doesn't the fact of the unequal cost, in comparison to what home and smb/business users pay, directly drive what you in IT can do about choice of tools? By which I mean that executive decision-making based on subsidized price-model must surely belay any expense or change.
I would guess that the only way this could change is in t
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:1)
The parent is not Insightful its a troll.
MS gives it to you to grow its' monopoly. They learned this from Apple.
Education should prepare the student for the future. It might be, IMHO, But MS is the past. I would never send a student off with MS or a Mac. Both are proprietary software, that at best can only cope with the most general types
Replace unsupported hardware? (Score:1)
there is no reason that many of the workstations couldn't be switched over to linux.
Other than lack of budget to replace hardware that has no working Linux driver?
Re:Replace unsupported hardware? (Score:2)
Re:Replace unsupported hardware? (Score:1)
In a university computer labe or library sitation the only hardware concern might be the network and graphics cards.
I'm not necessarily talking about a well-funded university; I'm talking about K-12 public school computer labs, which tend to be more cobbled together.
An old generic [2D video] card will do in most cases
But is the video card in the donated machines a supported "old generic card"?
So where's this great cost of which you speak?
Scanners, for one thing. Graphics tablets. If you want
Re:Replace unsupported hardware? (Score:2)
My college at Cambridge just got some new desktops. They're dual-P4 systems with a gig of RAM each, and they're primarily used for word-processing and surfing the net. Guess how long they take to go from Windows' login screen to a usable desktop?
FIVE GOD-DAMN MINUTES?!?!?!?!??!!
*beats head against desk*
This is while the Engineering department use Knoppix (well, MDP [cam.ac.uk]) workstations that take 5-10 seconds to log on to and are just as usable....
Re:Replace unsupported hardware? (Score:2)
As I said, it's to get from a login screen to a usable desktop... the computer services office here install so much crap on the XP systems that it actually beggers belief.
Having been a long-time W2K user before switching to Linux, I can tell you that W2K would boot on a 500 MHz Celeron laptop faster than these dual P4 systems log me in.
What Makes That a Windows Issue? (Score:2)
Re:What Makes That a Windows Issue? (Score:2)
I've no doubt they would. However, most of the equivalent software on Linux starts at boot time rather than at login time, and runs as a daemon that stays running between user sessions, rather than being (re)started for each session. The main bottleneck on the current systems is the hard disk (CPU load and RAM usage seem fairly reasonable); if the crap was already memory-resident when I came to
My campus dual boots (Score:2)
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
Free/discounted copies for university staff should not be the dr
Remember that student government has no power (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
As one of the people who was popular enough to get elected to student government (first a student Senator, then Treasurer in charge of $millions), I can safely say that nobody outside of the CS department here gives a rat's ass about Open Source softwa
Re:It's a non-issue (Score:2)
All good points, but most of your points can be addressed with F/OSS. I'm not claiming every problem/issue can be addressed with Free and Open Source software. But here are some suggestions.
Pro choice (Score:1)
In the UK, schools/colleges previously used bespoke hardware/software solutions to teach IT which were of questionable value when faced with a computer in a real work environment.
generally accepted (Score:1)
Although, all of computing is Apple based...
Here's one reason: (Score:2)
Has caused me more headaches than anything else. Relatives/friends insist on using it and expect me to clean up their machines. Security is nonexistant, websites are allowed to execute programs on your harddrive (WTF kind of website needs to do that?), and, to add insult to injury, it got bundled with Windows to gain its marketshare.
Oh, and dont get me started on the proprietary extensions to HTML/CSS.
argh! [wikipedia.org]
Re:generally accepted (Score:1)
Re:generally accepted (Score:2)
this is what pisses me off about slashdot as well. 90% of posters bitch about microsoft being shit and then when confronted about it they have no real reasons. I understand that there are some issues but you can't just jump on the bandwagon and bitch, especially when it's not something that's microsoft's fault.
Microsoft's EULAs are Microsoft's fault and provide more than enough reasons for people to bitch about Microsoft.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Promising things that have already been done? (Score:2)
You do realize that "Open Source" is more than that nifty FireFox browser and Apache web server... Right?
You Gotta Be Kidding (Score:1, Insightful)
I mean, really, please get a grip here. Most student governments are jokes anyways, people will run on any wacky platform to get a few meager votes from the student population.
If this was an REAL election, you might have a story. But this is like reporting on a Model UN or Boy Scout meeting. In other words, it's completely meaningless.
Zero Power (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's how the converstaion might go:
Student: We should only use open tech.
Administration: But M$ promised us
Student: But, there tech. is broken; it doesn't work as advertised.
Administration: Well, who are we going to believe. You a scruffy Arts student or the knowledgeble M$ salesman that we relate to?
Student: But...
Administration:
Re:Zero Power (Score:1)
Re:Zero Power (Score:1)
And I don't really think that it is appropriate to compare what goes on in the UK parliament to what goes on at some university. If only because of the scale and importance, differences.
Re:Sounds more like Politics in Open Source (Score:2)
Re:Sounds more like Politics in Open Source (Score:2)
Re:Sounds more like Politics in Open Source (Score:2)
Well... (Score:1)
Re:Well... (Score:2)
In all fairness, that's not a historically accurate statement. Mafia cases have been, and continue to be, decided on wiretap evidence, despite the fact that Mafia Boss X replaced Mafia Boss X-1 after X-1 was sent away on wiretapping evidence.
Sure, they're careful most of the time, but it only takes one slipup. One "oh sh1t, I don't have time to find my encryptor" or "I'm so angr
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Re:Well... (Score:1)
Re:Well... (Score:1)
The entire reason
empty computers (Score:1)
Being a former college student, I am all for this. Less exploitation, less jerking off, more getting work done... and if the kids learn to jerk off in Linux, more power to them.
Re:empty computers (Score:2)
I disagree. Once they open up Gaim or Kopete (or, even easier, open up Firefox/Konqueror/some other *nix browser and load AIM [aim.com] or Meebo [meebo.com]), then they'll be chatting on their machines.
Nothing will get in the way of high schoolers/ college students and their IM/MySpace/Facebook/whatever hit of the day. Unless you give them a command line, but if they find naim....
Re:empty computers (Score:1)
You'd be surprised at how easily idiots give up.
Re:empty computers (Score:1)