Re: [seul-edu] (FWD) Red Hat Proposes Alternative to Microsoft settlement

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 10:36:43PM -0500, Jonathan Opp wrote:
> Take a look at http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow for contact info.

I just took another look at the Reuters article referenced there.

Balmer apparently noted that "the money can be used to buy any kind of
software, not just Microsoft's." Presumably he's counting on the fact
that all the schools will still "choose" Microsoft.

Assuming this thing gets accepted tomorrow, is there still something we
can do to show the schools that they have a choice (eg build a little
information packet and get one to each of the schools)? Realistically,
the right way to get them convinced is to have an advocate (student or
teacher or admin) inside the school start things off and keep at it.

Even if we only get a few schools convinced, we can make good public
relations out of them if we phrase things well.

I realize that Doug has been harping on this subject for a while, but
he's right. I'm afraid I'm being a classic arm-chair project leader for
this, since I have no idea what will actually convince school systems.
So I'm going to shut up about this. Hopefully somebody has the beginnings
of such a packet and can share it and start us off?

--Roger