MS on every kids computer

[Trent Shipley]

I would start by getting a copy of the contract.

Under AZ sunshine laws and Freedom of information there should be no secret
clauses.  If there are they should be voidable.  AZ Center for Law in the
public interest, ACLU, and/or anti-Tax government watchdog groups would help
with the lawyering.

Then send her the paperwork.


However, what we want may not be relevant to the paperwork.


We want access and competition protection:

1) Every student to have access to an alternative no-cost operating system
(Linux McDistro or *BSD)
2) Any reasonable agent to be able to have the software of their choice
served by the ASP at no additional cost provided that no license fees will
acrue to AZ or the ASP either now or in the future.
3) Access to any software served under clause two for the duration that a
product or software bundle and its direct descendents remain on the market.
(This is an anti-addiction clause.)
4) A (small) budget item to support volunteer or district support of item 1.
5) A funding/grant path and some allocation of funds for institutions that
find need of additional support for products in item 1 or 2
6) No AZ educational institution will be required to satisfy item 1 if it
will cost money.


=====================

On the national level we want SUN, IBM, et al to put together a consortium
and plan to compete with similar Microsoft ASP offerings.  This sort of
cartel should be sanction by the federal government so long as Microsoft
retains its quasi monopoly since the consortium actually promotes
competition by bringing the market closer to a duopoly.

If Apple could be pursuaded to cooperate on reintroducing its OS-X and
successors to government and educational desktops by "licensing" compatible
boxes (including those donated by local support groups) or even if IBM could
be persuaded to open up OS-2 this effort would be way ahead.

Note that for this part of our agenda the contract is critical business
information.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Gary
> Nichols
> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 8:38 AM
> To: PLUG List
> Subject: Re: MS on every kids computer
>
>
> I have a corporate affairs person at Sun who can help, but she'd like an
> idea of what kind of help we're looking for.  Suggestions?
>
> On Thu, 2001-09-06 at 23:37, Brian Cluff wrote:
> > What ever happened with the thread about the arizona $172 million
> > microsoft deal?
> >
> > Did we ever hear back from SUN?  Do we need to organize anything?
> >
> > I would hate to see a really stupid deal go down in AZ (or
> anywhere) like
> > this without a peep from those of us that know better.
> >
> > Brian Cluff
> >
> > ________________________________________________
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>
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