PCs for Kids...

[Tom]

Hi PLUG members!

I recently came across a story on the site of a TV station in Boise,
Idaho that really got my attention. It concerns the Idaho Youth
Ranch (a refuge for orphans and troubled teens) and a little problem
they are having with Microsoft. Here's a clipping and the link for
the full story:

--------------------------
"It seems Microsoft has a policy against reselling old computers that
still run their programs. They say selling a computer without it's
original disks or certificate of authenticity constitutes software
pirating. 

Carolyn Nobles, Idaho Youth Ranch: "Nobody wants an empty computer,
and that's basically all they're doing is buying parts and pieces." 

The software giant threatened Idaho Youth Ranch, a local non-profit
charity, with fines up to 20-thousand dollars. So what do you do with
3 rooms full of dozens of donated IBM's?"

http://www.ktvb.com/news/newstory.html?StoryID=1933
-------------------------

After getting over my initial outrage, I contacted the Boise user's 
group to see if they had heard about this story. I received an 
enthusiastic response and a promise that they would contact the Ranch 
and try to do something to help the kids get onboard with Linux.

I'm writing to your list because a friend of mine in Phoenix recently 
pointed me at a similar charity there called "PCs FOR Kids"... and 
they have a similar problem. This situation seems like such a perfect 
fit for Linux... and I wondered if some folks from your group there might be interested in giving them a hand. Here's a link to the PCs FOR 
Kids website: http://www.pcs-for-kids.org/

I've done a lot of work with minimalist distros that might work well
on older systems like this. For example, Zipslack from Slackware
could be pre-configured, unzipped onto an existing fat partition and
booted right up with a minimum of muss and fuss. I've also managed to 
install a fairly complete Mandrake 7.02 system with KDE and Netscape 
on a variety of older small drives.

Of course there are a lot of approaches... but I think that just 
about any Linux solution would be better than these charities having 
to pay Microsoft *again* for the previously installed software on 
these donated machines.

If I can provide any additional info or help, please let me know.

Best regards,

Tom


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