RE: [Fsfe-uk] Explaining GPL to a Windows user

[Robert \(Jamie\) Munro]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden Behalf Of ian
> Sent: 08 June 2003 18:06
> To: Paul
> Cc: FSFE
> Subject: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Explaining GPL to a Windows user
>
> > Hopefully, I'll be sending a local school a whole pile of P3-450s (and
> > through a local company, will be able to shove 10Gb HDs, floppys, CDs,
> > netcards and monitors for about 170 quid a throw [unless Ian can come up
> > with a better price, needs 10base net cards and 15" monitors]) all of
> > them will have a linux distro on and the Linux Education CD on there as
> > well (and OpenOffice and Evolution). Dunno how long it will be before
> > they move then to Windows though. I may decide to bung Wine on - but
> > then, that means they need a M$ licence for the dll's, which kind of
> > defeats the object.
>
> If you don't want them to degrade to Windows, take out the HDs, etc and
> make them into thin clients. Find some low cost second hand monitors and
> put the money you save into servers on a 1:30 ratio to clients. Such a
> server will cost about £700 or about £20 per client. A network card with
> BootROM about a tenner. Then there is no easy way to put Windows on the
> machine :-)

Does a diskless machine count for the windows schools agreement? I expect
that it may be possible to argue that it doesn't. If it does, then what
about machines that the school doesn't even know about? Built into the fire
alarm, the phone system, the vending machines etc.?

I vaguely remember someone saying something about the schools agreement
being for Pentiums and higher. What about http://www.iyonix.com/ (an acorn
based machine) running ARMLinux? Would that slip under the bar?

Robert Munro