[brlug-poly] M$ Spams Free Speech Alley.

[Will Hill]

Sorry to bore you, John, I'm not as good as you are with interesting 
conspiracy theories.  

I had not imagined any crime was committed.  One of my fellow students 
immediately thought and said, "someone got bought," but I dismissed that.  No 
one at LSU, I hope, could be bribed for so small a deal.  Your audit 
extortion threat sounds more likely.  If anything like that has happened, I 
can only hope the threatened party steps forward with recordings, email and 
all of that and the responsible Microsoft employees are prosecuted.  

No, all I thought was that it's a bad deal for LSU and that Microsoft 
misrepresented it in their email and in public.  I've computed how bad a deal 
this is in my last message on this thread.  My conclusion was that LSU 
students will spend more per copy for Microsoft software than if they had 
gone out and bought it retail.  Microsoft representatives, on the other hand, 
were shouting in public that Microsoft had provided students with "free" 
software.  Expressing my opinions and those of other students might embarrass 
some people, but I doubt it infringes on their freedom.  

Besides mouthing off here, I've encouraged LSU to do more for free software 
and praised them for their current efforts which I outlined in "a silver 
lining."  Last summer, when this plan was announced, I tried to get in touch 
with student government representatives to offer free software assistance.  
The inclusion of Mepis at Tigerware may be a result of this, but no one ever 
responded.  

On Saturday 29 October 2005 10:51 am, John Hebert wrote:

> I assume most universities are given "an offer they can't refuse" by
> Microsoft; higher license fees resulting from an audit vs. blanket
> coverage. Or, they sincerly like the offer that Microsoft is giving them.
>
> LSU is run by fairly smart
> people who took a look at the numbers and said to Microsoft "Ok, we'll pay
> that." If you value freedom, then you must allow LSU to make their own
> business decisions. If you are really convinced Microsoft is commtting some
> crime, then you are going to have to come up with better arguments than
> what I have seen so far, or do something about it.