news media

[Marcel Kunath]

>
> Accusing the University of not being diverse in their selection
> of computers is ridiculous.  Yes, there are x86/Windows labs all
> around campus, but:

No it's not ridiculous. Even though your examples are true they by far
don't display what has happened over the past 2.5 years I have been here.
EBH used to have some non-x86 machines in some labs on second floor.
Removed and replaced with win. It used to have Mac platform as well. I
think they also got replaced with win. Then CC had a room full of Macs on
2nd floor. The whole room got resturctured and now contains 3 Imacs. Union
does have Macs but the machines nobody uses and I think they are old as dirt.
Basically MSU is phasing out any non-windows stuff. I still feel I am right as
probably 95% of the stuff on campus is win.

All the other examples basically affects servers and the main public usually
doesn't even realize what is running there. I can only take so much
Presidential coverage this Fall. I like to see a piece of writing on the fact
that MSU's internals runs on FreeBSD, Unix but the desktops seem to be mostly
Win and at the end we can ask: Why?


  1. There are Mac
labs.  I know of at least
two (Union, >            Wells Hall) and there must be more; I don't frequent
>            MSU labs any more than I must.
>
>     2. In .egr.msu.edu there are many kinds of computers:
>            Sun, HP, SGI, you name it.  In one small room in the
>            23xx wing that I have access to there are HP, Sun, and
>            x86 boxes side-by-side.
>
>     3. I know for *damn* sure there's at least one lab of SGI
>            boxen outside of .egr.msu.edu.
>
> Moving from clients to servers:
>
>     4. Pilot runs IBM AIX, if I recall correctly.
>
>     5. Important servers, including the DNS servers (serv1,
>            serv2) run FreeBSD.
>
>     6. debian.egr.msu.edu is also one of the
>            ftp.us.debian.org boxes.
>
>     7. I personally run two permanent Debian GNU/Linux
>            servers on campus (server.hedlab.he.msu.edu,
>            cscw.msu.edu).
>
> Besides, do you really think that lusers would be happy without
> their Windows?  They get it shoved down their throats in ads.
> They actually *believe* in this Windows stuff.

So I am confused if you agree with my money and others students money being
spend on things which are not in my ideology? I know you got your education
at MSU supported through funds but you have to think of here from the
ideological standpoint, and the people who pay for education should have
their money used how they see fit. Maybe I am the only one all I said was
they should question if maybe there is something brewing here or we should
continue to poor dollars towards proprietory things.

I don'
t understand how you can draw a line between supporting free software for the
home user but you don't support free software in the school? This is not a
subject of happiness when people they use a lab computer. This is about are we
having the right to ask if money is spend in the way it should be spend or
should we proceed otherwise in the future? MSU is an educational facility and I
have learned a lot from Linux and free software. Is it maybe more educational
for us to use non-win stuff? Is MSU creators free thinkers or button pushing
robots?

I was once a guy who believed into Windows. When I used a win95 computer in
1996 for the first time I thought it was the best thing ever created. well I
think different today. People change their opinions and maybe, and that is
all I am asking for, the university should just give me the respect and let me
know if they have used time to weigh off themselves free software offers
against commercial ones.

I am sure you never spend a minute on a win pc but you have to realize some of
us are not that lucky and I have to go in every day to work and use
proprietory software I don't condone with and from time to time take hits
from co-workers repeating to me the usual FUD, and I have to live with the
fact that we switched over to Outlook as mail system and nobody seems to like
it but we still spend the money on it, and I have to live with the fact that I
walk out on  a meeting where they mentioned InterDev 7 will be out in a year
and they seem to be willing to buy it at any price offered and I ask "why are
you so willing to make this upgrade without checking if we need any of the
new features?"

I think we deserve a wider coverage of topics in the local news media and it
surely can only help to gain additional interest from the community into
subjects like ours. You can't really say Linux or the GLLUG or Postgres or
Apache is famous around the people of East Lansing.

--
Marcel Kunath