It is my belief that the proposed antitrust settlement with Microsoft
Corporation is not in the best interests of the American people. It
does not protect against future abuses and in fact encourages the
spread of the Microsoft software monopoly by training a vast army of
young people to use their operating system and attendant application
programs to the exclusion of very viable software alternatives.
America is based on freedom of choice; but students in Americas'
public schools can only learn to use computers, an essential skill
for the coming generation of employees, on the products provided to
them. Today, the Dept. of Justice has an opportunity to broaden the
scope of that choice and thus empower generations yet unborn. It also
has the opportunity to cavill to Bill Gates and thus must choose
between greatness and ignominy.
The Northern Territories school district in Australia, with a
population of just over 200,000, finds that it saved $1,000,000 in
the first year alone by using Linux alongside Microsoft products to
provide computer education at all grade levels. This was enough to
allow the school district to purchase an additional 1,000 computers
for distribution in the schools and as loaner units for students (and
their parents) to use at home. In a few short years their children
will be competing, very effectively, on the worldwide intellectual
marketplace against American children whose access to hardware was
hampered by the prohibitive cost imposed by the practice of using
Microsoft products all but exclusively in the public schools. The
Australian experience could have been dramatically more productive
had they used Linux as the operating system on all their computers
but it was a good initial step. The present savings represent its use
in their servers only.
http://opensourceschools.org/article.php?story=20011207001012102
I support the notion that Microsoft should pay its fine in hardware
donations only. It has been brought to my attention that Red Hat
Software of Research Triangle Park, NC, (near Durham, NC) has offered
to provide pro-bono copies of the Linux operating system
corresponding to a Microsoft donation of hardware. It is my desire
that any donation of software that Microsoft might choose to make
would not be included in the proposed settlement but must also be a
pro-bono gesture corresponding to the Red Hat Software offer.
Moreover, any copies of software Microsoft might donate should
require no payment of any sort by the schools at any forward point in
time. It must be a true donation of indefinite duration, just as the
Red Hat offer is. Otherwise, if required to pay, the schools would
eventually have to abandon their training programs for lack of funds
to re-license / upgrade their software.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011120/202744_1.html
While Microsoft Corporation should not be excluded from expressing
generosity, such generosity, expressed as software gifts, only
furthers their ability to monopolize the marketplace and should not
be permitted as a part of the penalty for having followed illegal
practices in the establishment of their dominance in the software
market.
Microsoft has painted itself the champion of choice and freewill
while villifying open-source software as being un-American. I think
it is time for their actions, public and private, to match their very
public words.
Software donations should be no part of the proposed settlement.
Sincerely
William G. Canaday
Detroit, MI.
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