Discrimination based on OS?

[Samuel Thurston, III]

Whoops screwed up that last one, because i meant not to top-post and
also to provide the social reply:

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Fred Roller <froller at tnclimited.com> wrote:
> Can a case be made against State funded Universities that restricting
> access to resources be made based OS be considered discrimination?  Is
> it the Universities' place to force the use of paid for OS/Software or
> could this be considered favoring a particular business(es)?

Assuming that there's no way to connect using linux (which i sincerely
doubt), is it the state-funded university's responsibility to connect
using whatever means you choose?  How far does this extend?  Should
windows 3.1 be supported?  How about AmigaOS?  What about your C64?

>
> I think the discrimination could be argued but a bit extreme.  The
> favoring specific vendor(s) would be a stronger argument, especially if
> they argue security.  Linux could be established as the more secure
> general use OS than MS (I don't know Mac well enough to make a call
> there.)
>

If discrimination could be applied, this would EXPLODE the cost of IT
support.  When you use the university telephone system, is it
'discrimination' if they don't let you use an army field telephone? or
if they won't allow you to build a custom connection mechanism to make
it so that talking through tin cans & a string works with their nice
new digital switch?

This point, on general security, is irrelevant.  Encrypted telephones
could be said to be more secure than classic twisted pair analog
telephones, but that doesn't place any responsibility on the
university system to support them.  If you can make it work, bully for
you.  But it's their system, and if you want to use it, you have to
"play by their rules." Those rules were also paid for by public
funding.

Cisco makes a bunch of client-stuff available for linux.  Ask the IT
dept.  They might actually be able to help you.