[ubuntu-uk] ubunto in college, was Re: Women, LinuxWorld, Stuff

[Alan Helmore-Simpson]

>> We had a college IT teacher in the
>> hacklab once, he explained that even if he wants to teach some free
>> software he can't, they are locked in a contract with microsoft by which
>> they can not install any other software on the machines.
>
> Is that legal? I would have thought it was anti-competitive. Maybe
> there can be another European law suit, anyone know what happened with
> the last one btw?


MS used to offer very significant discounts to educational establishments, 
and NGO's (Essentially its almost free), I would guess that they could 
attach conditions to that 'discount' if they wanted and thereby get around 
the antitrust laws.

BTW I am not suggesting that is WHAT they do, merely that they probably 
COULD.

The European antitrust case is still running in part, I seem to recall that 
they were ordered to de-bundle some stuff (Was it media player?), and fined 
a shed load of money, but think they have several more shed loads of money 
(See Bug #1 - https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1)

Alan