[Fsfe-uk] Microsoft Schools Agreement

[ian]

As many will know, the OFT is investigating MSSA as it requires schools
to pay MS an annual fee for every pentium based computer on a site even
if its not running *any* MS software. ie if I want to put a GNU/Linux
box on a network in a school on MSSA I have to pay MS an annual fee.
This is clearly anti-competitive since although schools can pay for
software licenses without signing up for MSSA, the lower costs of MSSA
are a big inducement and once on it, its difficult to change because
schools then have to pay the full price in one hit for all the software
they currently use which can be 10s of thousands.

I understand that the OFT are sending letters out to many schools asking
them about their software purchases and implications. I am a little
concerned that many have no idea of the implications of MSSA simply
because they hadn't thought about GNU/Linux. eg a school might say
yikes, if MSSA is declared void isn't this going to put my software
costs up? I'd better say nowt. In this case the fact is that the
monopoly has such a hold that its difficult to collect evidence of the
type required to defeat it.

So what can you do? If you have a relative in a school you could find
out if the school is on MSSA and if so complain that you believe your
relative could be being prevented from learning about GNU/Linux, because
of restrictive licensing in the school designed to shut out Free
software. GNU/Linux is likely to be very important by the time your
child leaves school and so the child should have the opportunity to
learn about it and MSSA is making that less likely to happen.

The relevant address to write to is 

Neil Maxey
Case Officer
Media, Sports & Information Industries
Office of Fair Trading
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX
Tel: 020 7211 8343
Fax: 020 7211 8354
-- 
ian <address@hidden>