[plug] [Fwd: Everyone MUST drive a Ford with a 6 Cylinder Petrol Engine]

[James Albert Duffield]

My recent missive to Senator Stephen Conroy and other politicians
involved in IT...


0415-710538
                                                                                                                        James Albert 
                                                                                                                        Capt (RAE) Retired
                                                                                                                        BEECHBORO
                                                                                                                        WA  6063

                                                                                                                        22 Dec 2007


As emailed..


Dear Minister and Political Gentlepersons,

       Everyone MUST drive a Ford with a 6 Cylinder Petrol Engine


I note this in the Australian:


> Work begins on digital classrooms
> Fran Foo | December 20, 2007 
> 
> 
> STATE and territory governments have scrambled to boost the Rudd Labor
> Government's plan to provide senior school students with computers.
> 
> COAG - Work begins on digital classrooms
> 
> Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (second from left) with state and territory
> leaders at the Council of Australian Governments meeting. Picture:
> David Crosling
> 
> 
> All states and territories have agreed to conduct an audit of
> computing infrastructure at schools immediately. 
> 
> The audit is expected to be completed mid-February in time to meet the
> federal Government’s plan to start allocating funds to schools by
> March next year. 
> 
> Representatives of each government agreed to the plan at the Council
> of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Melbourne today. 
> 
> The $1 billion National Secondary School Computer Fund is set to
> benefit around one million secondary students nationwide each year
> with schools identified has having the most urgent needs given
> priority. 
> 
> "World-class ICT in schools will make a real and sustainable change in
> the way teaching and learning are delivered in classrooms across
> Australia," Deputy Prime Minister and federal Education Minister Julia
> Gillard recently said. 
> 
> "The Rudd Government will work with the school systems in every state
> and territory to identify schools that have the highest priority in
> terms of need, and assist them in making applications to the fund.
> Over four years, all secondary schools will have access to the fund,"
> she said. 
> 
> The secondary school fund complements computing tax rebates that will
> kick-in from July 1, 2008. 
> 
> The federal Government has introduced means-tested rebates for
> parents, of up to $375 a year, for primary school students and $750 a
> year for those in secondary school. 
> 
> Tax-deductible items include home PCs, laptops, printers, home
> internet connections, education software and school textbooks.
> 
> 



You should be aware of the article below as it is true also of
Australia.  This is anti competitive practise, notwithstanding that most
importantly it is anti intellectual development and therefore constrains
local software developers and engineers.  This denies local industry
growth.  We become a software industry colony.  

Yet the ACCC offer me and all other unknowing taxpayers no solace or
apparent remedy.  That is, without charging me for the privilege of
notifying an "exclusive dealing notification", in my attempt to save the
nation money!  That of its own is anti-competitive, should the ACCC
investigate itself?

We should be able to purchase cars other than Fords, and we do.
Government has to call tenders with a broad brush to any specification,
it would seem with the exception of software!

How much, each year, do the three tiers of government pay to license
Microsoft software onto government desktops??  Some three years ago,
with the now defunct Open Source Centre in WA, I estimated the figure to
be $5 billion.  Yes, billion!  Now that would be a nice present in the
new year for the Australian taxpayer?!

This needs to be fixed, and quickly if government is to invest in this
area in a volume indicated by pre-election promises!

There is a simple litmus test, try it yourself, just get a staffer to
phone retail outlets for, say Dell, Lenovo (IBM) and Toshiba and ask for
a "Naked Laptop" and attempt to insist "No Windows software."

Sincerely, and in anticipation of taxpayer value in Desktop software
procurement by government agencies, and the hexadecimally colonised.


Jim Duffield

________________________________________________________________________


From:  http://tinyurl.com/yv2cxf

Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:59:41 +0900

Top five PC manufacturers fail naked PC test 
Tags: 
Freedos, 
Naked Pc, 
Atwal, 
Naked Pcs

Richard Thurston ZDNet.co.uk 

Published: 16 Mar 2007 10:38 GMT

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Top five PC manufacturers fail naked PC test

IT professionals are being forced to adopt Microsoft's operating systems
— even if they tell their PC supplier they want a system free of
Microsoft software, ZDNet UK's research has revealed.

ZDNet's reporters posed as undercover buyers to identify the policy of
the top-five PC vendors in terms of supplying systems without an
operating system, known as naked PCs. A naked PC gives IT professionals
freedom to install the operating system of their choice.

But the ZDNet investigation showed that none of the five manufacturers
would sell any PCs without Windows, our reporters found.

The reasons — or excuses — were varied.

Acer said it would give our reporter a refund of £30 for not using
Windows, but would only make a refund if we drove to its Plymouth
"repair" centre. In contrast to other reports, Dell refused to refund
the Windows software if it went unused. Instead it offered to cancel the
shipping charge of £50 as a compromise.

We backed up our undercover enquiries with official calls to every one
of the five vendors. Two of the five — Acer and Toshiba — would not
discuss the matter with us. Dell, HP and Lenovo claimed it was possible
to buy naked PCs from their company — but our attempts to follow their
guidance to buy one proved impossible.

Dell and HP both claimed it was possible to buy a naked PC from them,
but we were unable to buy one from either vendor. Lenovo told us it
sells PCs with pre-installed Linux, but it could not tell us how we
could buy such a system.

Microsoft has placed considerable pressure on a number of PC vendors not
to sell systems without Windows. Critics have suggested that vendors
have yielded to such pressure because they are afraid of losing their
bulk purchasing discount with Microsoft. Others have suggested that it
would cost PC vendors considerably more in unit costs to produce naked
PCs.

Ranjit Atwal, Gartner principal analyst, is pessimistic about the future
for naked PCs. "The market for Linux is probably not big enough for them
[suppliers] to go down that route," said Atwal, adding that he thought
the number of users wanting to use Linux at the desktop was "in the
small single digits".

"To do that [provide systems without Windows] costs them money," he
argued.




-- Jim Duffield PQG____________LINUX User #351552____________0415-710538
=======================================================================
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that
you end up being governed by your inferiors." Plato