Greets,I bit my tongue with this original post.. I just registered for school and sat down with my wonderful councillor to finger out my schedule for the next four+ years of courses. I don't plan to do computers for profit, just kicks (needed for financial aid). As she started quoting off the courses, I nearly passed out when well over half of them depended on M$ products! If my bride hadn't been there, I might have gone over the edge. This is a damn sad state when a university is forcing evil products on kids without even considering pure products like debian! I didn't pull out, but I insisted we would have to have some talks campus wide about this evilness since at least one new student won't play with, nor install M$ products on his machines. Now with the trend of commercial linux distros charging by the license (one license for one box), debian is needed now more then ever. REF: http://lwn.net/2001/0628/ I want to applaud your efforts, and kind consideration of your students. Three cheers for the good guy - - hip hip hip hurry! tatah On Sunday 08 July 2001 10:03, Mark Wagnon wrote: > On 07/08/01 10:26:34 -0500, Andrew Perrin wrote: > > I'd like to assign a book for a class this fall that is published only in > > hardcover and in something called "Microsoft Reader" format. The MS > > Reader format is about 1/2 the price, which matters (I don't like to make > > students pay more than necessary, particularly at a public > > school.). According to Amazon, the MS Reader is available only for > > Windows. Does anyone else know about this gizmo, what the format is, > > etc? I'm not willing to let Microsoft have a monopoly on my class, so if > > in fact it's Windows-only I'll either not assign the book (and let the > > publisher know!) or make them go with the expensive hardback. > > As a continuing student, I'm glad to hear that professors like > yourself think about students' bank accounts. Thanks! > > Personally, I like to have access to a nice text with actual pages. I > can take it anywhere and not worry about hosing my PDA/eBook reader or > whatever, and I'm not be chained to my computer (although some in my > family believe that's happened ;-) ). If the eBook was in HTML or some > other format easily decipherable by other party's technologies, I'd > say go for it, but since it looks like it's MS' attempt to secure the > eBook market for itself, I would avoid purchasing/recommending it in > that format. Can you imagine a world where trees are no longer cut > down to produce paper for books (yay!), yet the only format available > is MS' (boo!)? If MS disagreed with a publisher's views, they could > yank their licensing. Scary stuff. > > I would write the publisher and let them know how you feel whichever > way I went though. > > Just my two pennies. -- Jaye Inabnit\ARS ke6sls\/A GNU-Debian linux user \/ http://www.qsl.net/ke6sls If it's stupid, but works, it ain't stupid. SHOUT JUST FOR FUN. Free software, in a free world, for a free spirit. Please Support freedom!
