Students Stop Moaning!

[dranakin]

I don't seem to see why everyone thinks that just because their university has a special licensing deal with Microsoft that EVERY university has one. You obviously haven't taken many classes in logic. Not only that, but you can be sure that if you're getting Vista for $10 on a whim then you're paying for it through some fee tacked onto your tuition.

Maybe you should take some more classes in reading, because that post was in response to a post that implied that that there is no way to get Vista for cheaper than 10.5. It's possible.

Tuition? Are you serious? I'm going to see a "Microsoft fee" on my bill? Look, many universities have made a licensing deal, using funds attributed to let's say, their computer relations department. Tuition is used directly pay for certain things of the students; grants, donations, former students' tuition, etc. pay for everything else. You don't think our tuition pays the wages of the school janitors or the chancellor, do you?

 

[atszyman]

...but you can be sure that if you're getting Vista for $10 on a whim then you're paying for it through some fee tacked onto your tuition.

Why does the difference have to be paid for?

Campuses are usually hot-beds of piracy (or they were in my day) by offering Windows for cheap, makes the piracy less appealing.

It also helps Students to build cheap computers and actually install Windows over Linux giving them inroads to people who will be entering the workforce in a few years. Not that you can currently get anywhere without knowing something about Windows. Linux is free and campuses are full of computer geeks for tech support. It could really help Linux if Windows stayed out of students' price range since students might be more apt to try free solutions like Linux and Open Office, if this starts happening more and more it might put some pressure on business to start adopting Linux and Open Office as they hire more and more College graduates who are familiar with those tools.

Cheap software for college students can go a long way in cementing a stranglehold on the market. The OS probably isn't nearly as vulnerable as the Office Suite, but CDs/DVDs are cheap, why not try to keep the future workers Windows faithful...

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Why does the difference have to be paid for?

Campuses are usually hot-beds of piracy (or they were in my day) by offering Windows for cheap, makes the piracy less appealing.

It also helps Students to build cheap computers and actually install Windows over Linux giving them inroads to people who will be entering the workforce in a few years. Not that you can currently get anywhere without knowing something about Windows. Linux is free and campuses are full of computer geeks for tech support. It could really help Linux if Windows stayed out of students' price range since students might be more apt to try free solutions like Linux and Open Office, if this starts happening more and more it might put some pressure on business to start adopting Linux and Open Office as they hire more and more College graduates who are familiar with those tools.

Cheap software for college students can go a long way in cementing a stranglehold on the market. The OS probably isn't nearly as vulnerable as the Office Suite, but CDs/DVDs are cheap, why not try to keep the future workers Windows faithful...

While the school might be foor of computer geeks very few of those computer geeks used linux at all and even few knew much about it to offer much tech support.

In my college dorm we had 500 some on students. These dorms are also known to be the geekiest dorms on campus and the best place to get free tech support. Of those students it was less than 10 that used linux and like 2-3 that where any use to get help on it from. Windows help was fairly easy to get linux help was well you are on your own.

 

[atszyman]

While the school might be foor of computer geeks very few of those computer geeks used linux at all and even few knew much about it to offer much tech support.

In my college dorm we had 500 some on students. These dorms are also known to be the geekiest dorms on campus and the best place to get free tech support. Of those students it was less than 10 that used linux and like 2-3 that where any use to get help on it from. Windows help was fairly easy to get linux help was well you are on your own.

My college was a bit different, of the Computer science majors I knew about 1/3-1/2 ran Linux on at least one of their computers. A good 1/5 of the EEs also ran Linux (most likely a dual boot). There was plenty of Linux tech support and this was almost 10 years ago. I guess it depends on the campus. However the low price stills serves as a good anti-piracy point and if it gets too expensive, people will either pirate or find alternatives.

 

[juanster]

yes justc heck your uni store directly, i know of a uni that's selling the iLife suite 08 for 45 bucks (cad)

 

[Eidorian]

yes justc heck your uni store directly, i know of a uni that's selling the iLife suite 08 for 45 bucks (cad)

I wish my university had its own bookstore.

 

[pknz]

Post your school and your city and state and I will track down where you can buy it within driving distance or via mail order for $69.

Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand

 

[None Such]

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/15236/

 

[jbstew32]

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/15236/

ah! we were right! Why doesn't Apple just make you provide a valid email address from the school you claim to be from?

 

[janey]

Not one single 3rd-party has announced a Leopard-only product. Since when did Apple announce that they were dropping support or security updates for Tiger?

This is just baseless banter!

Are you kidding? Even my stupid trivial simple applications with garbage collection break Tiger support. That being said, yes, some 3rd party devs have announced Leopard only versions.

The biggest one (for me) is TextMate, which is an app I constantly use:
http://macromates.com/blog/2006/20-will-require-leopard/

The second one is Delicious Monster:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/12/13/6275

Here's a third, FlySketch: http://www.gusmueller.com/blog/archives/2007/01/2007.html

Name anything else using the new GC in ObjC 2.0 or Core Animation and it will not work unless the dev intentionally works on a Tiger-compatible version. And just wait until Leopard's been available for a few months. Panther support dropped in lots of apps, maybe even Tiger. Just like how some apps now don't work on PPC, you get the idea.

Also, see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798 - Older versions of OS X eventually get dropped. Sometimes it's because whatever software needed a security update isn't present, and sometimes it's because the software is too old. Unfortunately Apple doesn't like to publicly announce product end-of-life dates, but it is inevitable that development+bugfixes stop coming, and that eventually the security updates will end too.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has no problem disclosing that information. Windows XP Professional security updates will be available to all customers until April 8, 2014 in the United States (link). In comparison to the last security update I see for Jaguar...

Point being, I don't want to run software that's not going to be updated in any way except security-wise minimally for a short time, compounded by the fact that Leopard has a LOT of new security features like sandboxing, ASLR, code signing and NX stack/heap/etc.


If you've ever had to admin a network filled with outdated installs of software, you'd know why I so fervently hate outdated installs.