Selling your soul to Bill Gates

We took the plunge a couple of weeks ago, and sold our soul to Bill Gates.  At least that's what you'd hear if you talked to the Anti-Microsoft camp around here. What we really did was sign a Campus Agreement to cover the college that I support here.  It's costing us about $10,000/year, but we have unlimited licenses and upgrades for all of the Microsoft software we use.

Sure, that's a serious chunk of change, but I did the math, and found out that we were spending nearly that amount already, with a lot more administrative work involved, and without any of the flexibility our new license offers us.  Compared to the money we spend to license SPSS, AutoCAD, and some of our GIS apps, the Microsoft agreement was pretty reasonable.

As for the Anti-Microsoft folks, I can understand the Linux crowd, and even sort of agree with them on certain things.  The people I can't stand are the people who bash Microsoft because they think it's the "cool thing to do".  This group includes both technical people and laymen.  I have faculty who refuse to use Internet Explorer, because it's a Microsoft product.  Of course, these same people use Microsoft Word and Windows all day long, and wouldn't dream of switching to Linux or even a Mac.

It's the hypocrisy that pisses me off, not the opinion itself.  I agree that Microsoft does some shady and downright evil things, but it all boils down to two options.  Either you pay the devil his due, and embrace Microsoft's software, or you purge it from your organization and use Free software completely.  The middle ground is rapidly disappearing.

Thanks for the linkage Hal!  I thought you all would have forgotten about me during my hiatus, but I glanced at my referrer log, and realized that someone must still be reading my random thoughts.

Dan gave me some useful tips to correct the ghosting on my KVM switch too, I'll have to give it a try if the $16 adapter they're sending me doesn't work...