win95/98/ME and printers. An ethics issue comparable to DRM servers or not?

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Thu, 7/31/08, Christofer C. Bell <christofer.c.bell at gmail.com> wrote:

> At least we now have it confirmed that the poor besotted
> charity in question really is suffering from this DRM-like 
> lockdown on 10 year old technology.
>  Oh, the evils of corporatism.

The PII in question won't boot an Ubuntu CD, not even the alternative.  Debian locks up (regular and netinst), and KNOPPIX locks up too.  Technically they're "locked" into Windows98.

Oddly enough, the PC in question is a HP. <hmmm>
 
> While I appreciate that they're wanting to, I can only
> assume, save money by not purchasing something made in 
> the 21st century, this smells like mismanagement to me.

Rugged conservative individualism more like.  Their board is so fearful of strings attached to grants, especially government grants, that they don't apply for any, but then they have no money to leverage into fundraisers to make more money.

This means they are entirely dependent on the technology that everyone else has, apparently, "moved on from".  If Chris, Billy, or Jeffrey thinks of it as "obsolete and useless", then you can probably find it in this charity's technology donation room.  Heck, there are things in that room which *I* think are obsolete, and thats saying something there.  ;-)