Hi all,

We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
clients; the RM software sat atop all this.

When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses 
were bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the 
PC's thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.

It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
network. Does this sound right?

All the hardware is the same, just with a RAM upgrade.

Anyone have any experience moving from RM 2.4 and doing the above?

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

Robert Moir wrote:
> 
>>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.
> 
> Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
> this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
> "lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

That appears to have been the case!

Thanks for the assurance. It's been confirmed to us now that the 
licenses are valid. What a relief!

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:31:47 +0100, Dejanews Fan wrote:

> Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to
> get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users
> would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.
> 
> I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO
> distributable by an MSI.
> 
> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Increasing numbers are. I was just in a school on Thursday that it turns
out has been using OOo with all its feeder schools - some nice work in
Draw and of course all the kids can use the same software at home as they
use at school without even considering whether or not its legal or not.
And of course there is Google Apps. I should think those will steadily
improve too. This thread does illustrate why the overhead in running
commercially licensed software is more than just the cost of the license.
Management of licenses is an issue and a commercial risk to the
organisation if it gets things wrong.

Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Ian

-- 
Ian
New QCA accredited ICT qualifications
Suitable for primary and secondary schools
www.theINGOTs.org

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

Robert Moir wrote:
> 
>>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.
> 
> Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
> this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
> "lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

That appears to have been the case!

Thanks for the assurance. It's been confirmed to us now that the 
licenses are valid. What a relief!

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:31:47 +0100, Dejanews Fan wrote:

> Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to
> get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users
> would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.
> 
> I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO
> distributable by an MSI.
> 
> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Increasing numbers are. I was just in a school on Thursday that it turns
out has been using OOo with all its feeder schools - some nice work in
Draw and of course all the kids can use the same software at home as they
use at school without even considering whether or not its legal or not.
And of course there is Google Apps. I should think those will steadily
improve too. This thread does illustrate why the overhead in running
commercially licensed software is more than just the cost of the license.
Management of licenses is an issue and a commercial risk to the
organisation if it gets things wrong.

Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Ian

-- 
Ian
New QCA accredited ICT qualifications
Suitable for primary and secondary schools
www.theINGOTs.org

In article ,
   Ian Lynch  wrote:
> Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
> illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
> international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
> than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
> a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
> on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Windows 22MB (compressed)
Mac OS X 23MB (compressed)

RISC OS Draw 0.25MB (uncompressed)
RISC OS ArtWorks2 2.5MB (uncompressed)

I only mention it because there was plenty of time spare whilst the first two
downloaded. ;-(

-- 
	John Cartmell	john@finnybank.com	0845 006 8822 or 0161 969 9820
	Qercus magazine	FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527		www.finnybank.com
	Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

Robert Moir wrote:
> 
>>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.
> 
> Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
> this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
> "lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

That appears to have been the case!

Thanks for the assurance. It's been confirmed to us now that the 
licenses are valid. What a relief!

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:31:47 +0100, Dejanews Fan wrote:

> Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to
> get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users
> would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.
> 
> I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO
> distributable by an MSI.
> 
> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Increasing numbers are. I was just in a school on Thursday that it turns
out has been using OOo with all its feeder schools - some nice work in
Draw and of course all the kids can use the same software at home as they
use at school without even considering whether or not its legal or not.
And of course there is Google Apps. I should think those will steadily
improve too. This thread does illustrate why the overhead in running
commercially licensed software is more than just the cost of the license.
Management of licenses is an issue and a commercial risk to the
organisation if it gets things wrong.

Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Ian

-- 
Ian
New QCA accredited ICT qualifications
Suitable for primary and secondary schools
www.theINGOTs.org

In article ,
   Ian Lynch  wrote:
> Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
> illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
> international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
> than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
> a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
> on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Windows 22MB (compressed)
Mac OS X 23MB (compressed)

RISC OS Draw 0.25MB (uncompressed)
RISC OS ArtWorks2 2.5MB (uncompressed)

I only mention it because there was plenty of time spare whilst the first two
downloaded. ;-(

-- 
	John Cartmell	john@finnybank.com	0845 006 8822 or 0161 969 9820
	Qercus magazine	FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527		www.finnybank.com
	Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

Robert Moir wrote:
> 
>>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.
> 
> Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
> this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
> "lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

That appears to have been the case!

Thanks for the assurance. It's been confirmed to us now that the 
licenses are valid. What a relief!

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:31:47 +0100, Dejanews Fan wrote:

> Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to
> get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users
> would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.
> 
> I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO
> distributable by an MSI.
> 
> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Increasing numbers are. I was just in a school on Thursday that it turns
out has been using OOo with all its feeder schools - some nice work in
Draw and of course all the kids can use the same software at home as they
use at school without even considering whether or not its legal or not.
And of course there is Google Apps. I should think those will steadily
improve too. This thread does illustrate why the overhead in running
commercially licensed software is more than just the cost of the license.
Management of licenses is an issue and a commercial risk to the
organisation if it gets things wrong.

Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Ian

-- 
Ian
New QCA accredited ICT qualifications
Suitable for primary and secondary schools
www.theINGOTs.org

In article ,
   Ian Lynch  wrote:
> Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
> illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
> international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
> than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
> a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
> on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Windows 22MB (compressed)
Mac OS X 23MB (compressed)

RISC OS Draw 0.25MB (uncompressed)
RISC OS ArtWorks2 2.5MB (uncompressed)

I only mention it because there was plenty of time spare whilst the first two
downloaded. ;-(

-- 
	John Cartmell	john@finnybank.com	0845 006 8822 or 0161 969 9820
	Qercus magazine	FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527		www.finnybank.com
	Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:50:48 +0100, John Cartmell wrote:

> In article ,
>    Ian Lynch  wrote:
>> Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
>> illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
>> international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
>> than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
>> a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
>> on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.
> 
> Windows 22MB (compressed)
> Mac OS X 23MB (compressed)

Ah yes you are right. Not sure where I got the 8 meg figure from.

BTW, the reason the latest Acrobat reader is so bloated is its full of
advertisements and stuff Adobe put there to be annoying :-)

> RISC OS Draw 0.25MB (uncompressed)

But somewhat less powerful and since it comes pre-installed its hardly
likely to need downloading anyway. Bit like dia on Linux that comes with
most distros - not sure how big it is but it really doesn't matter as it
just gets installed with everything else at the beginning and you can just
download and install any additional apps at any time anyway.

> RISC OS ArtWorks2 2.5MB (uncompressed)
> 
> I only mention it because there was plenty of time spare whilst the first two
> downloaded. ;-(

Actually I have been using Xara Xtreme on Linux which is derived from
Artworks. At 17.8 meg for the download it is large by RISC OS standards
but in these days of broadband 200 gig hard drives, gigs of RAM and
download in the background its hardly a big issue. Even OOo is not that
much of a problem if you have broadband. You can always get on with other
things while it downloads. Its really rather a shame RISC OS is not more
prominent in the PDA and tablet market. I have a Samsung Q1 tablet and
RISC OS would be an ideal OS for this device but its not very likely to
get ported - who would develop all the hardware drivers? I have put
Ubuntu on it and everything works except the touchscreen - I had it
working but plugging stuff into the USB sockets breaks it. You do
sacrifice some code efficiency for making things portable because a lot of
drivers etc have to be included for a range of possible hardware. On the
other hand you benefit from lower hardware costs and greater choice.

-- 
Ian
New QCA accredited ICT qualifications
Suitable for primary and secondary schools
www.theINGOTs.org

In article , Ian Lynch
 wrote:
> I have a Samsung Q1 tablet and RISC OS would be an ideal OS for this device
> but its not very likely to get ported - who would develop all the hardware
> drivers?

At a guess - David Pilling! ;-)

-- 
	John Cartmell	john@finnybank.com	0845 006 8822 or 0161 969 9820
	Qercus magazine	FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527		www.finnybank.com
	Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
> Hi all,
>
> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>
> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>
> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
> network. Does this sound right?

Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
are currently valid.

What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from?

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dbah3F34bsh8U1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We had an RM 2.4 network. The basis was an NT4 server with 98 on the 
>> clients; the RM software sat atop all this.
>>
>> When we upgraded to Windows Server, and 2000 on the clients (Licenses were 
>> bought, along with CAL's for that), we installed Office on all the PC's 
>> thinking this would be okay as we'd had it on RM 2.4.
>>
>> It's now been raised that this may not be proper. Apparently the Office 
>> licenses are no longer valid now there's no RM software powering the 
>> network. Does this sound right?
> 
> Sounds completely irrelevant to the point of whether or not your licences 
> are currently valid.
> 
> What licences did you have? Where were they purchased from? 

Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
moons ago.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...

>
> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
> moons ago.

Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
"evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
version of Office in the future).

Robert Moir wrote:
> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
> 
>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>> moons ago.
> 
> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation computers 
> you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be mentioned in 
> the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case of whether or 
> not the order was placed at the same time or the parts turned up at the same 
> time)? If so, these would "die" with the workstations as they were retired.

As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS 
that's been upgraded.

> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might help 
> to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in their 
> arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or wrongly, 
> that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.

It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

> I'll save some of the other regulars here a bit of effort of posting by 
> pointing out that lots of people in this newsgroup regard Microsoft as being 
> the earth-side offices of satan himself, and that you could replace this 
> "evil" microsoft office with free OpenOffice and not have to worry about 
> licence issues too much any more (seriously, OpenOffice might be an answer, 
> if you _do_ have a problem, or if/when you decide it's time to get a newer 
> version of Office in the future). 

Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to 
get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users 
would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.

I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO 
distributable by an MSI.

It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

"Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
news:5dcjtqF347krcU1@mid.individual.net...
> Robert Moir wrote:
>> "Dejanews Fan"  wrote in message 
>> news:5dcffmF32aub8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>> Office licenses that were sold to us by RM when we purchased 2.4 many 
>>> moons ago.
>>
>> Were they OEM licences that were sold as a part of the workstation 
>> computers you had at the time (this is a specific thing that should be 
>> mentioned in the invoices for the computers and the software, not a case 
>> of whether or not the order was placed at the same time or the parts 
>> turned up at the same time)? If so, these would "die" with the 
>> workstations as they were retired.
>
> As I said, the stations in use are the same ones! It's only the OS that's 
> been upgraded.

Ah. Beg pardon, in that case you really should be fine.

>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>
> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.

Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
"lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a 
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word 
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Prefer MS Office myself, but absolutely agree with you here. Students 
absolutely need to be learning the general concepts and skills, not the 
button presses to kick off any one product's "wizard".

Robert Moir wrote:
> 
>>> Otherwise, I'd be inclined to say that you are fine. Perhaps it might 
>>> help to explain who raised this issue and what justification was given in 
>>> their arguement, there might be something they are relying on, rightly or 
>>> wrongly, that isn't clear at the moment that changes the situation.
>> It was said by a senior engineer in the IT department at our LEA.
> 
> Either they have access to some important information here that I do not, or 
> this is very clear proof as to why "senior engineer" doesn't equate to 
> "lawyer skilled at decoding licence agreements".

That appears to have been the case!

Thanks for the assurance. It's been confirmed to us now that the 
licenses are valid. What a relief!

On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:31:47 +0100, Dejanews Fan wrote:

> Yup, I'm a fan of OpenOffice and have already said I'd install that to
> get around this craziness if it comes to that. I don't think the users
> would even notice if I renamed the icons to Word etc.
> 
> I don't mind going this route at all, especially since they made OO
> distributable by an MSI.
> 
> It'd be nice to see all schools running OO in the long term. It'd save a
> fortune on licensing for them. Kids should be learning how to use Word
> Processors/Spreadsheets anyway.. Not Word and Excel, IYSWIM.

Increasing numbers are. I was just in a school on Thursday that it turns
out has been using OOo with all its feeder schools - some nice work in
Draw and of course all the kids can use the same software at home as they
use at school without even considering whether or not its legal or not.
And of course there is Google Apps. I should think those will steadily
improve too. This thread does illustrate why the overhead in running
commercially licensed software is more than just the cost of the license.
Management of licenses is an issue and a commercial risk to the
organisation if it gets things wrong.

Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Ian

-- 
Ian
New QCA accredited ICT qualifications
Suitable for primary and secondary schools
www.theINGOTs.org

In article ,
   Ian Lynch  wrote:
> Another app well worth considering is Inkscape. Very good vector
> illustration package downloadable from www.inkscape.org. Editor for svg
> international graphics standard. Its only 8 meg so a lot less to download
> than OOo (or even acrobat reader) and I doubt there is anything needed in
> a secondary school it couldn't support and easily usable in primary. Works
> on Windows and Linux, not sure about Apple.

Windows 22MB (compressed)
Mac OS X 23MB (compressed)

RISC OS Draw 0.25MB (uncompressed)
RISC OS ArtWorks2 2.5MB (uncompressed)

I only mention it because there was plenty of time spare whilst the first two
downloaded. ;-(

-- 
	John Cartmell	john@finnybank.com	0845 006 8822 or 0161 969 9820
	Qercus magazine	FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527		www.finnybank.com
	Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing