A Real Guide to Accepting Donated Computers for Your School

Microsoft recently published a website called A Guide to Accepting Donated Computers for Your School. In this website, MS made some clearly erroneous statements. This web page attempts to set the record straight.

Microsoft states:

The decision to accept or decline an offer of donated computers for your school can be complicated. There are many important questions to ask, including:

Will the computer run the software that your school currently uses?

What is the cost of integrating the hardware into your existing networks?

Will your teachers or students need additional training to use the computer?

If you feel it is in the best interest of your school to accept the donated PCs, make sure that the hardware donation includes the original operating system software. Keeping the operating system with the PC is not just a great benefit - it is a legal requirement.

Keeping the operating system with the PC is not a legal requirement. PCs can be sold without operating systems and they can also be donated without operating systems. As long as someone is not making an unauthorized copy of an operating system, it doesn't matter what you do to a PC.

Microsoft also has a series of questions and answers:

Question	MS Answer	The real truth
Q. Why should a donor include the operating system with their PC donation?	A. It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine. If a company or individual donates a machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that was installed on the PC.	A. It is NOT a legal requirement under any law that the pre-installed operating system remain with a machine. It may, however, be against the license of the operating system to transfer that operating system that came with the machine to another machine. However, wiping the operating system off the machine and installing another operating system that you have a license for is perfectly legal.
Q. What does the donor need to do to donate a PC with the operating system?	A. PC owners have to transfer their license rights to the operating system to your school along with the PC. They may do so as specified in their End-User License Agreement (received at the time of purchase) as part of a permanent sale or transfer of the PC.	This is true for Microsoft and other non-free (or closed source) operating systems. However, for a computer that has an free (or open source) operating system like linux, bsd, atheos, etc.. installed on it, no license needs to be transfered as the original author of the operating system has explicitly granted the ability to give the software away.
Q. How does the PC owner transfer their license rights for the operating system?	A. The following should be included with the donation of the PC. All copies of the software on original disk or CD, including back-up and/or recovery materials Manuals and printed materials End-User License Agreement Certificate(s) of Authenticity	Once again, while true for non-free/closed source operating systems, for a computer that has a free/open source operating system installed, nothing extra needs to be done. The user has the freedom to give the software away whenever he/she wants.
Q. What if the donor can't find the backup CDs, End-Use License Agreement, End-User manual and the Certificate of Authenticity? Can they still donate the PC and operating system?	A. Microsoft recommends that educational institutions only accept computer donations that are accompanied by proper operating system documentation. If the donor cannot provide this documentation, it is recommended that you decline the donated PC(s).	Of course they recommend you decline the PC. If you decline it and you really need another PC, Microsoft thinks you'll go out and buy a new one that already has an MS operating system on it. The truth, however, is that it is perfectly fine to accept the donated PC. However, if you find it has a non-free operating system on it, format the hard drive and wipe it clean. You can then install a properly licensed non-free operating system (i.e. MS-Windows [non-upgrade], BeOS, etc..) or a free operating system such as Linux, BSD, AtheOS, etc...
Q. Can I upgrade the operating system on a donated machine?	A. Yes, once the machine and installed operating system is transferred to your school or institution you own the PC and the licensed software. You can upgrade via Microsoft Academic Licensing Programs: Microsoft School Agreement Subscription, Microsoft Campus Agreement Subscription, Microsoft Academic Open or Microsoft Academic Select. Contact your preferred Microsoft Authorized Education Reseller for details.	Yes, you can upgrade the operating system, but you don't have to be limited to only Microsoft operating systems. Since many new MS operating systems won't work on older hardware anyway, you should certainly consider installing a free operating system since they tend to support older hardware much better.

For those of you who may think that a non-microsoft operating system will be difficult to setup/use/etc... This couldn't be further from the truth. Many local users group, such as the Triangle Linux Users Group (or those found at the linux users group listing) have volunteers that would more than happy to show you how to setup and use a free operating system.