[Hidden-tech] State mandates on Windows XP?

[Bram Moreinis]

I don't think "vulnerability" needs to be in quotation marks....anybody 
who is paid to be responsible for machine security will want to get away 
from legacy system support.

On the other hand, some public-funded places are pretty resource-poor 
right now and can't afford to update all their systems to support fresh 
Windows...and these same folks don't pay fancypants tech support to keep 
their machines secure and running and CERTAINLY can't pay people to 
master open source.

I think there are many opportunities out there for Linux-lovers to 
volunteer to take on IT infrastructures in public-funded or nonprofit 
shops in return for their pledge to abandon Windows XP - are there folks 
on this list willing to sign up for that good Samaritanship?  That would 
be a great project for students in community colleges.... I won't hold 
my breath waiting though.

In Vermont, where I lived the last two years, there was an expression 
common to all hardscrabble farmer communities: "Use it up, wear it out, 
make it do, or do without."  Those folks will NOT be trashing their 
Microsoft XP machines, unless they have enough Linux supporters, until 
that security flaw exposes itself big time and forces their hand, I reckon.

If you can switch out of XP, you will, and if you can't, you won't ... 
until you experience why you have to. So no doubt there are some MS 
people working on some highly contagious XP exploits for those who would 
rather fight than switch.

I don't think I buried a recommendation anywhere in there, aside from 
organizing young people to support Linux in schools (I've done that, 
http://hvscouts.com, and would volunteer to help if someone asked and 
had the kids).

-Bram

I work for a non profit that takes state money.  Has anyone heard if the
state is going to mandate that anyone with a state contract will be
required to get rid of their XP computers?    Or anything else in the
pipeline for the state requiring people to move away from XP? Here at
umass we have a policy that any XP system after April 8th will become a
"vulnerability" and will be banned from being on the network.

> Even if the state "does nothing", it would be prudent to 'voluntarily' get rid
> of the Windows XP machines. If the *cost* of a replacement MS-Windows machine
> is too much, Ubuntu (cost = $0.00) can be installed on the older Windows XP
> machines, since it is likely that MS-Windows 7 or 8 won't run on something
> that originally shipped with Windows XP -- eg 32-bit processor, short on RAM
> and/or hard drive space, etc. Ubuntu (or really any Linux distro) will run
> quite happily on older, 32-bit hardware (and a 'bleeding edge' distro like
> Ubuntu will have up-to-date versions of LibreOffice, which can deal with
> recent vintage mess-word docx files). If there are mess-windows only apps, a
> Windows XP system running in a sandboxed VM (eg without Internet access) can
> be set up with VirtualBox. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS only needs about 10Gig of disk
> space for the O/S files and is happy with run with only 512Meg of RAM
> (although at least 1Gig is prefered). CentOS 5 is happy to run on diskless P4
> workstations with only 1.25G (1G + 256Meg) of RAM -- we have a pile of P4
> Small Form Factor ("Samba") boxes at the Wendell Free Library running network
> booted CentOS 5 with their file system NFS mounted.
>
>> Thoughts?
>> Thanks
>> David
>>
>>
>>


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