infobong.com

As UT students may know, UT-Austin negotiated a site license with Microsoft Corp., allowing students and faculty to get copies of Windows XP and Office XP for the low, low price of $5. Of course, this is another sneaky way to get innocent college kids hooked on Windows Media and proprietary Office formats, rather than outright altruism. An entry at LawMeme suggests Redmond's non-disclosure agreements with the schools prevents the departments from sharing the terms of the licenses, which may be a breach of Freedom of Information Act guidelines since UT-Austin and others are publicly-funded institutions. I guess it must be the fees that UT pays to Redmond, rather than the users's cost, since the front page for the UT Computer Store says they charge five bones.