As a former system administrator, and I was much friendlier than the average admin
, I wouldn't go for it as my job was to keep things running smoothly and while the cause is something I believe in, allowing anything other than necessary software to be installed on company/school machines increases the possibility of compromising the stability of "my" network (and job). Also the added work even if I didn't mind doing it or allocating staff would take time from other projects that "always are on the back burner."
Another approach is to make students, faculty, and family aware, then you're shifting away from computers that are tightly regulated and "necessary," to home users which depending on demographics are likely to have newer (faster) computers than schools or non technical companies. My children attend a very "planet conscious" middle school that sends out weekly emails to parents with school information and status updates of various fund raising projects. I've been lazy lately but now that you bring the idea back up, I'm going to speak to the "Powers that be" at the school and see if I can get a "F@H recruitment page (or paragraph)" added to next week's PDF/DOC. If they go for it I'll put up a "follow these steps page" showing parents how to install F@H and how to join the school's "new" F@H team. As we know competition increases interest and output, so I'll have to have my kids do the dirty work of having their friends go home and nag their parents to fold because Alexander's family is in the lead and Amanda's family just started and "we're never going to catch them if we don't start NOW!"
Another bonus in this particular scenario is instead of going after the 100 or so aging computers on campus, I'm now going after potentially 1,000-1,500 computers and a high percentage of them are recent model computers.
So I semi-retract my opening statement. Your letter DID convinced this former admin to get F@H running on more than just my personal machines... even though I know I will become tech support
...well I guess I can steer them to this forum
SO GO FOR IT! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE?
hmmm.. now you really got me thinking... I wonder how many PS3s the kids got for Christmas?....