Inventor Licensing & User Agreement Intent?

[dustinjeremy2k]

I guess I'm the only guy who's read the Autodesk Education Community's updated Terms of Use unless every other FIRST team has students bring their own personal computers into their workspace... Read carefully and you'll find that teachers/schools can no longer install Autodesk products on school-owned machines without purchasing a license…

A passage from the Autodesk website explaining the Education Community License Update:
"...eligible Education Community members, including Students and Faculty, may use the free software licenses made available via the Education Community on their own personal computers in the classroom for purposes of providing and receiving instruction."
(I emphasized the bold)
They go on to explicitly state that schools cannot install this software in a lab, or on any school-owned computer. (The laptop I’m using now is technically a school computer.) This includes any student machines issued by a school (ex: one-to-one student laptops).

(Truly trying my best not to whine…)
I don’t understand how FIRST teams are expected to utilize this software donation without violating the User Agreement. Our team exclusively uses our school's computer labs for our design work both during the day (in classes) and after school (at team meetings). I’d imagine we’re in the majority here. Most of my students do not have computers capable of running the software on their personal devices... It's hard enough to find a lab of machines meeting the requirements for Inventor 2013 in a typical public high school! What ever happened to handing out a DVD with ‘X’ number of licenses per team? At least then we had something to plan around. At this point I’m left with few choices: 1. Abandon Autodesk products in favor of truly free alternatives. 2. Accept the license and break the rules by installing in school. 3. Or ask students to bring $1000+ laptops to school every day (and go out and buy one myself. That’s some kind of ‘donation’ alright.

Is it truly the intent of Autodesk to take this tool away from FIRST teams? If not, can someone – preferably an Autodesk employee – please respond to explain what I’m misinterpreting? How can I let my team have access to this invaluable software at our site? Having been an Autodesk advocate for 10+ years and teaching with AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor, I’d rather not throw all that experience out the window… but the financial constraints of legally purchasing the software for my classroom now seems insurmountable. I started my career teaching Solidworks, and I used Pro-Engineer in college (albeit a lifetime ago) so I’m not against switching platforms… but I shouldn’t have to! Please help me make sense of this new licensing strategy!?!

And you teachers out there - feel free to chime in too. I know I'm not on an island here. What are you doing/planning for next year?