All schools In Denmark switching to Linux

Someone who can read Danish writes "According to this story (in Danish) Denmark has taken the first steps to start using Linux and Staroffice in all schools (1.1 million students). Sun has agreed to provide Staroffice for free, or on a CD-ROM for 10 Danish crowns ($1.5)."

Universities in the US considering it as well

[blacklambda]

I work as a Network Engineer in a state-run university in Pennsylvania. The new Microsoft lisence terms (a.k.a. software rental)are beginning to cause major worry in a 2500-plus seat environment where old versions running on ancient comptuers allow us to get by. The concept of moving to a StarOffice or other productivity suit us now (an a year ago unthinkable) being seriously considered.

yeah, but how long are they gonna stay with it?

[Anonymous Coward]

how come these articles never seem to have any follow-up? do they stay with linux or give up after a year?

Re:Universities in the US considering it as well

[Chordonblue]

We might not be a university, but our school here in PA did it. We converted to Staroffice 6.0 for the teachers and lab computers. We also distribute Openoffice.org to all of the students. This is an important point, because as MS Office file formats become more and more fragmented (just wait until Office 11!), the need to unify on a single, usable format (like XML) becomes critical. While saving money on licenses is a bonus, the real savings for us is in the heartache of incompatible formats.

Anyone here care to guess how many different incompatible programs our students have on their computers? Not counting the various (and sometimes) incompatible variations on MS Office, you also have the abortion known as MS Works. Then there's Lotus, WordPerfect... Hell, even NOTEPAD! And don't get me started about the different versions used from country to country. We have students who attend here from all over the world.

We've been using Open/Staroffice now for well over a year and are not looking back anytime soon. There were some minor initial glitches, but this was due to our using the Openoffice.org betas. Star PP1 / Open 1.0.1 have been rock solid for us.

Chuck Hunnefield
Technology Coordinator
Linden Hall School for Girls

"They bought their tickets... They knew what they were getting into..."

But why NOT?!

[Chordonblue]

Look, I work at a school that has converted itself to Open/Staroffice. I just love the way some people assume that no one can change the way they do things anymore or that if they have to, there must be a financial reason behind it. If the past is any indication of the future - there's a hell of a lot more change coming.

Case in point: One of the arguments made against using Open/StarOffice here was this very thing - that everyone would have to learn something new. A few of the teachers were concerned about our conversion to Open/StarOffice; this was my basic response:

1) Yep. That's what we do - we learn new things here at school. You expect the students to learn new things. Well, once in a while, the teachers must adjust also.

2) This is hardly the first time (and probably won't be the last time) that we have changed office-type software. As I had only been at the school one year prior to this, I did some checking.

Before using Office 97, they were using 95. Before that, some were using Word for DOS, some Works. Before that, Wordperfect. Before that, XYwrite and Visicalc. Etc. Change is inevitable.

The big difference here is that there's a lot more in common between Open/StarOffice and MS Office than MS Office and say, the Wordperfect suite. Sometimes, I think that people that slam on the usability and 'retraining' costs, haven't bothered TRYING it themselves! It's not that hard folks, really.

3) Standardizing on Open/StarOffice lets us give a FREE copy of Openoffice.org to every student, every teacher, every parent (should they want it). Truly a win/win situation here! No more BS with students showing up with a paper they typed at home and not being able to open it at school.

4) Which teacher would like to give up his/her position to enable us to afford licensing for Office XP (yes, I was serious!)

For us. the REAL question was - can the replacement software do EVERYTHING the last one could - at least for what we use it for? For the teachers and students the answer was a definate 'yes'.

I won't even get into the biggest advantage of all. Being able to use a cross-platform office suite means having the ability to GO cross-platform at some future date. Whether we do or not will depend on Microsoft.

Re:Editors on crack...

[Mathness]

The article speaks mostly about Sun's StarOffice and how students will be offered it, not that every school will switch to Linux.

What I find amazing is that this story is more "news worthy" than Denmarks resent law (passed on 11/12-02) and enforced from 22/12-02, whick makes it illegal to import or resell music CDs, DVDs, books and comics from outside EU. Except for your own personal use. Which means that any buisness, education or public service (Radio and TV) have to ask permission each time they want to buy/import any of these items, if they survive long enough. Laserdisken (a Danish shop specilized in import of DVDs from America and Asia) have already begone to close two of its three shops.

Read here for more info (sorry Danish only):
Politiken [politiken.dk]
Digital forbruger [digitalforbruger.dk]

All schools In Denmark switching to Star Office

[nrdlnd]

I just want to comment that the article doesn't say that all schools in Denmark are switching to Linux. what it says is that Sun has donated Star Office to the schools in Denmark and set up a server where the schools can download it for free. Sun has estimated the value of this donation to 200 million Danish Crowns (more than 20 million US Dollars) if ALL students use the software. It does also give the possibility to use Linux. The article does also say that Danish authorities may use Linux + Star Office as an alternative.