Linux Desktops in New Zealand Schools

nigelr writes "The New Zealand Ministry of Education has signed a deal with Novell New Zealand to provide SUSE Linux desktop licenses in schools. The article claims that while the price for a desktop license now matches what Microsoft charge, the new deal will significantly reduce the over all cost due to reduced charges for existing Novell products used in schools around the country."

Isn't the point

[utnow]

of Linux that it's free and all that jazz? I mean... paying for it takes away a whole lot of the attractiveness IMHO.

Re:Isn't the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is free. Support isn't. And if I was running a school, I would surley want somebody to yell at when things go foobar.

Question....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they using a distro that has licensing fees at all? I mean, if you're going to migrate to Linux, why wouldn't you choose a free distro like Ubuntu, and if you needed support you could always urchase it from Canonical...

Not meant as a troll, or even "Distro X > Distro Y", but I don't see what it would be about SuSE that would make New Zealand schools choose them.

PLUS, if they're just now reaching the prices that microsoft charges... why change? You're not saving any money at this point, and you have the costs of migrating everything. I can see if the Linux migration was to free licenses, but "hey, its the same price!" wouldn't make me jump on the Linux boat.

Re:Isn't the point

[ByeLaw]

So Novell is suppose to support it for free then?

Perhaps it more like Trancendental Meditation

[waferhead]

When the guru tried to give it away for free, he was ignored.

When he started SELLING "training" for insane prices, it became all the rage.

Re:Isn't the point

[Sheetrock]

Well, part of what they're paying for is the support.

And as it is Linux on the desktop we're talking about, they'll be using that a great deal.

hopefully a sign of times to come (?)

[h4ckintosh]

Too bad schools don't switch to open-source quicker. I doubt anything like a large scale migration will ever happen though (in schools in the US, especially for some poor schools/school districts who don't know they have options), which is actually kind of sad on the part of the students -- now in 3rd world schools, I _believe_ it has already happened to an extent.

Re:Isn't the point

[Mrs. Grundy]

Well sure it can be free. Sex can be free too, but as those here on Slashdot certainly understand, it is sometimes just easier to pay for somebody to supply it rather than go through all the trouble of figuring out how to do it the free way. I mean if you can get it for free more power to you, but don't hold it against those who need a little help and support.

The Point is Cultural Change

[TuataraShoes]

In a few years, people will no longer be saying, "everyone knows Windows... we expect new employees to know Windoze... it would cost too much to re-train our staff who only know Whindoes..."

It's the beginning of the end of the desktop monopoly. Kids will no longer be programmed with a view to maintaining the power structures of the status quo.

Re:Isn't the point

[Aim Here]

Whatever you learn when you're a child has a shallow learning curve. Kids learn. They learn about whatever's around them. That's what kids do, and they do it *very* well.

The only problems with the Linux learning curve is with adults who didn't grow up with computers, have little or no interest in computing, and who learned Windows because they had to for work or whatever, and whose neuronal pathways have pretty much hardened in 'Windows mode'. Thankfully, there is, and will only ever be, one generation of these guys.

Re:Isn't the point

[TuataraShoes]

Why is it so difficult, even for some on /. to grasp the difference between free and free.

Gratis versus Libre [wikipedia.org]

• You have free speech, but still have to buy your own microphone.
• You are free to travel, but buy your own ticket.
• You're free to choose, but pay the expenses of your own distro.

Supporting thousands of kids on desktops costs something. If you don't think so, then you try it. So who should carry the cost? These are state schools, the tax payer pays.

Businesses may at times contribute, but that tends to lead to businesses wanting something back. Microsoft is happy to negotiate with schools. All they want is that the school perpetuates Microsoft's desktop monopoly.

So the freedom we need is the practical freedom to educate kids without the curriculum being written by the mega-multi-nationals.

Re:Isn't the point

[badfish99]

So you think the kids shouldn't be shown anything at school that they're not already used to seeing at home? What do you think schools are for, then?

For all we know

[mincognito]

the contract could be for 500 Suse licenses -- like .0042% of New Zealand's 120,000 computers. The article doesn't say. Considering that the "three-year licensing contract with Microsoft, Apple and Computer Associates signed [by the ministry] last year was worth $27.5 million" there's no way Linux is going to be the primary desktop OS for NZ schools. At $99 a licence it would only take about $12 million of that $27.5 to make every one of those 120,000 computers a microsoft seat.

Re:Teacher!...leave the kids alone

[lasindi]

I know that you've been modded down as a troll, but you have a good point, and even though I disagree with it, I think your post deserves an answer, not a troll mod.

I don't know if any of you noticed, but Linux only has about a 1% share of the desktop market. What is the point of teaching these kids to use a system that nobody else does?

Yes, Linux doesn't have a large share of the desktop market, but it's got a very large piece of the server pie, and is also prevalent in areas like supercomputing involved in scientific research. So the notion that learning Linux has no practical application in the "real world" is simply false. If these kids are doing tech support for the general public, yes, Windows is the system they should learn; if they're writing a program for a scientist to be executed on a cluster of Linux boxes (the job I happen to have right now), Linux is more appropriate.

However, even this is not necessarily relevant. If these kids are supposed to be learning academics (as opposed to vocational training), the operating system is really not that important in terms of how well the kids will learn. A mouse behaves about the same on Windows as on Linux, most of the skills involved in using Office are applicable to OpenOffice.org, etc. The concepts of computer science, for example, are platform-independent, no matter whether you like programming with vi/emacs or Visual Studio. So even programmers, those who have as much to do with computers as anyone, will become just as good programmers no matter which platform they learn on.

So what I'm saying is that in terms of educational value, if students learn Windows or learn Unix, it makes little difference. Also, many of these machines will be servers and computers that students won't come into contact with, and therefore they deserve an OS chosen purely on technical merits.

So, in a nutshell, what I'm saying is that the schools should get what they think is best, whether it's Windows or Linux. Their job isn't to help Microsoft maintain a monopoly just because they already have one.

Re:Question....

[ne0n]

There's a humongous difference between an unmanaged desktop on your home computer, and a networked school setup wherein each machine must be locked down and centrally managed. Plus, if you RTFA (or even the synopsis) the schools are getting a good discount on Novell software already in widespread use.

Re:This price comes from where....?

[hdparm]

These deals are not made on a per-server or per-desktop pricing. Everybody knew the price tag for MS contract - NZ$50 mil. over two years, which gave right to schools to use unlimited number of Windows computers (server and desktop) and limited (I don't know to which exact number) number of MS Office installs. For MOE this was peanuts, for MS - fuck all, in money terms. However, MOE and schools were free from bootleg software headaches for two years and MS extended their lock-in a little bit longer.

Now, they claim the same licensing cost for Novell solution but I reckon everybody is getting better deal out of it - Novell makes a buck, MOE looks cool, schools are getting good software and more importantly support, thing that Microsoft always includes in cost but never actually provides.

In short, my not too wild guess is: price is $50 mil / 2 years, the only difference between vendors is that Novell guys are happy to do some work, too.

Re:The Point is Cultural Change

[Seumas]

The only computers I ever saw in school from first grade through highschool were Macs and Commodores. Yet everyone uses Microsoft. So the idea that people will use what they are familiar with from school doesn't hold water. Since most schools didn't have Microsoft machines until at least the mid 1990s, you would then expect everyone today to be using Apple rather than Microsoft.

Re:Isn't the point

[elronxenu]

The person responsible is your computer/network administrator, and nobody else. So if you must yell, yell at them.

I find it bizarre that people believe there needs to be some vendor at whom they can yell / complain / sue. If you're buying from IBM and paying top dollar for a support contract then you can expect IBM to guarantee that their program works, up to the point of writing and rolling out to you a fix specific to your particular problem.

But if you're buying from Microsoft, you won't get that kind of support. You'll get a telephone representative who'll help you to understand that the program works the way Microsoft wants it to work, and you have to work that way if you want the program to work. You'll be paying by the minute for that advice.

Nine times out of ten though, if your system goes fubar it's because "you" have fu'ed it. Complaining to a vendor won't accomplish anything.

What distribution are they talking about?

[Advocadus Diaboli]

Sorry folks, but I don't get it yet. Reading even the article I don't know what they are talking about.

Novell bought SUSE and now offers the following products:

1. SUSE Linux Professional (which is the boxed product). This product is not supported, there is only a basic installation support available, but if you run into worse problems than its just bad luck for you. So if the article says "If schools want to have a Linux desktop now they can have one from a major international corporation with the support that brings rather than a free copy of (Linux distribution) Mandrake." then they can't refer to SUSE Linux Professional.
2. The desktop product from Novell is called Novell Linux Desktop (NLD). This product gets support, but AFAIK the price point for NLD is around $50, so it looks a bit strange to read "The Novell deals lets schools buy software for the same cost as Microsoft products, about $99 per product per server for a year-long licence." especially because they now refer to a "per server" license (for a desktop product).

What is also looking very strange to me is the emphasis of the name SUSE. If you visited the LinuxTag2005 in Germany then you would have noticed that there were not much traces of the brand "SUSE" any more and the Novell presence was limited to one PC at the HP pavillion. That gave a very clear impression that Novell is trying hard to get the name SUSE out of the head of the people, and now not even 4 weeks later they sell SUSE Linux to New Zealand? I'm a bit puzzled.

Re:Isn't the point

[KingJackaL]

While I agree that having somebody to yell at is bizarre - I think it may be you that has missed the point. I know (being a sys admin myself) that we don't pay for (normally minimal, but often at least some) support so we can yell at the support from vendors. We pay for support so that we can access their knowledge and resources - tips on installation and configuration issues that would otherwise just add hours here and there (costing money); as well as somebody that's probably heard of most of the common issues and solutions with the device/software/etc - including those that aren't easily googleable/findable in the docs etc.

Re:Question....

[iamwahoo2]

Good question, here is what I expect the answer is:

1. Canonical may actually charge more for support. Novell may be taking a loss on this as is because they have to compete with the special educational rates that Microsoft has for Windows and Office. I am not sure what this cost is, but I know it is significantly less. Additionally, the ability to provide support is going to depend on the location of offices. If Novell has an office in New Zealand, they are at an advantage for no other reasons than the fact that they will be open at the same time of day.

2. Ubuntu may or may not be a better desktop than Suse. I like them both. Novell offers a lot more than just Suse when it comes to supporting a large number of workstations and they offer training for these products.

Why switch from Microsoft? The topic says that they are getting of cost savings. Alternatively, there may be a political motive. Many countries are supporting OSS and encouraging their different organizations to support it because they believe that they get more of a return on this investment. Their support helps to develop software all over the world and they are rewarded when other countries add enhancements to OSS. Currently they are giving all this money to a foreign company which probably provides their economy with relatively few jobs. Lastly, perhaps they are convinced that Linux/OSS is the wave of the future and that they are helping their students having them learn to use these tools now.

still cheaper than microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not really important that people pay for support. this seems to be an obvious over head, think of all the other applications that are bundled with your average linux distribution. Openoffice, gcc, perl, gimp etc. All of the equilivent packages from microsoft cost a fortune per package and each still require a liscence. BUt in the linux world it is all part of the distro which is probably covered in the support contract.

Re:It's laziness

[Anonymous Coward]

(name: Bjarne Nilsson) Well correct me if I'm wrong here put last time i checked tha ukranian currancy was called hryvna (my spelling might be wrong) othyerwise youre post had a good boint