Linux Desktops in New Zealand Schools 280
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 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't that what students are for?
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
And if my name was Shirley, I'd surely be surly that you couldn't spell it. But because it's not, I'll suggest that maybe it's a good thing you're not running a school.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually he is adding something of "distinguishable" value to message boards. Since this is a written communication medium, the poor grammer and spelling often exhibited by posters makes that purpose much more difficult pursue.
While I understand that sometimes the person in question is from a non english speaking country and that english is a seco
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
makes that purpose much more difficult pursue.
You forgot the "to"
This will in no way change my point.
I think most of the time the poster is just ignorant.
So by your own words, you're ignorant. Ahh. Gotta love grammar nazis who make mistakes in their posts.
There's a different between Som31 t4lk1ng li|3 th|5, and someone making a typo in a post where everything else is perfectly readable and understandable, without
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2, Funny)
From the context, I can only assume you mean that you had to struggle to read my post. If this in indeed the case, you should revisit reading class. I think grade four should about do it.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway contracted support for linux installations can be purchased from any number of companies and the great thing is that, unlike with windows sites, support companies have the possibility of fixing bugs (if not necessarily the skil
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Insightful)
And as it is Linux on the desktop we're talking about, they'll be using that a great deal.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
I've pushed most of my recent roommates over to Linux. I'd get a month or so of extra questions about "how do I do this?" and "what program does this function?", then things go real quiet.
After a couple of months of abject silence, I then get questions like: "What are some good Linux advocacy sites", and "Could you just remove my Windows partition?".
I still haven't gotten used to the fact that the silence implies that they've actually se
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
And as it is Linux on the desktop we're talking about, they'll be using that [support] a great deal.
Only for the first couple of months, and then Only because it's a bit different than what they're used to.
I've pushed most of my recent roommates over to Linux. I'd get a month or so of extra questions about "how do I do this?" and "what program does this function?", then things go real quiet.
After a couple of months of abject silence, I then get questions like: "What
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2)
Woo-hoo, go Kiwis!
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Hmmm, don't bet on it.
As much as I "love" Linux/GNOME/FF/blah, Windows is going to stay the dominant desktop OS for 1 reason:
DMCA
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the DMCA - the mechanism by which I'm guessing you think that works - content providers DRM their files and then don't license open source developers to write programs that can read it - depends on a few things:
1)US judges ruling that cracking a DRMed media file for the purposes of fair use and/or interoperability is against the DMCA (though the DMCA explicitly says otherwise)
2)Proprietary Linux/Apple companies NOT being licensed to write DRM-capable media players
3)The Disneys and RIAAs of this world still retaining their stranglehold on the mass entertainment media in the face of competition from random people on the internet and/or piracy.
4)Consumers being sheeplike enough and malleable to upgrade all their DVDs and CDs to the digital video/audio format of the month, whenever the content providers demand.
5)The DMCA, or something like it, being extended to the 96% of the population of the world to which it doesn't currently apply
It's emininently possible that all of these things might occur, so you could well be right, but it's not a foregone conclusion - I reckon patent lockups on internet servers, clients and protocols, (making using Linux a jarring experience compared to Windows) is a bigger portion of the threat meself.
But time will tell.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:4, Interesting)
Ignorance only lasts a little while (Score:3, Interesting)
Bill G. had one chance to pull the wool over people's eyes, and now the evidence is in front of everybody.
So the GP is right. Either Microsoft throws off the Bill & Steve act, or Microsoft gets plowed into the ground in the next five to ten years as the kids who know _why_ their parent's boxes are full of malware grow up.
And that's not counting the people outside the US and Japan who haven't become numb by co
Re:Isn't the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
That's if your curve is a graph with {amount of knowledge} in the y axis vs. time or effort in the x axis. But the way most people use the phrase metaphorically, where steep equals difficult, implies a graph where y = amount of effort and x = amount of progess, thus a steep curve mean a lot of effort for relatively little progress.
See? It's all in how you look at it.
-chris
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Interesting, since I didn't know the term came from Human Resources where that orientation makes sense, rather I thought it was from Psychology.
-chris
It's laziness (Score:2)
What many fail to realise is yes, Linux takes a bit of fine tuning and tweaking, but you typically only have to do this once or twice since you should never need to reinstall.
People so easily forget the days of autoexec.bat, config.sys and all the other config files you were once required to play with in pre Win 95 days.
No. It's not laziness. It's simply unnecessary (Score:4, Interesting)
But since the thread is talking about basic users the problem is simpler. It's not a matter of users being lazy. It a matter of the changes being unnecessary. And they're not going to do their own changes anyway, that's the job of IT support.
Face it, Win95/NT/2000/XP/2003 all have different interfaces and behaviors. It's not like dropping a new kernel or even an new OS behind KDE or Gnome: on MS-Windows everything changes. When you change from one version of MS-Windows to another, your basic users will be inconvenienced by it and not like it. Ask them in a non-threatening way, you'll find they do not like the changes in the interface, especially when they're using the computer for exactly the same tasks as before. With a linux distro, they can keep the same GUI behavior and menus -- even in many applications -- for years longer and concentrate on their work rather than learning a new interface.
So, I say again, inconvenience from upgrades is unnecessary for the basic user. Most of these basic users have a computer on their desk to write reports, letters or memos, work a spreadsheet, use e-mail, use the WWW, or print something from any of the above. There's no real reason any of that has to change so often, especially the computer's GUI and applications. In fact if the user is happy with the functionality, then same system and applications could be used indefinitely and there should be no reason to do anything other than the occasional security patch. And a patch should not affect functionality unless some unethical bastard decided to piggyback non-security related stuff into it.
Re:It's laziness (Score:2)
How I wish Windows could be configured so simply. I had the same setup from DOS 3.1 on, cloned from machine to machine, upgraded to DOS 6.22 in place; it didn't get flakier as time went by, didn't have a registry that grew like cancer and got more and more screwed up with every day. And Win 3.1 was almost as stable, just keep backups of your ini files then look
Re:It's laziness (Score:2)
Saving the cost of a MS license is pretty much meaningless (although one friend of mine did comment about worring about having to pay $1k for the next replacement for XP-pro.), since most people already have some version of Windows on their box already, and the only way to avoid the MS t
Re:Isn't the point (Score:3, Informative)
Essentially all the ones that I have come across, rely on Windows. Given that these are not simple systems, I would say that it is going to be a while before Linux in the schools really takes off. Too bad as most of the CS inclined teachers I
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
You are more optimistic than me.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Any way neither Spocks nor Yoda were know for their use of Novell or any other flavour of Linux.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Funny)
nOOOO (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
If paid sex is illegal in certain countries, is paying for this kind of support then legal??
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Funny)
So, in conclusion, generally sex is not free when you account for the entire TCI!
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Informative)
If you mean that it's free in the sense of it not costing any money, no, that's not the point. The point of the operating system that it's been bundled with, GNU, was to provide a "free" OS in the sense that the user could do whatever he wished with it, i.e. modify it and share it with others. The sharing aspect means that it's very easy to obtain without paying for it, but that wasn't the purpose. I paid for my copy of GNU/Linux. Why? I like Linux in large part because the source code is accessible, and I think good work deserves good pay.
Freeware (in the sense of cost) has always been around in great quantity. What makes open source programs different is the *open source code*, not the fact that you can download it for free.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the point (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2)
Let's play fill-in-the-blanks:
Why is it so difficult, even for some on
Why is it so difficult, even for some on
Why is it so difficult, even for some on
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
You can get and deploy free Linux in a school if you admin guys are unix gods, but I'd imagine most admin guys in schools struggle with Windows. Hence when something isn't playing ball they need a number to phone to bitch at someone.
Re:Isn't the point (Score:2)
What the school is paying for is support. If the school wanted to support its own desktops, then there would be no money that would have to be paid to Novell regardless of the number of copies the school installed on their desktops.
Repeat after me: The software is licensed under the GPL. There is no per-copy licensing fee for the software.
Question.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Question.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Question.... (Score:2)
note to mods: I am a gentoo fanboy, and yes, i am compiling X.org at this moment. show mercy
Re:Question.... (Score:5, Informative)
They are paying the same price for their desktops but as part of that their single license with Novell means that whatever else they are using (Zenworks, Netware or whatever) costs are greatly reduced. Good use of purchasing power IMO.
Re:Question.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. But... (Score:2)
What kind of support infrastructure does Canonical have in New Zealand?
What does Novell have, for its Linux products?
What does Red Hat Asia Pacific have?
Re:Question.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Question.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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 fac
Re:Question.... (Score:2)
I suspect that it's because a free distro cannot easily jump though a purchasing department's hoops. Who's going to put in a bid? Who finds it worthwhile to put forth a dossier promoting something that is free?
Free is not a concept that the commercial world really knows how
Perhaps it more like Trancendental Meditation (Score:5, Insightful)
When he started SELLING "training" for insane prices, it became all the rage.
Re:Perhaps it more like Trancendental Meditation (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps it more like Trancendental Meditation (Score:3, Interesting)
Novell are pretty nice people to work with in a business context -- they understand taking care of their customers, and are big enough to have someone local pretty much wherever you are, have influence with vendors who need influencing, and so forth. They certainly understand the customer-centric thing better than Red Hat does, though I've never dealt with Canonical comercially so I can't comment on them in a business context.
(Not relevant
Re:Perhaps it more like Trancendental Meditation (Score:2)
Bugger! (Score:5, Funny)
my hacking of unsecure school network systems days are over
But on the otherhand it is good to see the playing field levelled.
Or maybe (Score:2)
Become the guru. Do a little social engineering on the sysadmin (i.e., suck up like a groupie). Tell them you want to be like them when you get out of school - but how will you learn?
You'll rule.
Additional Coverage (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=12 417&cid=3 [nbr.co.nz]
My take - I'm a student at Perth, Western Australia. My school recently got a whole bunch of iMac G5's, and Panther, and they are a nice set of machines. I run a heavily customized ubuntu/Gnome 2.10 setup at home and I would have to say that OS X is all that it's cracked up to be. It has a great interface and file/folder management system (finder), is stable, and seems to be easy to administrate (given that the sysadmins seem to do little work :D).
It's a great choice for a school desktop, due to it's ease of use and solid support base. I use Linux at home and prefer it's data management capabilities, but there will always be a place for OS X in my heart.
At least until the GNOME team creates an expose-like function
Re:Additional Coverage (Score:2)
Crikey, if you think Finder is stable and "great", I'd hate to see what you call "bad" :).
Re:Additional Coverage (Score:2)
You mean like expocity [pycage.de]? Expose for Metacity, which I think is the current GNOME Window manager.
I haven't used it myself, so I don't know how good or bad it is. I'm a keyboard junkie.
Re:Additional Coverage (Score:2)
You *like* the OS X Finder?
Holy shit, you should have seen the Finder we had in MacOS 9... you'd be pissing your pants with excitement.
I guess in a world of 6 billion people, there has to be at least one who would like the OS X Finder...
Re:Additional Coverage (Score:2)
Re:Additional Coverage (Score:2)
It's a shame xorg didn't split from
Re:Additional Coverage (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, GNOME!=GNU/Linux. I've been using X Workstations for nearly a decade now, and I've NEVER needed a 'taskbar.' Not once. Try getting away from the GNOME/KDE 'windows-alike' paradigms and try some real window managers. WindowMaker for instance. Use multiple root
Re:Additional Coverage (Score:2)
A step in the right direction (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A step in the right direction (Score:4, Interesting)
The parent is bang on here. I can't say anything for how the system works in New Zealand, but I do recall my days as a high school student in Alberta, Canada. In my high school, the technical support staff were not permanent staff working at the high school -- heck, they weren't even government employees. They were simply tech support guys from a local company that were hired as the need arose to come into the school and fix up problems.
So, you have to remember -- each tech problem == cost to the school. Hence, if the schools can get a distro that offers tech support as part of its one-time up-front charge, this could translate into savings for the schools (especially during the first year or two, when the transition from Windows to Linux is being made -- quite frankly, no matter how easy different distros try to make that transition, there are always bumps that show up, where your average school librarian will need tech support help!)
The Point is Cultural Change (Score:5, Insightful)
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:The Point is Cultural Change (Score:2)
The only question I have since I am very familiar with the school market in the Netherlands, is the following:
Do New Zealand schools not suffer under a random set of badly written windows programs which they call there teaching method? This is really blocking all migration op
Re:The Point is Cultural Change (Score:2)
When I was in a New Zealand school, we had Apple ][, and the only educational software was Lode Runner, Castle Wolfenstein (the original - none of this 3D rubbish) and pong. There may have been something else, I don't remember.
Re:The Point is Cultural Change (Score:2)
Re:The Point is Cultural Change (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Point is Cultural Change (Score:2)
Right, because then everyone would be saying "everyone knows KDE... we expect new employees to know KDE".
I think the general problem is that the populace just doesn't know enough about general functions of the computer, and instead have just familiarized themselves with whatever interface they use (be it the Windows interface, the OS X interface, KDE in
Re:The Point is Cultural Change (Score:2)
Exactly. The only way your going to get around that is to introduce people to a variety of computer systems.
When I was in school, I had access to a wide variety of systems -- Apple IIe, IIgs, Mac classic, Commodore (various models), DOS, Windows 3.0/3.1, Windows 95.
Today, so many of the schools I visit have sta
Similar thign happening n the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
Times Educational Suppliment ran it a few weeks ago. You needed the paper version for the full article but this is a good summary and primer: http://www.tes.co.uk/2094985 [tes.co.uk]
Now... Can everyone who has kids in the UK start asking the teachers about this at their next school visit?
It's a pretty well known fact that if you TEACH *CHILDREN* to use Linux and not Windows from the start, it will filter up through the years and (with any luck) become the system of choice in the home too... Then the last 'bastion' will be industry... and with 1000's of up and coming children leaving schools with skills fully developed in Linux, the old excuse of 'training' kinda starts working against Microsoft. 'Cause none of the kids use it (nor want to). It's the same trick Microsoft used (Free O/S etc for schools).
Hope I haven't failed to explain in enough detail all of this, and you can all 'join the dots' and see where this might be going.
So... Start hassling your teachers NOW. I personally *am* getting involved in a new school to get all their computers on Linux from the start. When it opens in September.
If you're *serious* about wanting to see a less monopolostic computing environment, but don't know where you should put your effort in to help... This is the place... IMO
Re:Similar thign happening n the UK (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.becta.org.uk/leas/display.cfm?section=1 4_9_1 [becta.org.uk]
This gives a lot more information than the short summary in the on-line Times Eudcational Supplement. As well as hassling the teachers (I hope your being a little facetious using the term "hassle") it's a good idea to approach any councillors who sit on the LEAs education committee, the LEA itself and, of course, the school governors. But before you do anything else speak t
Re:Similar thign happening n the UK (Score:3, Informative)
Part of MS' success was IBM's failure to engage "the lower end of the market" with OS2. Anyone on a budget (ie student like me at the time) had to use Windows. IBM concentrated on blue-chip corporate accounts where desktop OS2 deployment was heavily leveraged in Mainframe and AS400 installations.
(I kinda know - I worked for IBM UK in the mid 90's).
What IBM failed to realise was that today's kids have a habit of becoming tomorrow's IT directors. For a lot of them, IT==w
My experience has been more like (Score:2)
Teacher: Linux? Firefox? I don't remember them mentioning those in my MCSE classes...
(not a word-for-word transcription, but conveys the general overtones of the conversation)
This price comes from where....? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a strange statement, due to TFA later saying the following:
The ministry won't comment on the cost of the contract.
Further investigation to this shows the following server costs from Novell's site:
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxenterpriseser
These are all non-haggled prices, too. There is nothing on there for $99, and I wouldn't think that they would be buying new servers just to change over the OS. Elseware I saw that these prices are supposed to include one year of matenence as well. Either I really missed something, or there is a flaw in Mr. Schwarz's journalism. Anybody have any insite into this little paradox?
Re:This price comes from where....? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
SuSe, why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess the point here is that instead of having a solid Debian or a powerful Gentoo GNU/Linux, institution, companies, schools, prefer to have technical assistance and a commercial product in general, which will then be open source.
Do not forget that together with the SuSe package (that I do not really like myself) it comes a very well organized guide oriented for that distribution in particular, plus they have a phone number to call if they want professional help.
On the other hand, if the system adminnistrator was good enough to do everything in his own, he could have install e Debian through the whole netowrk, asking help to the community when needed. But that doesn't happen often, so you get these commercial packages.
I do not think that this is a problem, as long as it is Linux and not some creepy linux-similar distribution with tons of closed source application is fine to me.
RegardsRe:SuSe, why not? (Score:2)
Whoever modded you flamebait should be hit with a large fish.
For all we know (Score:4, Insightful)
Desktops the least of it (Score:2)
The deal covers both open source and proprietary products from Novell. Proprietary products include Novell's Open Enterprise Server, asset management tool ZENworks, email and calendar program Groupwise and network security software BorderManager.
It will be of much more advantage to the schools in NZ currently paying ~$13,000 annually to Novell for eDirectory licenses, and
Nice! (Score:2)
IMO, although this is a win for Novell and their distro, it's an even bigger win for the much maligned "simplification" policy that Ximian spearheaded for Gnome. Sure, there are other desktop environments with thousands of configuration options for just about everything, but at the end of the day, this is just further proof that the customise to the max design ethos just isn't pra
What distribution are they talking about? (Score:2, Insightful)
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:
NO MS OFFICE FEE (Score:2)
Windows on a computer = $100 + $150 edu office fee: $250
NLD = $75(?)
Not to mention not having to worry about spyware, viruses, etc.
As an NZ IT Technician... (Score:2, Interesting)
The educational space is very MS application specific, and I'm not joking about this.
With the MS deal having appeared first, I discovered that naturally the school I started working at has a very tight W2k3 infrastructure, based around Active Directory ( not pretty, but it does work when you find out all the undocumented "features" ). Breaking this structure down to work with Linux boxes is currently not an optio
What about the apps? (Score:2, Interesting)
As a former... (Score:4, Informative)
Also novell was/is quite costly for schools, we were thinking of changing but the cost was just too great, if this new deal helps get more novell servers out there instead of windows servers I am all for it. But the real question is who really is going to support this? I mean you do need someone there that knows what they are doing I mean are you going to call novell every time you need a user created? A lot of the tech's that work at schools in Australia are just out of school and are in traineeships, who is going to teach them to use a Novell server or to configure a Linux desktop?
at any rate I'm glad there is finally some action from the Novell front, quite possibly the only real chance for an alternative in the business and governement sector.
Re:Teacher!...leave the kids alone (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Teacher!...leave the kids alone (Score:3, Interesting)
*sigh*
What applications? Which job?
Superior by what criteria?
Superior for what purpose?
Superior according to whom?
Vastly by what scale of measurement?
If you think you have a point, support it!
It's rarely sound policy to make purchasing decisions based purely on adjectives and ad
Re:Teacher!...leave the kids alone (Score:5, Funny)
Preach it, brother. I have been endlessly cursed by an early exposure to a Timex ZX-81 and Commodore 64, and may never recover from once having owned an Amiga. Oh, my kingdom for the ability to somehow acquire new skills that are similar to the ones I already have!
No, I want my kids learning XP and only XP, and that's been my opinion ever since the United Nations declared it the One True OS For Posterity. I don't want them to look back with shame and horror on the weird systems of their youth as they attempt to learn the Windows path 30 years from now (which will be exactly identical in to current systems - how could we ask them to cope with change?).
Re:Education! (Score:2)
Bollocks. [about.com] "While the precise origins of chopsticks are unknown (the first chopsticks may have been twigs used to spear a roast cooked over an open fire) they were definitely in use by the Shang dynasty (1766 BC - 1122 BC)."