23,000 Linux PCs For Filipino Schools

Da Massive writes "Speaking at the linux.conf.au event in Melbourne, Australia, independent open source consultant Ricardo Gonzalez has told of how he has helped bring 23,000 Linux PCs to over 1000 schools in the Philippines: 'Ministers in the Filipino government now understand Linux can do so much for so little outlay.'" The slow process of educating a government that knew only Microsoft is especially well described in this piece.

About fucking time!

[sgtron]

The Philippines is such a poor country, it's about damn time they wised up and chose the free option. Although, I can't help to think that with so much corruption in every aspect of the government and business over there. I'll be surprised if this pans out in the end.

Re:About fucking time!

[kramulous]

FTFA

... so after a successful deployment of 13,000 Fedora Linux systems from a government grant, plans are underway to roll out another 10,000 based on Ubuntu.

13000 already done. Time to be surprised.

Re:don't hate me

[DaHat]

Funny... that's just what Apple was thinking in the mid to late 90's when Macs were most of what you saw in schools... what happend? Those folks ended up using PCs once they went on to college and real jobs.

Good move

[jantoxicated]

As a Filipino - and by the way, the comments here are very very disturbing - I am happy this is pushing through. If you are living here, Microsoft Windows IS the most dominant OS around here, with a few exceptions of other who used Macs. The only Linux users I knew are those that belong to my local Linux user group and programmers like me. But ever since the crackdown of BSA on schools regarding pirated copies of Windows and others, schools here (or at least in my city) reacted by moving some of their machines to Linux, using OpenOffice.org and using Firefox. Of course Windows machine didn't evaporated overnight but at least we are on the right track.

Re:don't hate me

[CastrTroy]

Just don't look up anything in a reference book in front of your patients (or in the case of a vet, the owner of your patients). My boss is a pilot, and he told me a story about how he took up a friend for a flight once, and when coming in for the landing, he got out his checklist to go through the proper landing procedures. The guy got all freaked out because he thought that he was looking in a manual, and didn't know what he was doing. I'm a software developer, and I spend a lot of my time looking up the right answer in various places, rather than trying to come up with it on my own. It's often faster, easier, and more reliable to look up the answer somewhere else, rather then try to solve a problem yourself.

Won't make any difference

[kurokaze]

Having been born in the Philippines and still have most of my family there (last time I was there was 2006), I can tell you that it's not going to make any difference.

Every business is still tied to windows, and every kid's PC at home is still windows (God forbid you give them a PC that can't play Ragnarok!)

Trying to find a computer reseller that will sells pre-loaded boxes with linux is needle in a haystack work.

If you want to really effect change, then you need to change the thinking of the chinese filipinos, they are really the ones running the country (seriously!), not the locals.