eweek.com — To learn more about the recently reported migration of computers in 12,500 high schools in the southern Indian state of Kerela from Windows to GNU/Linux, prompted largely by the recent visit to India of free software guru Richard M. Stallman, DesktopLinux.com contacted Stallman for further details.
Sep 7, 2006 View in Crawl 4
garethevansSep 8, 2006
Thanks. Drives me mad when people post a link to a link to the actual story.
justinjacobsSep 8, 2006
As far as I know, I'm the only Linux user in my school. I try to spread the knowledge of, at the least, open source software when I can. Quite a few teachers I've found are comfortable with OpenOffice. So I'd imagine they'd be fine with something like Ubuntu + OpenOffice.
Closed AccountSep 8, 2006
Personally if I wanted more impressions I'd write empty articles about linux and submit them to digg in a roundabout fashion.This particularly insightless article could be summarised as:- Dick doesn't know what linux they're running, because they developed their own (not sharing?)- It wasn't difficult to convince them their students shouldn't have access to proprietry software (apparently Dick hasn't heard of industry standards like Oracle, MSSQL, Visual Studio, etc)- Some little town on the edge of Spain is sort of doing the same thing, but very slowly.- Dick doesn't like the way the French are selling some computers. He's all about freedom, just not theirs
benplautSep 8, 2006
So did he bug them about it not being desktopgnulinux.com?
thund3rstruckSep 8, 2006
@FriendGive me a break... just because people are unfirmiliar doesn't mean they're incapable. When you get a job at Hardees you have to learn to work the register... When you work at a bank you have to learn to use their management system. It's not like any of these people have administrator rights anyhow so there is no reason for them to learn anything more than using OpenOffice and logging in/out of the system/internet. Its nothing. The university is the best place for mass migration to Gnu/Linux
circlefusionSep 8, 2006
Other people are digging you down, but I would rather explain something to you, because you (like many others) have a very convoluted understanding of why people are supportive of Linux and critical of Microsoft, and why people on here cheer when there is good news about Linux.Irresponsibility is the word that I use frequently when describing Microsoft. That is my prime complaint with the company. I don't have a problem with Microsoft charging money for their software. Free software can be great, but non-free software can be as well. In Microsoft's case, it is a mixed bag. They do have some successful software products that are quite functional and productive. They also have some software that has evidently been given less thought than was needed (Windows Security issues, IE6, etc). If the issue was only about the quality of their software, the issue would be simple. They have "good" software in general...not spectacular, but good. In theory, Microsoft leaves room for other companies to compete with them and offer superior products. In theory.The primary problem with Microsoft is with the decisions that they have made as a virtual-monopoly software company. Being in their position means that their actions can have a dramatic effect on all of us in the computer industry, as well as those who are business owners or in the education field. This is one major reason why they are the target of scrutiny. In addition, while their competitiveness as a company is part of what makes them successful, that degree of competitiveness also means that they will make frequent decisions to prevent other software companies from being able to play ball with them. This hampers innovation and it reduces our options as customers, developers and the like.With software, open competitiveness relies a lot on open standards. Standards are important for the users of the software, but the users often don't know that. I wish the businesses that buy the products would realize that there should be fair competitiveness in the software industry, not a reliance on proprietary formats. If there were focus placed on open standards, then when a company like Microsoft makes a decision with their software that negatively affects us, we can turn to better options from other companies.The Open Document Format is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Even if Microsoft remains the software of choice for the Massachusetts government, it is still a wonderful thing that an open standard file format is now being required. They could switch away from Microsoft technology if they wanted to.The adoption of Linux in schools is also great for the same reason. Linux is founded upon open standards. If those schools want to switch from Linux to anything else, they can. They are not tied to using proprietary technology.I could go on, but I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions that you and others seem to be having.