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Has Free Software Saved Any Schools?
morcego asks: "I think
everyone remembers the case of PCs
for Kids, the Australian group that donates computers for the
poor children, when Microsoft asked them lots of money for the software
on the computers they donated. I am trying to convince schools to start
using free software, and I have heard arguments like 'all free software
initiatives in public schools around the world have failed.' I know this
is not true, but I need cases to show them. So, do you know of any school
(public or not), or other educational institution that has been saved from
paying large amounts of money (and closing its doors) by free
software?" For those interested in this topic, you'll probably
want to read up on the latest salvo in the Microsoft
private
antitrust settlement. It sounds like education, and Open Source, may
now have an official relationship, and things are now getting kicked
into high gear. While it's good to hear about the "SchoolForge" coalition
(no relation to SourceForge or
NewsForge), what educational resources
are currently available to schools from the Open Source arena?
One thing working in your favor, ironicly enough, is Windows Product Activation. The more difficult it is to use bootleg commercial software, the easier it is to see the value of free stuff.
I just wanted to let you know that Kabul Elementary school, which operates out of my neighbor Mustaffa's barn, has been running the new version of ISLAMIX. ISLAMIX is a revolutionary open-source operating system which Mustaffa and I developed recently for our Commodore computers. The kids at Kabul Elementary think ISLAMIX is the greatest thing since sliced camel! We will have a website soon with more information about ISLAMIX and it's many features (including Beowolf clustering in order to download and play movies from the Internet.) We are also working on porting the Katzbot to ISLAMIX, but we've not had any luck getting things to compile. It seems that our copy of endlessramblings.h may have been corrupted during the modem transfer. -Junis from Afghanistan
That's what school sysadmins are for.
:)).
Besides, hardware configuration stopped being an issue under Linux very recently. The last time I had to configure something manually was RedHat 6.0. Ever since RedHat 6.2, the Kudzu(spelling on that? I rarely invoke it manually) program run at bootup would detect any hardware changes. Makes swapping IDE devices, PCI devices, and even ISA PnP devices very easy -- just boot up. Puts the Windows "Windows requires that you touch your nose three times, stand on your head, and insert the disk labelled "I downloaded this off the internet" to continue." device installation to shame.
Remember, in a place like a school, with a bunch of bored kids, there will be a sysadmin ready to fix any problems which arise from the kids antics("I put my comb in the floppy drive, now it's stuck in there!"). Sticking a boot disk into a drive to install Linux over FTP or NFS is a piece of cake(assuming the floppy drive works
It's been a long time.
My school district currently uses a mixed Microsoft/Linux environment. Until last week, our primary www server was Linux. However my boss got grumpy and decided to switch it to Win2k+IIS w/FP Extensions, so that he could update it easier via Frontpage (I'm gagging too). However, within 30 minutes of him installing Win2k and IIS, it got Nimdaed. Nice job! Right now, we have: A secondary Linux www server, for PHP/MySQL things. A SMTP/IMAP/webmail server in Linux. This is one area where Linux paid off. MS wanted thousands for Exchange, Win2k with the necessary hardware. Old machine (We don't have a ton of users) + Linux + exim + uwimap + Apache/PHP/MySQL = total new costs of $0. We are also implementing a Linux firewall to segment the network into DMZs (Something thats never been done, because as with most projects it is "Lets get it done and up as fast as possible". sigh.)
- Nothing is true, everything is permitted
My high school offers programming classes, but we do all our programming on windows machines. I don't know why we don't switch over to linux and GNU, it being free and all. It seems like it would all be a better learning experience if we could easily see the source for more complex programs. My friends and I have setup a Slackware box, but the school system doesn't know yet and we don't plan to tell them. Last time we did, the next day we came to school and the power cord, monitor, keyboard, mouse and network cords were all gone. They thought it was a "virus" ;-)
>>Most of the work for the attendance program was done by one of my students who was learning perl on the fly.
How much you want to bet that this kid just happens to graduate school with perfect attendance?
By your reasoning, I'm only qualified to work in jobs that require a sliderule.
>> (he has been banned from the school grounds)
You can't just say that and not tell the story.
For $30,000, you can get one teacher or 20 computers...do the math.
Or the administration can renovate the conference room in the elegantly appointed downtown offices.
Given these choices, I think that the newly-retired teacher will be starting a computer sales business while the administration decides between the walnut or mahogany paneling.
Yeah, well I'd punch you back, and then we'd be boxen.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
3. Students probably have Windows at home. Would they have problems with converting documents between systems? Say you create your report in Word at home, could your bring it school and use it there?
That's nothing, sonny. Why, back in my day, we had Windows at home and Apples in the schools. We had to pay for everything, we couldn't work on the same document at home and at school then either, and we liked it!
-- dR.fuZZo