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?

Comments

Jsut spend the money on MS.

[utdpenguin]

It's not like we could use the money for other stuff. Like paying teachers, for instance. Teachers are gonna do a lto more than computers can ever hope to, and if we pay them more, we might even be able to attract people who could be great teachers.

Re:I'd say so, yes.

[Bowie J. Poag]

If i'm as ugly as my tiles, i'll take that as a compliment. Thank you!

And hey, don't blame me for going bald. History repeats an order it must protect, and dihydrotestosterone is the guilty party, not my barber. :)

Trolls need love too,

Is Linux really cheaper in the end?

[SumDeusExMachina]

I know that all of this evangelizing to get Free Software into schools is well-intentioned, but I can't help but wonder if we are doing more harm than good. Sure, the software that these people want to provide to school districts comes at zero initial cost, but what happens when something goes wrong? What if the mail server is misconfigured and starts causing problems later on? What if they get hacked (certainly not improbable with an abundance of hacker-familiar Linux machines on the network)?

Does anyone know what the support costs will be once this school runs into the inevitable problems imposed by either poor configuration by hobbyists or the need to scale? What if they need more email accounts or something? While these problems would be easily dealt with on a Windows-based network (I think even your average high school computer teacher could handle it, or, barring that, a couple of MCSEs, who are a dime a dozen these days), it has been proven that there is a chronic shortage of people who are Linux-competent. This mostly stems from the fact that Linux is much less common than Windows in today's business world, so naturally there is a labor shortage. Any causal student of economics knows that a shortage in labor leads to skyrocketing salaries and consulting fees when it comes time to fix problems, money that a school district simply can't spend on expensive tech support.

Really, when it comes down to it, you have to look at the total cost of ownership associated with installing a certain platform at a school. While the initial cost of a Windows site license may be high, it is a lot cheaper to maintain overall due to the abundance of people who can fix problems for a relatively low fee. Compare this with Linux, where whole companies base their business plans on providing support for an arcane system that can often suffer failures. In the end, perhaps these evangelization efforts would be better spent on coding software that makes Linux more user-friendly and less of a hobbyist's toy.