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,

Schools should switch to Linux, NOT BSD.

[Tasty Beef Jerky]

While *BSD may be appropriate for weekend hackers and tinkerers, it is entirely inappropriate for any school computing solutions...

• FreeBSD lacks the sophisticated and user-friendly installation systems offered by the most recent distributions of Linux, e.g. those of Mandrake, Red Hat or Suse.
• FreeBSD lags behind Linux in its adaptation to newer hardware developments such as USB interfaces, and tends to lack both kernel support and specific device drivers for such features. Linux has acquired a degree of plug-and-play functionality (e.g. it will recognise a change of network card and install the appropriate drivers with no user intervention) which is not such a high priority in the FreeBSD philosophy
• Major companies (including Sun, IBM, Silicon Graphics and Hewlett Packard) are now making significant components, originally developed for their own proprietary Unix systems, available for use under Linux as well, mostly without licensing fees being payable. These components are not always available for FreeBSD, and if they are ported to that system, it is generally after a considerable delay and without the wide and intensive testing that Linux ports usually receive before full release.
• Commercial support and training is becoming widely available for Linux: this is not the case for FreeBSD.
• Since very few schools run FreeBSD, the possibilities of mutual help and advice at a school to school level are more limited than they are with Linux.
• In the area where FreeBSD is commonly regarded as superior to Linux, the ability of its networking subsystems to cope smoothly with high demand and heavy load, the level of network traffic at which such differences become measurable is some way beyond what a typical school system experiences. In any case, improvements to the Linux network code, together with advances in the key server applications (especially Apache 2 with its use of threads) mean that the advantages of FreeBSD in this area are no longer as clear as they were until relatively recently.

As you can see, Linux is the clear choice for any school based computing initiative. Yet another reason why...

BSD IS DEAD

Re:Schools should switch to Linux, NOT BSD.

[Tasty Beef Jerky]

Dude, you *do* know that the "B" in "BSD" is a rather famous public school [berkeley.edu]?

Yes, the "B" refers to the University of California - Berkley, and the "SD" refers to the University of California - San Diego. Even for them, BSD is more of a tinkerer's toy. They're about the only schools that could get away with using it. They have the development know-how right there. For any other school, the down-time alone while figuring out how to fix a problem would cost more than a site-license for Windows NT (And that doesn't even mention any of the other costs associated with getting BSD running - Man hours work, cost of supported equipment (of which there's not much to choose), etc.).

Just because a public school created BSD doesn't make it appropriate for every other school system in the world. The Model T was created by an American, but the Model T certainly isn't suitable for every American.

Re:Schools should switch to Linux, NOT BSD.

[Tasty Beef Jerky]

You think I'm Egg Troll? No sir, I most certainly am not Egg Troll.

The only FUD to be found anywhere in any of these posts is the FUD deep in your heart where you know BSD was crap, is crap, and will continue to be crap until the end of time.

Re:Schools should switch to Linux, NOT BSD.

[Tasty Beef Jerky]

And just why do you think Egg Troll would go through the trouble of getting a new login? He could very well post the same thing under his own. Even though he's modded down to -1, he certainly still seems to get bites.

Based on your logic, I can accurately say that there are approximately 4 users of Slashdot. Between those 4 users, there are nearly 550,000 login names distributed between them. They all post the exact same stuff over and over again.

I'm sorry, but I am not Egg Troll. There are other independent thinkers on this board, but you obviously are not one of them.

By the way, proofread your posts next time. You're making yourself look like an idiot with your grammer and spelling.

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.