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Microsoft vs. Northwest Schools Part III
SymphonicMan writes: "As previously discussed on Slashdot, Microsoft threatened an audit for the 24 largest school districts in the Northwest. Now it appears they may be backing down, according to Steve Duin, the Oregonian columnist who orginally brought this to all of our attention in April. Not only that, he writes that Portland Public Schools is opening 16 Linux computer labs across the districts, at half the cost of a Microsoft-equipped lab. Looks like this might be more than just a PR victory for open source. I'm a senior in one of the districts (Beaverton) included in the audit, and our staff is still going crazy trying to comply. But with districts across Oregon facing major budget shortfalls due to the poor economy, removing the pressure of this audit would be very welcome."
During the American Revolutionary war, the British consistantly believed that the colonies were full of loyalist supporters. When they found far fewer loyalists than they hoped for, they hired indians to fight for them. Suddenly, the large number of people in the middle swung over to support ... the rebels. Oops.
=brian
In my school district, we are facing even more budget cuts, yet I never hear anyone talk about how to reduce costs other than cutting back on salaries or materials. We should be cutting back on other costs like electricity and software. By using 12v lighting, and putting solar panels on the roof of every school we could save a lot of cash. By requiring special permits for not using free (as in beer) software, we could save money there too.
The reason I emphasise the use of "free" in the monetary sense is that I'm talking about school budgets, not software philosophy. Of course once people are into using free (as in beer) software, then you can more easilly talk to them about free (as in speech) software.
t'nera semordnilap
I read Duin's article this morning, & one item that he emphasized -- & hasn't gotten any attention -- was that MS pulled this same tactic with other school systems across the US. As a direct result Randy Baker, the tech coordinator for 16 school districts (& 12,000 end users) in central Iowa, ``completely dumped Microsoft last summer and migrated everything to Linux."
Anybody have more details about this migration?
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
How much does Windows XP cost? (Not the "home use only" version.) How much does Office cost? And how often do you have to keep paying Micros**t?
Schools often have a lot of donated machines that don't cost anywhere near $800 each.
Also untrue. I have taught your average US high-school students (i.e. the "dumb" ones that the media and the Republicans keep telling us about) intro computer stuff on Linux. I taught them how to use emacs (optional) and LaTeX (required). Not that the US public education system doesn't need serious help -- but you are doing students an even greater injustive if you underestimate them and feed them pablum.Unlimited growth == Cancer.
The truth of the matter is, windows is perfect for what schools teach (which isn't much). They teach 99% of students to be typists, capable of using word and mucking around a bit in excel.
Which is strange when you think about it... the age of the typewriter is dead, there will come a time when we don't have to employ wageslaves to type dead trees back into electronic form.
So, what would you teach kids if not teaching them to be typing monkeys incapable of truly using a computer? Me, I'd dig those apple IIe's out of the closet, and teach them assembly language on the 6502. Teach them to write a compiler, and write their own programs with that compiler. The first kid to write a video game in such a fashion, gets an A+ and doesn't have to do anything but play the game the rest of the year. I'd teach them how to interface to that crappy 8bit bus, and have them dream up things to interface to it. We'd build them in class. They hate crappy resolution, with only a few colors? Maybe we'd take a crack at building an SVGA card for it.
And maybe, just maybe, those who passed that class would be eligible for the classes that use Mac OSX or linux on the g4 powermacs. Why those? Because x86 stinks, even if the rest of the hardware that goes with it is tolerable nowdays.
So, unless you were serious... tell me what *is wrong* with using Apple IIe's in the classroom.
The story is even better than it appears. Check out The K-12 Linux Project, also in Portland, Oregon. (Moderators: Please don't mod down people who mention this project in other contexts. Mod them up.)
Linux Terminal software is used with diskless workstations to create a 5 workstation network for under $1,000.
Here is a quote: "All applications run on the terminal server. The workstations are "thin." They have no software or hard drives. Thin clients are perfect for schools because they are easy to install and require little maintenance. They are reliable and immune to malicious tampering and viruses".
Intel is giving free processors to schools.
It's all set up and ready to go. Just download the software and follow the instructions.
"The Multnomah Education Service District [Portland, Oregon, again] has moved most of it's core network services to Linux. Linux powers DNS, DHCP, mail relays, proxy servers, web filters, and directory services for the 45,000 administrators, teachers, and students within our agency and the school districts we support . For our agency and a couple of our districts, Linux powers the web, mail, FTP, and file servers."
I was told that it took 4 full-time people to maintain the MESD system when it was using Microsoft software. Now it takes 1 person half time.
Government administrators should note that it is their duty to insure that all government work be done on completely open systems. The citizens and taxpayers of a democracy must have full access to all documents, even 40 or a hundred years from now. There is NO room in a democracy for proprietary, hidden ways of doing things.