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All schools In Denmark switching to Linux
Someone who can read Danish writes "According to this story
(in Danish) Denmark has taken the first steps to start using Linux and Staroffice in all schools (1.1 million students).
Sun has agreed to provide Staroffice for free, or on
a CD-ROM for 10 Danish crowns ($1.5)."
That's absurd! There aren't even that many kings in Denmark!
I work as a Network Engineer in a state-run university in Pennsylvania. The new Microsoft lisence terms (a.k.a. software rental)are beginning to cause major worry in a 2500-plus seat environment where old versions running on ancient comptuers allow us to get by. The concept of moving to a StarOffice or other productivity suit us now (an a year ago unthinkable) being seriously considered.
Ryan Dorman, CCNA Network Communications Specialist Millersville Univesrity
Time for Gates to say "there's something rotten in Denmark" and get on the plane.
how come these articles never seem to have any follow-up? do they stay with linux or give up after a year?
but as the US has consistently proved in the past decade and still not caught on to is that they're not the center of the universe. The loss of Microsoft's power will not be starting in the States, but rather in the countries with the good of the nation rather than the economy on their minds. UNIX has been a staple of Computer Science since the 70s (pre-70s i'd be hard pressed to consider anything on the frontier known as computers as a staple), and IMHO has a good number of decades left in it.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The article speaks mostly about Sun's StarOffice and how students will be offered it, not that every school will switch to Linux...
I'll leave translation to someone who has stronger danish skills than me though.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
I've started to question the authenticity of some slashdot stories recently, especially after things like this. If the editors don't read stories posted in our own language... Anyone out there want to verify this?
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Free software for school use
By Keld Louie Pedersen
Denmark's 1.1 million students and teachers can now turn their backs to Microsoft corporation. At least when it comes to office software.
A deal between the Silicon Valley company Sun Microsystems Incorporated and UNI-C means that the country's students and teachers can download the office program StarOffice 6.0 from Sun at no cost and freely install it on their home computer. Alternately, they can buy it on CD-ROM at cost, 10 kroners per CD. The schools can buy StarOFfice in packages of 50.
Sun has made the deal with UNI-C according to the guidelines announced by education minister Ulla Toernaes (Left Party) on October 30th, on how educational institutions should act when offered free office software. Amongst the requirements are that such software donations are without cost for the state, and that UNI-C Denmark's information technology center should be responsible for distributing licenses.
UNI-C's expenses are covered by the 10 kroner the distribution of CD-ROMs brings. Sun makes a server with the free Linux operating system available for those students and teachers who want to download StarOffice 6.0.
"UNI-C exists to help the Danish educational world, so we're naturally very pleased to be able to distribute this type of initiative from Sun", says Dorte Olesen, director of UNI-C.
The world's undisputedly most wide-spread office system is Microsoft Office, although this does not exist in a version that can be used on computers with Linux as the operating system.
Because of Microsoft's dominance in both office and operating systems, several government institutions are working on creating alternatives, primarily the combination of Linux and StarOffice.
If all 1.1 million students and teachers make use of the offer, the total value will, according to Sun Microsystems, be around 200 million kroners.
--Joakim Ziegler
The GPL firmly kills any chances of a bait and switch. If SUN tried to tighten the screws they could switch to open office...
Got Code?
Anyone interested in doing something along these lines, and avoiding M$'s protection racket ("y'know, for a few dollars a year per station, I could make sure that you don't get hassled by software license audits"), should check out k12ltsp.org. With corporate donation programs starting to pass along some decent hardware to schools, a kick-ass lab can be had for just the cost of the networking infrastructure.
Even heroes have the right to dream
Sun is making StarOffice available free for Danish schools--that's pretty much all the story is. Not really news since Sun has been promoting StarOffice pretty widely. The schools are under no obligation to use StarOffice, and it sounds like there is no Linux involved at all (except the server from which you can download StarOffice)--it might all be StarOffice for Windows that is being talked about here.
In a stunning speech a few hours ago, President George Bush declared Denmark a "den of malcontents and terrorists". And announcing to the UN in an emergency security session the need to: "bomb the hell out of them" for obvious stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and denying their people American software, goods and services.
Denmark, whose main exports include those silly little wooden shoes and tulips, was unavailable for comment.
In other news, Microsoft led a resounding stock rally.
There are all sorts of reasons to use Linux in schools. One being the Thin client model found at K 12 Linux.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
If students can learn an office suite and desktop environment like Mandrake, or Redhat, and they can't apply these skills to Windows, they don't deserve to graduate. Students taught on a Mac manage to transfer their skills to other computers with a day or so of orientation, so why do you expect Linux will be much harder? You do know it's not all command-line based, right? There are applications other than grep and vim.
Perhaps they'll be addicted to system stability and being able to move documents between programs... It might be hard to go back after that.
It does not mention anything about schools switching to Linux.
a ^= b; b ^= a; a ^= b;
Penn State and Pitt are "semi-private" Commonwealth affiliated institutions. They get interesting tax status, charge in-state students less, and get some Commonwealth funding.
Then there are the more traditional state colleges: Lock Haven, IUP, Shippensburg(??), etc.
DANISH is like an advanced version PSTRY but you get a much better tase of it you compile it on APPLE or some other similarly fruity platform. It is best learned in the morning with a healthy side of JAVA.
Hi,
I'm from Denmark, I can read the article, so I figured I'd clear up a few things:
An entity, which is called UNI-C, has reached an agreement with Sun Microsystems about distribution of their StarOffice package. Schools, teachers and students will be able to get the software for free if they download it (from a linux server, running on the danish school network known as Sektornet) or for a fee of ~ $1.50 on a CD.
UNI-C is a semigovermental entity, that does networking for the public school system and the universities, hosts the DIX (Danish Internet eXchange) and things like that. Danish law says, that for a public school to accept free software, the software must be of no expense to the state, and its ditribution must be handled by UNI-C.
So, in conclusion, no, every school in Denmark is not switching to Linux. They may switch to StarOffice, on some platform.
But hey, it's a step in the right direction...
Oh, and merry x-mas everyone.
Bo
In a full press release made available shortly after President Bush's recent speech attacking Denmark, the Administration outlined suspicions linking the Lego Corporation of Denmark to Al Quaida and the attack on the World Trade Centre.
Apparently, the attack was planned using a 43,000 lego brick scale model of the two towers. The Administration suspects direct involvement by Lego Corporation's scaled modelling experts and has now declared Lego products a Weapon of Mass (Modelling) Destruction. The Administration is now compiling a list of all people who have made substantial Lego purchases in the last few week and will be immediately calling them in for questioning and possible detention over the next few days.
While individuals and small installations may go back to Windows, I suspect that for most large installations, the cost advantages and reliability of Linux are so compelling that they tend to stay with it.
No more BS with students showing up with a paper they typed at home and not being able to open it at school.
That's the real payout. And everybody using the same version of the same software is *not* a viable solution. Home, Office, School. Different versions of different software. They all need to be able to read and write. The duo of StarOffice/OpenOffice will tend to ensure that "improvements" and "enhancements" do not introduce gratuitous incompatibilities.