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A Monocultural Alternative: TheOpenCD
GooseLiverPate writes "Computers and Composition Online has an article by Dr. Paul Cesarini concerning the risks of a Microsoft monoculture in education. He describes the relation between Open Source and Microsoft as: "one of gnats swarming around a large, slow-moving beast." and emphasises the lack of innovation in Internet Explorer and MS-Office. He suggests TheOpenCD as a possible bridge for schools and universities to Open Source, and includes a review of the newly released version 1.2."
I have always been a big advocate for open source at the schools, but most of the big education software is win/mac only and most technology coordinators at schools are hesitant to give the K12LTSP a shot. This week Igave a speech to a bunch of other school technology coordinators about the GnuWin CD. Plenty Open Source for Win. I downloaded at the Open CD once and found GnuWin to be more comprehensive. I guess I should take a look at the new version. Most schools were highly interested in OpenOffice and AbiWord, so the foots in the door here.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1331169,00.as p
"Addressing several thousand attendees at the Worldwide Partner Conference, he took a swipe at Linux, open source and StarOffice, saying, "they simply accept the view that what they have is good enough. That view does not foster innovation. Being where we were with Office 1997 is not good enough for us," he said."
Microsoft admitting that OO is already equal to something they spent millions and millions on and also happens to be much more widely used than Office XP is the best thing they could have said.
I mean that. Office 97 is still very popular. One of the biggest challenges MS has is moving people off that since many businesses find that Office 97 is all they need. The fact they think OO has met the quality level that most of world thinks is "good enough" is excellent news.
Congrats to the OpenOffice.org team and thanks to Microsoft for the marketing material.
As I am no way in hell able to afford Microsoft Office, I can only use it at College, not at work or home.
OpenOffice 1.1 has saved my life. Even complex presentations, with Animations, Transitions, Pcitures and Sounds are imported flawlessly in Version 1.1 and it is very fast.
Many students I also know are starting to use it. OpenOffice, together with KDE is perfect. I admit OpenOffice 1.0 was a bit slow and ugly, but version 1.1 is perfect.
Open source is about choice. People should be able to stay with Microsoft if they want to. Why does anyone still on Windows have to be pestered by a swarm of open source gnats about their choice of OS?
I agree - people should be able to choose what OS and programs they run, which is why I'm so against OSS ninjas sneaking in the labs and my house at night, installing their versions of the software I love to pay for.
When you say pestered, I think you mean exposed to. How many non-techies do you know who've heard about OpenOffice or Firebird? After introducing most of my friends to tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking, there was no need to fall back on any OSS rhetoric. They saw that the program had useful features and decided to use them instead of the MS alternative. And as a former English major, I can say that many a starving artist loved the idea of a free word processor.
The OpenCD project is more a drive to make OSS as accessable to people who aren't that interested in computers as the MS alternative. Since so many MS products are "essential" to Windows, most people are introduced to Windows Media Player, IE, and other proprietary programs before having a chance to check out the competition. Since they can use these immediately, why would they find an alternative, especially when that requires researching an area that they're not particularly interested in? The open cd provides more of a fair playing field. Sadly, since MS is so insistent on bundling everything they have to force out competition, there's still a long ways to go.
The "widespread budgetary woes" and "ever-increasing licensing fees" don't effect them.
That is why I was told to use the leftovers from last years tech budjet to buy enough toner cartridges and ink cartridges for this year and next. We have already been told that the money isn't there. After many years in school systems, the only time I believe it when people tell me about future money is when they say it isn't there.
Microsoft gives its products to schools for free or at a steep discount, and is more and more likely to do so the more viable the competition becomes.
Could you please point me to where this is available for schools? All my MS products are at a marginal discount. At best.
Are we so quick to forget incidents like this one, where Microsoft started going after schools for license violations? Microsoft and the Gates Foundation may give away a lot of stuff to schools and libraries, but it's rarely enough to make a dent in the budgets of most schools (I still send a number of old computers to my mom's classroom - running linux or old versions of macos - because her school can't afford to give her the computers she needs).
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
I would say - Give it a shot. At least on a small scale (ie. one classroom at a time) I am a teacher at a small charter school in Pittsburgh PA. I used a current DELL (shipped with XP) and installed K12LTSP. The dumby terminals and switch was all donations from the local LUG. It cost the school 1 computer (that they already had), and now I have 8 student computers in the class.
Best of all is when a student comes in from the lab (all XPs) and asks to use "my lab" cause they like it better. Some say it runs faster, some say they have less problems, some say they just like it. I really don't care why, it is just great!!
Now I even have a science teacher wanting me to put one in here room.