Slashdot Mirror
Linux Desktops in New Zealand Schools
nigelr writes "The New Zealand Ministry of Education has signed a deal with Novell New Zealand to provide SUSE Linux desktop licenses in schools. The article claims that while the price for a desktop license now matches what Microsoft charge, the new deal will significantly reduce the over all cost due to reduced charges for existing Novell products used in schools around the country."
Clearly you didn't even read the whole summing up, let alone the article.
They are paying the same price for their desktops but as part of that their single license with Novell means that whatever else they are using (Zenworks, Netware or whatever) costs are greatly reduced. Good use of purchasing power IMO.
Isn't the point of Linux that it's free and all that jazz? I mean... paying for it takes away a whole lot of the attractiveness IMHO.
If you mean that it's free in the sense of it not costing any money, no, that's not the point. The point of the operating system that it's been bundled with, GNU, was to provide a "free" OS in the sense that the user could do whatever he wished with it, i.e. modify it and share it with others. The sharing aspect means that it's very easy to obtain without paying for it, but that wasn't the purpose. I paid for my copy of GNU/Linux. Why? I like Linux in large part because the source code is accessible, and I think good work deserves good pay.
Freeware (in the sense of cost) has always been around in great quantity. What makes open source programs different is the *open source code*, not the fact that you can download it for free.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.