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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."
Linux is free. Support isn't. And if I was running a school, I would surley want somebody to yell at when things go foobar.
Why are they using a distro that has licensing fees at all? I mean, if you're going to migrate to Linux, why wouldn't you choose a free distro like Ubuntu, and if you needed support you could always urchase it from Canonical...
Not meant as a troll, or even "Distro X > Distro Y", but I don't see what it would be about SuSE that would make New Zealand schools choose them.
PLUS, if they're just now reaching the prices that microsoft charges... why change? You're not saving any money at this point, and you have the costs of migrating everything. I can see if the Linux migration was to free licenses, but "hey, its the same price!" wouldn't make me jump on the Linux boat.
So Novell is suppose to support it for free then?
When the guru tried to give it away for free, he was ignored.
When he started SELLING "training" for insane prices, it became all the rage.
And as it is Linux on the desktop we're talking about, they'll be using that a great deal.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Well sure it can be free. Sex can be free too, but as those here on Slashdot certainly understand, it is sometimes just easier to pay for somebody to supply it rather than go through all the trouble of figuring out how to do it the free way. I mean if you can get it for free more power to you, but don't hold it against those who need a little help and support.
In a few years, people will no longer be saying, "everyone knows Windows... we expect new employees to know Windoze... it would cost too much to re-train our staff who only know Whindoes..."
It's the beginning of the end of the desktop monopoly. Kids will no longer be programmed with a view to maintaining the power structures of the status quo.
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird -- Proverbs 1:17
Whatever you learn when you're a child has a shallow learning curve. Kids learn. They learn about whatever's around them. That's what kids do, and they do it *very* well.
The only problems with the Linux learning curve is with adults who didn't grow up with computers, have little or no interest in computing, and who learned Windows because they had to for work or whatever, and whose neuronal pathways have pretty much hardened in 'Windows mode'. Thankfully, there is, and will only ever be, one generation of these guys.
Gratis versus Libre
- You have free speech, but still have to buy your own microphone.
- You are free to travel, but buy your own ticket.
- You're free to choose, but pay the expenses of your own distro.
Supporting thousands of kids on desktops costs something. If you don't think so, then you try it. So who should carry the cost? These are state schools, the tax payer pays.Businesses may at times contribute, but that tends to lead to businesses wanting something back. Microsoft is happy to negotiate with schools. All they want is that the school perpetuates Microsoft's desktop monopoly.
So the freedom we need is the practical freedom to educate kids without the curriculum being written by the mega-multi-nationals.
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird -- Proverbs 1:17
So you think the kids shouldn't be shown anything at school that they're not already used to seeing at home? What do you think schools are for, then?
the contract could be for 500 Suse licenses -- like .0042% of New Zealand's 120,000 computers. The article doesn't say. Considering that the "three-year licensing contract with Microsoft, Apple and Computer Associates signed [by the ministry] last year was worth $27.5 million" there's no way Linux is going to be the primary desktop OS for NZ schools. At $99 a licence it would only take about $12 million of that $27.5 to make every one of those 120,000 computers a microsoft seat.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
I know that you've been modded down as a troll, but you have a good point, and even though I disagree with it, I think your post deserves an answer, not a troll mod.
I don't know if any of you noticed, but Linux only has about a 1% share of the desktop market. What is the point of teaching these kids to use a system that nobody else does?
Yes, Linux doesn't have a large share of the desktop market, but it's got a very large piece of the server pie, and is also prevalent in areas like supercomputing involved in scientific research. So the notion that learning Linux has no practical application in the "real world" is simply false. If these kids are doing tech support for the general public, yes, Windows is the system they should learn; if they're writing a program for a scientist to be executed on a cluster of Linux boxes (the job I happen to have right now), Linux is more appropriate.
However, even this is not necessarily relevant. If these kids are supposed to be learning academics (as opposed to vocational training), the operating system is really not that important in terms of how well the kids will learn. A mouse behaves about the same on Windows as on Linux, most of the skills involved in using Office are applicable to OpenOffice.org, etc. The concepts of computer science, for example, are platform-independent, no matter whether you like programming with vi/emacs or Visual Studio. So even programmers, those who have as much to do with computers as anyone, will become just as good programmers no matter which platform they learn on.
So what I'm saying is that in terms of educational value, if students learn Windows or learn Unix, it makes little difference. Also, many of these machines will be servers and computers that students won't come into contact with, and therefore they deserve an OS chosen purely on technical merits.
So, in a nutshell, what I'm saying is that the schools should get what they think is best, whether it's Windows or Linux. Their job isn't to help Microsoft maintain a monopoly just because they already have one.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
Now, they claim the same licensing cost for Novell solution but I reckon everybody is getting better deal out of it - Novell makes a buck, MOE looks cool, schools are getting good software and more importantly support, thing that Microsoft always includes in cost but never actually provides.
In short, my not too wild guess is: price is $50 mil / 2 years, the only difference between vendors is that Novell guys are happy to do some work, too.
I find it bizarre that people believe there needs to be some vendor at whom they can yell / complain / sue. If you're buying from IBM and paying top dollar for a support contract then you can expect IBM to guarantee that their program works, up to the point of writing and rolling out to you a fix specific to your particular problem.
But if you're buying from Microsoft, you won't get that kind of support. You'll get a telephone representative who'll help you to understand that the program works the way Microsoft wants it to work, and you have to work that way if you want the program to work. You'll be paying by the minute for that advice.
Nine times out of ten though, if your system goes fubar it's because "you" have fu'ed it. Complaining to a vendor won't accomplish anything.
While I agree that having somebody to yell at is bizarre - I think it may be you that has missed the point. I know (being a sys admin myself) that we don't pay for (normally minimal, but often at least some) support so we can yell at the support from vendors. We pay for support so that we can access their knowledge and resources - tips on installation and configuration issues that would otherwise just add hours here and there (costing money); as well as somebody that's probably heard of most of the common issues and solutions with the device/software/etc - including those that aren't easily googleable/findable in the docs etc.
Perfecting the art of insanity since 1982