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Macedonia Deploys 5,000 Ubuntu Desktops in Schools
vladoboss writes "The latest GNOME Journal is running a story about the deployment of 5000 Ubuntu desktops in public schools. The Republic of Macedonia is a small country in Southern Europe with a population of around 2 million. Internet penetration is only around 5% and software piracy rate is rampant. Also, the government does not play any major role in the development of the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and a private sector is dominated by Microsoft technologies. Given the circumstances, one would not expect any free software related stories to make the headlines. Yet the presence of a small volunteer organization by the name Free Software Macedonia is making a big difference in this small country."
The friendly article didn't say it, but I assumed these schools will be using OO.o, not MS Office on WINE?
This is a strong movement because children tend to come back home and fiddle with home PCs (like installing games/trojans), so it's now more likely that more Macedonian homes will be running Linux too.
What I am not sure is the career future of these children of the future. Will they be better off in their career now that they are primed with OpenSource ideas, will they become the valuable elites in "knowledge-based exports" market, or will they be forced to re-learn MS once they enter workfoce?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
All right! only 2000 more to go before we have...
Seven Thousand Macedonian Linux Desktops in Full Battle Array!
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Glad to see our south-western brothers get it right. Nothing better than teaching children to use C++ with KDevelop + QT Designer, and in Ubuntu that setup is always just a few mouse clicks away.
Due to pressure by large countries to honour patents and copyrights, poor countries are all switching to free software. The strict enforcement of copyrights is the best thing that can ever happen to the Free Software movement and to the poor, it is a godsend.
Oh well, what the hell...
How exactly do you have such a high software piracy rate when only 5% of the people have Internet? Yeah, I know people can copy things at home and hand them out or sell them, but it seems like that couldn't spread things fast enough to come close to the rate in other countries.
I also question whether that what gets installed is also that what gets used by the pupils or schools later on. Once their infrastructure is getting better, people start to experiment (even pupils at home). That's how we all learned about Linux and I doubt that the 468 schools and some 182 computer labs continue staying with GNOME once they find themselves trap into many problems that they can not solve. I think from the 5000 Desktops that are planned - only half of them will remain with GNOME (in best). The other half will continue piracing Windows or switch to something else.
I found Linux because of experimentation yes, but I was only experimenting because of my disgust with Windows. My thought is that if these kids are introduced to Linux before they become acustomed to Windows, they will be much less inclined to switch to Windows after experiencing the (subjective) benefits of Linux.
As for finding themselves trapped in problems, I do not agree. I have done my fair share of deploying Ubuntu for inexperienced Linux users, and it has always turned out well. I feel that both Gnome as a desktop environment and Ubuntu as a distribution are easily mature enough for this scenario.
I hope them the best in their endeavor, and that others follow suit.
This is exactly the sort of initiative that is needed in poorer countries. The reason so many people remain poor around the world is that they don't have skills that are of value in the global marketplace, and for the most part they don't have the opportunity to get those skills. When you get the kids wired, they get the opportunity to learn the same skills that people in wealthier countries make dang sure to give their own kids - and we're all the better off for it.
If you build it, they will come...
Yes, but there are also aspects of KDE which are harmful to education. For instance, konstantly kspelling keverything kwith "K" kannot kbe kood kfor kyoung kstudents.
It used to be the argument between rich & poor schools. "We have a gym, swimming pool, theater, you don't have anything!!!" Now its, "We run Windows, your poor, you run Linux!!!" Open Source is a really good idea though, it will give pepole many more opportunities to access & use computers.
Second, Gnome/KDE, it does not really make that much of a difference. ubuntu, kubuntu, both look nice, can run browsers, office software, software development software and definately a heck more than they would have if they were to use licensed payware.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
Free Software is a winner once more. Alas, not everywhere. I live in a neighboring country, Bulgaria, and it looks like our last government made a life-contract with MS for our schools and state administration. Corruption, you will ask, yes, a contractor which is in close relation to the government supplied all the MS products and there was no public auction for this contract. The MS products were even bought at higher than normal prices. And one more thing: There are computers in the state administration somewhere in smaller towns, that can only run DOS, but they still have bought MS WINXP for these PCs. And the contract being for life means as long as MS suppllies products our children will be forced to use Windows at school and call themselves computer-skilled. For me it is the worst nightmare. Go go go, Free Software Macedonia! I wish you more success!
sex is better than war!
I work at the MS travel office in Redmond.
We read Slashdot all the time so we know in advance where the salespersons will want to go next.
We have chartered a plane for next week.
Expect a "Macedonian ministry of education revokes linux deployment plan" article here come January.
Do you trust Wikipedia?
If not, how about the CIA's World Factbook?
In one last ditch effort, if Wikipedia and the CIA are too shady for you, how about the self declared First Macedonian WWW Page? (I might note that the bottom of this page mentions that it "was rated in the 'Top 5% of the Web'")
How does the other 95% get their porn!?!?
You ask why they would put KDE on Ubuntu instead of using Kubuntu? Uh, Kubuntu *is* just Ubuntu with KDE put on it. You can do apt-get install kubuntu-desktop on a Ubuntu box.
Kubuntu is just the name of the Ubuntu install cd that installs KDE instead of Gnome by default.
So the parent post was right in saying that "that setup is always just a few mouse clicks away".
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
Follow the link to the macedonian FOSS site and look closely at the yellow box in the upper left corner, then click on it and read.
F.Y.R.O.M. is the name that the European Commission kindly asks us all to use, because of a spat with Greece over what the term "Macedonia" actually refers to. The Greeks claim that Macedonia is in fact a region spanning parts of Greece, "the F.Y.R.O.M" and Bulgaria, IIRC. The Macedonian people refer to their country as "Macedonia", just as Americans refer to the country they live in as "America", despite the fact that the term encompasses vast areas clearly beyond the borders of the U.S.A.
It is of course, no factual error to call the country F.Y.R.O.M. But you probably don't go around saying that Lhasa is in China, do you?
Ubuntu is named after the South African ideology of humanity towards others.
Denham's Dentrifice, Denham's Dentrifice, Denham's Dandy Dental Dentrifice, Denham's Dentrifice Dentrifice Dentrifice.
They still have nothing on the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya! Which of course is used far more often than that pedestrian form, "Libya."
English is easier said than done.
Something to keep in mind about the Balkans:
They are - and have been - and probably will be - a political and religious powderkeg.
Greeks in particular have a few things to be pissed about. The religious leader of their faith is in a different country because of how the lines were redrawn post-WWI. Hundreds of thousands were massacred in Asia Minor during the '20s by the Turks, but no one there will admit to it. (And yes, I know, they didn't get the worst of it. It was still brutal.)
In 1452, they (and the rest of the Orthodox world) lost their highest cathedral to the Ottomans, who desecrated parts of Hagia Sophia and turned it into a mosque. (Think of it as though St Peter's were conquered by Iran.) Now it's used solely as a tourist site.
The name of Macedonia was assigned to the former southern province of communist Yugoslavia in 1952 by Tito.
There's no historic basis for the name; the region of Macedonia whence Philip and Alexander came from was much further south.
Yes, at the time, there was no concept of Hellenic unity; that developed mainly after the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, which put the final nail in the coffin of unity between Rome and Constantinople. However, there was this understanding that they spoke the same tongue, they learned the same thought (pop quiz: who taught Alexander?), they spread the same ideas and believed in the same faith as everyone else on the peninsula now known as Greece.
The Balkans as a whole are rife with religious and ethnic hates going back centuries. The Catholics hate the Orthodox, and both hate the Muslims. The Croatians and Albanians and Serbians are at each others' throats, the Greeks hate the Albanians for taking part of their country, the Turks for the same reason as well as the historical stuff, and everybody hate the Roma (gypsies).
The only thing that kept a lid on Yugoslavia's ethnic groups, well, was the iron fist of Tito.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
This is not a phenomenon localised to America, it is simply caused by people only being familiar with the character set they know. Until central Europeans in general learn the difference between "w" and "v" in English, they have no right to lecture English speakers for not being able to pronounce their own additions to Latin script. While we are discussing ignorance in pronunciation, I think you are probably not aware that most American accents are Rhotic, i.e. they would pronounce the two instances of the letter r that you added as if they were at the front of words. Thus, B-[ir]-l-[ir]-ni would only in fact be pronounced like the Hungarian Bölöni by an Englishman, a New Zealander or an Australian. Pronounced by an American this name would just sound plain awful (though insistently this applies to most words Americans pronounced) with lound rs and far too much time would be spent pronouncing the awkward rl and rn consonant transitions.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
2.000.000 population, 5% internet penetration, 5.000 Ubuntu desktops -- instant 5% market share if you look at it one way.
No wonder this makes headlines.
"Good news, everyone!"