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68% of UK Universities and Colleges Use Firefox

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the british-insight dept.

An anonymous reader writes "mozillaZine is reporting that over two-thirds of British universities and colleges have installed Mozilla or Firefox on their campus computers. They cite an open source survey by OSS Watch that also shows rising support for Mozilla Thunderbird, Moodle and Octave, though a decline for OpenOffice and LaTeX. Predictably, all open source offerings are blown away by Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office's 100% deployment rates."

4 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. If OSS can conquer Universities... by sweetnjguy29 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...then the rest of the world shall follow! These numbers are deceiving though, because although more than two thirds of UK universities and colleges have it installed, it is only installed on "some" of their hardware. It is depressing that the open source model and philosophy hasn't caught on with more force in universities, especially since it fits so well with many universities mission statements, to bring education and enlightenment to the masses.

  2. Missed Advertising Opportunities by SlashdotOgre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's good to hear Firefox use is increasing, but it has always frustrated me how many people have never even heard of OpenOffice.org. While I was working at a university last year a few times I had to pick up some cables from the bookstore, and on two occasions the person behind me in line was planning to buy MS Office. In both cases I suggested OO.o -- something the person had never heard of -- and in both cases the person decided to post pone purchasing MS Office until after they try Open Office. Since it's free, I've found most people are willing to at least give it a shot; however it amazed me that I've never seen OO.o advertised in a campus bookstore. You would think that a university campus, full of students who could use that extra hundreds of dollars saved from not buying MSO more than most people, would be a perfect place to push Open Office.

    --
    Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
    1. Re:Missed Advertising Opportunities by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The university book store is a business just like any other. Their only interest is in making money. Most of the time it isn't run by the school, or the student union, but rather by some company who has been given an exclusive contract to sell books on campus. Where I went to school the student union had opened their own book store, because students were tired of high priced books, and no competition. However, the books were usually only 1 or 2 dollars cheaper, and they didn't carry all the books. This may be something you want to have your student union pushing to inform the students.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  3. Re:Installed != Used by arachnoprobe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but: installed = usable = choice = better