23,000 Linux PCs For Filipino Schools

Da Massive writes "Speaking at the linux.conf.au event in Melbourne, Australia, independent open source consultant Ricardo Gonzalez has told of how he has helped bring 23,000 Linux PCs to over 1000 schools in the Philippines: 'Ministers in the Filipino government now understand Linux can do so much for so little outlay.'" The slow process of educating a government that knew only Microsoft is especially well described in this piece.

Comments

Re:don't hate me

[corsec67]

Pretty much *any* software you are going to teach in school is going to be obsolete by the time they are "in the workforce", so it would be better to teach concepts as opposed to steps to follow. Teach them how to learn, not how to memorize, and they will get much further.

Re:don't hate me

[GaryPatterson]

Yeah, all those Mac-only programs like Word and Excel, well there's no way I can use that knowledge on a Windows machine now. And those Mac-only programming languages like BASIC, C, C++ and Pascal. Useless now that I use a Windows machine at work. Even those Mac GUI concepts like copy and paste are un-transferable to Windows.

Stupid Apple. Stupid schools.

All that time spent learning apps and stuff on a Mac was totally wasted.

Re:don't hate me

[filesiteguy]

If the true goal of a computer program for a school is to ready its students for the workplace, then is linux really the best method of doing so? Isn't the school in some way doing its students a dis-service my training them on a computing method that they will very likely never use again? As much as i DESPISE some of microsoft's products (i admin a damn win2k3 server...do i really need to explain WHY i hate microsoft?) i understand that in order to function in a modern workplace, the ability to navigate microsoft windows is almost as essential as any other office skill

Actually this is a fallacious argument.

I just pointed out yesterday that kids can learn any OS. Keep in mind that I (along with all my peers) grew up in a world without windows and yet still managed to learn. In fact, I didn't even see windows until I was 19 and in college. That's when Win 2.0 came out and I thought it was - erm - mostly harmless.

My seven-year-old and five-year-old sons have no issues moving from my Vista laptop to my wife's Win2K desktop to my openSUSE laptop and desktop and to my mom's openSUSE desktop or to my father-in-law's Macintosh. Unless you're gonna teach kids how to administer Win2K3 workstations, then there's no issue.

A solution that they own.

[DrYak]

In addition to that, it might be more rewarding in the long term to tech the student solution that they can own themselves.

Teaching Microsoft in 3rd world countries, mean creating a new generation of users that will completely dependant on an foreign solution, and that one day, the workforce of the country will spend significant amount of money which will be spent overboard and will go to the pocket of a foreign company.
This guarantee future bleeding of money : you have a nice new emerging IT environment that strives to develop, and most of the earned money will exit the country in term of license.

On the other hand, teaching open source software will help the new generation realise that these solution exist, and that they can take them as their own. Instead of having a Microsoft unleashing BSA-like dogs to crackdown on unlicensed copies, they have access to FSF software whose philosophy is "do whatever pleases you with it *AS LONG AS* you keep guaranteeing the same freedom when you passes it around".
Once this generation grows and enter into the workforce, a lot of busyness opportunities may appear that don't depend on foreign companies. Thanks to OSS, local solution my be developed, with new emerging companies basing their solution on infrastructure they can own themselves. The earnings from such companies will stay inside the country and help stir up the economy.

Free software empowers emerging countries, whereas proprietary software represents one additional way to lock them into a permanent dependence on foreign companies that will bleed out of the country the earning of emerging IT busyness.

That doesn't matter much for rich countries. But learning that you don't necessarily need to depend on some US company is very important in emerging markets.

Also, as you said, given the difference between Office 2007 and, let's say, Office 97, and given that these children will also be at least 10 years away from entering the workforce (and much more for those few who'll manage to go to universities) learning a specific interface implementation is completely pointless. What they need is to learn some basic concept in computing (what is word processing vs. which button should be clicked). And Linux is just as good as anything else for that.

Re:don't hate me

[chuckymonkey]

Therein lies the key. You leared how to use an OS and computer, most people learn "if you click this that will happen" and cannot handle having things happen outside their little bubble of knowledge. I personally think that every school should have a decent mix of different types of computers, that way kids will learn the actual core skills to use a computer and not the other way. I'm teaching my two year old right now how to use windows and linux, soon Mac when I get the iMac for my wife. I want her to have a base knowledge about these things.