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South African Education Department Bans Free and Open Source Software

Posted by Unknown on from the 1993-wants-their-programming-language-back dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The South African Education Department has effectively banned the use of FOSS software in state-run schools by forcing all candidates writing the Computer Applications Technology examination to use Microsoft's Office 2010 or 2013 as the only supported options. In the same circular, the state has mandated that all schools use Delphi, instead of Java, as the programming language for the country's Information Technology practical paper. South Africa, notorious for its poor performance in Maths and Science and for having vastly over-crowded and underfunded schools, are now locked into costly Microsoft licensing because of this decision."

5 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. (sniffs cautiously) by zooblethorpe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, I don't smell any hint of corruption here, no sirree!

    </sarcasm>

    --
    "What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
    "A four-foot prune."
    1. Re:(sniffs cautiously) by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, I don't smell any hint of corruption here, no sirree!

      It doesn't need to be corruption.

      It could merely be incompetence and stupidity.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:(sniffs cautiously) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey now, have an open mind.

      It could be all three!

    3. Re:(sniffs cautiously) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Never ascribe to incompetence what can be adequately explained by greed.

    4. Re:(sniffs cautiously) by QRDeNameland · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The whole "Never ascribe to malice" thing was written by a very malicious person.

      It is attributed to Robert J. Hanlon, though the idea predates him by at least 200 years.

      That said, most people seem to miss the important clarifications of this adage: 1) the key word is "adequately", otherwise stupidity becomes the perfect cover for malice; 2) the "Heinlein's razor" variant that says "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice,"; 3) the corollary known as Grey's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."

      Far too often, I hear read people talking about various gov't bureaucracy, bloat, and largesse and thus declare gov't as "incompetent". Far too seldom do they ask the question "incompetent for whom?"

      --
      Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.