[jimmydean]

Germany, China, Brazil, and now India. You should see the bill US schools pay for software, it's insane.

COCHIN, India (AP) - A southern Indian state plans to switch all school computers from Microsoft Windows to the free Linux operating system, an official said Thursday.

The changeover on computers used in some 12,500 high schools in the state of Kerala is set for Friday, and teachers are being trained on the new software, said the state's education minister, M.A. Baby.

The state is ruled by communist politicians and its top elected official, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, has long been a supporter of free software, railing against the dominance of Microsoft's Windows when he was a state legislator.

However, Baby insisted that the state government has no grudge against Microsoft specifically.

But Achuthanandan was keen to develop the state as a "free and open software systems destination," Baby told The Associated Press.

"It is our stated policy that only free software should be used for IT education in Kerala's schools. The government is introducing Linux based software as tools to teach various subjects," Baby told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The decision to switch to Linux came after free software guru Richard Stallman, founder of the open-source GNU software project, visited Kerala two weeks ago, and persuaded officials to discard proprietary software, such as Microsoft, at state-run schools, Baby said.

Despite the denials that Microsoft was the target, opposition leader M.A. Shahnawaz, of the Congress party, said he believed the decision was based on the communists' opposition to the software giant's products.

He cited the communists' opposition to a Microsoft-supported computer training program that the Congress party enacted in 2002 when it ruled the state.

"I think schools should be given the option to choose whether teachers are to be trained in Linux systems or Microsoft," Shahnawaz said.

 

[CrabJoe StretchPants]

anyone else see the irony in this?



if not, call microsoft tech support......

 

[jimmydean]

anyone else see the irony in this?



if not, call microsoft tech support......

Also, Microsoft farms Windows development to India and most of that is done on Linux dev boxes because they are more stable.

 

[stosh]

anyone else see the irony in this?



if not, call microsoft tech support......

That was the first thing that popped into my head after I noticed the guy back peddaling.

 

[sanjuro]

Give me a break. What about Oracle, CA, Symantec, Apple, Sun, IBM,... who all develop in India? MS is a piece but not the only slice of the pie.

 

[jimmydean]

Give me a break. What about Oracle, CA, Symantec, Apple, Sun, IBM,... who all develop in India? MS is a piece but not the only slice of the pie.

Just about any major company farms SOMETHING out overseas. Not just to India either. I just find it funny the Microsoft has overseas developers than run non-Windows dev boxes.

I would find it just as funny to hear that overseas Oracle developers were using MySQL for development environments. For all I know, they could be.

 

[sanjuro]

Just about any major company farms SOMETHING out overseas. Not just to India either. I just find it funny the Microsoft has overseas developers than run non-Windows dev boxes.

I would find it just as funny to hear that overseas Oracle developers were using MySQL for development environments. For all I know, they could be.

You are right about that, but if I am not mistaken, Hotmail was running on linux servers...

 

[dfinn]

i think they changed that a couple of years ago. i believe it was at one time running on *bsd servers

 

[jimmydean]

You are right about that, but if I am not mistaken, Hotmail was running on linux servers...

Intel used to run a bunch of DEC Alpha file and web servers for the systems that required serious uptime. I was the unspoken secret years ago before they Xeon proc servers were up to par.