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Ray Shaw has a few questions for recent correspondant D. LaTour:

This is in response to the person who wrote in saying "You make my life harder with your OS evangelism, blah, blah blah).

I would like to know a few things:

1. Why did the school simply not do what every single other person with Linux troubles does, and go to their local LUG for assistance? If theirs is anything like mine, there are plenty of old engineers to dispense advice and energetic college students to help out.

2. Where did they get the money to pay for the hardware upgrades and licensing costs of Windows 2000? Where will they continue to get the money to pay for the license treadmill?

3. How is it that he has experience "now in Windows 2000 and Macintosh OS X", but refers to a "workstation"? I don't think they run on the same hardware...also, what is a person with basically no experience in Win2k doing moving a school to it?

I'd like to point out that for most schools, Linux is a great answer. It belongs in an academic environment, because students have access to a vast array of tools for learning (programming languages, scientific programs, etc.), and all libre. The "about" URL below says this pretty well.

Just so he can see the other side of the fence, here's an example of a place where Linux really shines:

http://linux.umbc.edu/gits/
http://linux.umbc.edu/gits/about.html

This is Geeks Into The Streets, and though the page needs to be updated, we have indeed brought a computer lab to the inner city through the power of Linux and donated, ageing computer hardware. And more labs are on the way.

There are several organisations in the US which are doing this specifically for schools, but unfortunately their names escape me at the moment. It's apparently taken off quite well in Oregon.

Quite well in Oregon, you say? You want to be careful that you don't create a stampede with that sort of recommendation.

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