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Re: [News] In the Philippines, Schools Move to Fedora Linux

begin  oe_protect.scr 
High Plains Thumper <hpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> Mark Kent on Monday
>>> Roy Schestowitz espoused:
>>>> Mark Kent on Monday
>>>>> Roy Schestowitz espoused:
>>>>>
>>>>>> More schools take to open source
> 
><SNIP>
> 
>>>>>> http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=interactive01_sept04_2006
>>>>> 
>>>>> Umm, 12,000 personal computers...
>>>> 
>>>> That's only the start. Think of the program that piloted in Indiana.
>>>> When success is evident, all future PC's are built using FOSS.
>>>> 
>>>> And beginnings are the hardest part, i.e. once you get this experimental
>>>> set (the one which Microsoft so strongly attacks, e.g. Massachusetts
>>>> ODF), it has an avalanche effect.
>>>> 
>>>> India, Brasil, the Philippines, Denmark, Norway and Germany (among
>>>> others) have already gone past the point of experimenting with Linux.
>>>> Linux is the destination and the migration is gradual as it involves
>>>> skills adaptation. And what better way will you find for adapting skills
>>>> than by infiltration into education?
>>> 
>>> How many societies around the world have been wasting their hard-earned
>>> cash, cash set aside for their own children, on lining the pockets of a
>>> foreign company?  It makes no sense at all.
>> 
>> Aye. Let aside factors that affect science and engineering in the West,
>> e.g. getting haumanity to stick with 32-bit processors and applications
>> because 64-bit is not a finanicially wise route to take. And there is no
>> competition to enforce improvement either, so the market is bound to one
>> company's selfish agenda.
>> 
>> Anyhoo...
> 
> This is an interesting development.  12,000 computers is only the beginning. 
> There are roughly 88 million people living on 300,000 km-squared or 116,000
> square miles, about the size of the US State Arizona.  Although major of
> the people are poor by western standards, there are many more schools.  In
> places where there is adequate electrical power, a $300 PC would go far
> without the additional Microsoft tax, even with educator's discount,
> allowing a purchase of another for every 2.

88 million people will have a lot of kids, let's say that there're 10-20
million people in their education system at any one time; clearly they
could share machines, but even so, inexpensive PCs running free software
would go far further than a proprietary approach could.

> 
> Where there is no electricity, a hand crank laptop would give children an
> idea of what a computer was and how to use it.
> 

It would be such a boon.  Imagine being in a place where you mostly have
no power at all, and then suddenly, there's a machine which can play
games on which needs /no power/!  Think how popular tetris or hangman
might be!  A simple spreadsheet and you can show people how to calculate
and plan all kinds of things which would be beyond most people's mental
maths.

> We might see some of the upcoming countries as software developers, as India
> has now become.
> 

Leave a bash-shell, gcc/gdb, editor, and there'll be upcoming
programmers all around the planet.  Show them how to use the GPL, and
they'll be able to gain advantage from their /own code/, not risk being
exploited by those who would.

I wonder how long before someone would develop a clustered operating
system which could monitor the status of individual laptops, moving
processes between them across the wireless mesh as their power levels
drop, or putting them in sleepable states if there's no available
mesh...

There are some amazing possibilities here.

We really need the next generation of bluetooth to do its
spread-spectrum magic - this will hugely increase battery lifetime for
wireless devices.  The present wifi standards seem to lack in two key
areas, those of power consumption and security.

-- 
| Mark Kent   --   mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk  |
This is the theory that Jack built.
This is the flaw that lay in the theory that Jack built.
This is the palpable verbal haze that hid the flaw that lay in...

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