Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
> DFS wrote:
>
>> Yes you are; many tens of thousands of Linux users struggle
>> mightily, as evidenced by the avalanche of problem reports.
>> Considering Linux has such a tiny user base, the variety and
>> amount of reported problems is shocking. But I guess it
>> really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone; Linux/OSS is coded
>> by amateurs with little to no real responsibility
>> (financial or reputation or career impact) for the crap code
>> they produce.
>
> I also predicted a long time ago that as more noobs use Linux
> the real truth about Linux "just works" will become painfully
> evident.
>
> This is now coming to pass and it's not pretty

for Microsoft and the troll population in c.o.l.advocacy! Hey,
Moshe baby, wake up and smell the coffee!

http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7386/469

EU: Schools increase use of Open Source
Open Source News - 26 February 2008 - EU and Europe-wide - General

Schools using GNU/Linux or other Open Source systems for desktop
PCs are no longer rare, though in many countries their numbers
are very low. Not so in India, Macedonia, the Philippines, Russia
and Turkey, where hundreds of thousands of pupils are becoming
familiar with Open Source.

This type of software will become more prominent in education,
expects Datamonitor, a research firm. In a report published last
month it predicts that spending on Open Source software,
including maintenance and services, by the education sector
globally will reach $489.9 million by 2012, compared to $286.2
million today.

[....]

However popular these laptops may become, the number of Western
European classrooms were Open Source software is being used
daily, is dwarfed by those in countries like Macedonia, Turkey
and Russia.

In Macedonia, a 180.000 PCs running the GNU/Linux distribution
Ubuntu are being deployed in schools across the country. In
Turkey all students aged 11 and 12 will find Open Source on their
schools PCs as an option next to Microsoft Windows. And in
Russia, the government last year decided to migrate all schools
to GNU/Linux, a move that should be completed by 2009.

Such a threat to the Microsoft Corporation it is, that Chairman
Gates with his little Redmond book made the following statement:

The increasing popularity of Open Source is one possible reason
for Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' recent announcement in Davos
to increase the companies' activities in the education market.
"Over the next three years we want to double the number of
students we get to and the number of teachers we get to, to
address the opportunity there."

Imagine that, 180,000 PC's, all with Linux installed. This is
just one country, but then there are others.

No wonder why Venezuela's Banco Mercantil and Northern California
Windsor School District have decided on Linux and Open Source,
along with all these (Linux deployment sampler, incomplete):

20,000 Singapore Ministry of Defence
3,500,000 India
80,000 Extremadura, Spain
80,000 Générale des Impôts, France
62,000 Ministry of Equipment, France
1,154 Parliament, France
4,000 Federal Public Justice Service, Belgium
600 Central Bank, Turkey
300 Scientific and Technological Research Council, Turkey
1,000 Ministry of Water Resources, Turkey
300 Istanbul City Health Directorate, Turkey
12,000 Lower Saxony Tax Authority, Germany
150 Ministry of Finance, Macedonia
10,000 Department of Justice, Finland
1,500 Metropolitan Court, Budapest, Hungary
58,000 Berlin, Germany
400 Largo City Offices, Florida
14,000 Post Office, Brazil
32,000 Government, Brazil
2,205 North West Province Schools, South Africa
15,000 Ministry of Education, Portugal
20,000 Indianna Department of Education, US
5,000 Macedonia Schools

Here is something said of Windsor:

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtar...245710,00.html

or http://tinyurl.com/5p5x5o

The new setup also allows for better remote management. "[With
Windows] we had spent half our time driving around; we had to
touch every machine," Carver said. In a school system like
Windsor, all that driving was costing an already strapped IT
department too many resources.

Carver said it cost the district about $2,500 per school to
migrate to Linux, compared with the estimated $100,000 it would
have cost to upgrade their Windows infrastructure. In addition,
buying more Microsoft Office licenses would have cost the
district $100 per license, she said, whereas OpenOffice was free.

Linux as a learning tool

Ultimately, moving to Linux has enabled the Windsor School
District to build out technology capabilities that wouldn't have
been possible with Windows.

"[The students] are able to do more because Linux cost less,"
Carver said. "Our new computer lab [at Brooks] was set to cost
$35,000 and ended up costing us $16,000 with Linux [on thin
clients]."

And the kids love it too. "The kids think Linux is cool because
it's new, but what they're really doing is stepping into the 21st
century," Carver said.

$2,500 per school to migrate to Linux versus $100,000 per school
to upgrade Windows. It is not hard to do the math. OpenOffice
or commercial variant StarOffice meets most office automation
needs. It reads Office 2003 files and imports them. No one
wants Office 2007 formats, since they are even incompatible with
earlier Office variants.

Better start jumping on the Linux bandwagon, else you will be
left behind in the unemployment breadline.

--
HPT
Quando omni flunkus moritati
(If all else fails, play dead)
- "Red" Green