Kids, forget Windows. This is Linux.

     Remember the good old days?  Remember back in the early and mid 80's when big company's like IBM and Apple would stock schools with their computers to get their names out there and more known?  Then remember how IBM turned it's back on education in the early 90's and soon schools were stocked with Dells, Gateways, and other brands?  And then remember how IBM sold off it's entire consumer lineup of desktops and laptops to Lenovo only a few years ago?

You see that's what happens to the big names when they get greedy with the school systems and children's education.  IBM stocked the schools of south Florida with IBM desktops in the early to mid 80's.  They put in XT's, PC Jr's and all sorts of gear for next to nothing and they did it all for what they said was the betterment of the children's education.  But then when the schools needed servicing and updates of all those computers it couldn't afford, IBM snubbed them.  They charged them a gynormous price premium and made it nearly impossible for the schools to upgrade.  The schools then turned around, gave IBM the finger and went to the lowest bidder.  Kids, soon to be adults forgot all about IBM and stuck with their Dells and Gateways and HP's. 

Well the same thing is happening in the OS market now.  Not so long ago I was offered a part time teaching position at a local private school here in the Kansas City area teaching technology.  I was really excited to take the job so that I could bring some modernization to the schools aging technology.  We soon got to work building the school a bunch of new computers and wanting to keep it legal we contacted Microsoft to see about getting some software, mainly in the OS and Office departments.  We though surely Microsoft would want to put up some software, because if the kids learn everything on Office and Windows based products, the chances of them migrating to Mac or Linux based products later on in life would be greatly decreased.  But were we correct in our assumptions?  Hell no.  Microsoft it appears has no issues with the students of America learning how to use its products. 

You see, our school is small.  Not a lot of students, so not a big budget when it comes to technology.  It is also not an expensive school either.  While to parents do pay to send their children to this school, they don't pay a lot, so most of what they do pay just goes to cover the normal expenses.  However what they do pay is enough to provide the children that go to the school a much better education then they would otherwise get in the Kansas City public school system. 

So I basically have became the main IT Admin and IT Teacher for a small, poor private school with almost no technology budget and I am trying like hell to get some software from Microsoft to run these computers.  I'm not looking for anything fancy.  I don't need Vista.  XP Home would do just fine for our needs.  That and the student teacher version of Office 2003 would be fantastic.  But unless we are willing to pay out the wazoo for these products, Microsoft doesn't want anything to do with us. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am more then willing to pay for Microsoft products when I need to.  I have eight computers that make up my home network and home office, and all of them are running various purchased & legal versions of Windows from XP Home all the way up to Vista Ultimate 64bit.  But schools, especially inner city schools being private or public often don't have the budgets needed to give their students the tools they need for a proper education when it comes to technology. 

I read somewhere recently that Microsoft was crying because they say that there are not enough highly educated Americans to fill the jobs it needs filled in the Microsoft offices.  Well duh.  Microsoft is the biggest software company in the world.  It is based right here in the U.S.  But yet it won't offer it's products to the education system to begin that early training for it's future work force.   

It would seem to me that if Microsoft made a concerted effort to put its OS's and office products in the schools then it would not only find more people willing and educated enough to fill up its workforce but it would also secure it's future customers.  It just makes sense. 

But as much as I have tried, the best Microsoft will do is Windows 2000, and even that is in very limited quantities.

I went to my boss, the principal, and even to the school board, giving them the news, and I got exactly what I expected I would.  "We don't have the money, make due with what you have now".  Well the problem is that with the 10 new computers we built, we don't have any options as we don't have any operating systems to put in them.  Well, I should say, we didn't.  Yesterday the tech club kids and I began the install process of Linux Edubuntu,  the education version of Ubuntu.  With that also comes Firefox, OpenOffice and all the other necessities needed for the modern online world. 

We now have operating systems, office productivity software and a slew of other products and it was all free.  It seems the Open Source community has a very keen interest in the education of our youth and I don't blame them.  So now, just like the school systems did with IBM back in the late 80's and early 90's, I am now doing with Microsoft.  I am giving them the finger, and loving it. 

BTW I teach technology to almost 200 students from Kindergarten to 8th grade.  That's nearly 200 students that will now be learning on Linux machines, and they are not the only ones.  It seems that several of the schools in our area are doing the same thing.

Let the Linux revolution continue.