DFS wrote:
>> I often wonder how many billions of dollars have been wasted by
>> school system buying Microsoft linceses and junking perfectly good
>> PCs.
>
> Not one cent was wasted. ÂEveryone wins with Windows. ÂMost importantly,
> the students get access to the best educational software in the world.
>
Education is about teaching principles. Whether or not the students will
later be working on Windows when they graduate is unimportant. If the
students have learnt the principles they will be able to pick up any
operating system with little effort.
It is also unclear whether Windows will remain the dominant operating system
within the lifetime of the students. It is quite likely that Microsoft will
either come up with a new operating system, which is much more secure than
Windows or its greed will get the better of it and it will selfdestruct
within the foreseeable future. In either case, schools would be doing the
students a disservice by only teaching them Windows and by not buying
cheaper hardware but much more of it an then running Linux. This would
possibly give the chance for every student to work on their own computer.
The OLPC project is very much a good direction to be going, but not only in
third world countries.
As a final comment, every great empire has eventually crumbled. The most
common reason was greed ate away the core of the empire. In the end, those
people being governed saw no reason to keep feeding the greedy useless
leaders. When an alternative came along the masses ceased to support the
empire.
Microsoft is definitely showing all the signs of an empire going into self
destruct mode.
Ian
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