Linux Makes the Grade

Alan Hodson

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• Marketing et communication

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• Publié par: igahakig
• Nombre de lectures: 80
• Langue: English

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Linux Makes the Grade

http://techlearning.com/shared/printableArticle.php?articleID=196604800

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11/28/07 8:58 PM

Linux Makes the Grade

By Melissa Houston

November 15, 2007

URL:

http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604800

from Technology & Learning

An open source solution that's time has come.

In 2001, Indiana officials at the Department of Education were taking stock. The schools had an excellent

network infrastructure and had installed significant numbers of computers for 1 million public school

enrollees. Yet students were spending less than an hour a week on the computer. Why?

Shuttling students to and from computer labs and managing their time there restricted computer use so

much that, analysis showed, certain students had access cut to less than 35 minutes a week. It was then

that state officials knew each student needed a computer, and Indiana's one-to-one initiative was

launched. But how were they to pay for such a huge project that would have cost $100 million a year in

software licensing alone?

Open source.

The often-misunderstood technology (thought of as "just free Web 2.0 stuff" by the uniformed) has been

the answer in Indiana—and a growing number of school systems across the country—to shrinking school

technology budgets and soaring software costs.

Today, more than 100,000 Indiana school kids (in all, 300,000 high schoolers are slated to receive one)

have their own $298 computer and monitor with numerous free software applications, and, in turn,

schools across the state have secure, reliable, sophisticated server systems thanks to Linux-based open

source technology.

In other words, instead of using computers set to run either Microsoft or Apple operating systems,

Indiana school children were given desktops running a Linux-based OS (in this case, distribution

packages offered by Red Hat, Novell, and Ubuntu) and with preinstalled free open source software

(commonly referred to as FOSS), much of it mimicking popular but expensive programming such as the

comprehensive office suites offered by major companies.

Did Indiana children mind? "Who cares?" one student quipped to Michael Huffman, special assistant for

technology, as he surveyed the one-to-one program's success across the state.

"Is Linux the answer? Obviously we think so," says Huffman, who estimates software costs total only $5

per machine annually. "It's the only model we've come up with that is affordable, repeatable, and

sustainable.

"If you look at a lot of other states that have had laptop initiatives, I think there is a real breakdown. And

there are a lot of them that aren't continuing. There are schools that have gone out and bought a lot of

laptops, but there is no plan for four years down the road. That's why we went with open source,"

Huffman says.

Indeed, Indiana and other large school systems like San Diego and Atlanta have joined the until-now

quiet, albeit multibillion-dollar, revolution in computing. So successful and popular has Linux become