Austria’s Desktop4Education

Free and open source software are available for everyone but I think that schools will be the ones to benefit the most. After all, it means the following for them:

• less pressure on the instructors and students as well
• tools they could play around with and not be too afraid to make mistakes
• there are tools that could be fitted within her budget

It is awesome to read case studies that show us that installing Linux on their school computers, etc. It is never easy to just switch. (Is proprietary software an addiction? A habit? Sounds like it sometimes.) In any case, setting up a new system could be tricky and those who see the need to change into a completely free and open source software the management and staff who would be in charge of it will need assurance of these changes. Unixmen gives us an article about Desktop4Education.

Schools have a limited budget and licenses do cost a lot. In this case a teacher started a project to provide a solution to free the school from paying licenses as well as have something that is easy to network and administer. Helmuth Peer was the one who launched it. Eventually, there have been perceived economic benefits of using open source software in schools.

There have been extensive research on software packages. What’s good about them is that they highlighted the needs of each grade level. I think that these are valid points of consideration.

In this study in Austria, they note that slow migration is practical, as seen in the case of the secondary school of Rechte Kremszeile. This study is encouraging when it comes to migrating to open source software. Another lesson learned from this is that goverment intervention is a factor too. If government will help in the preparation of migration to open source software. This is something that might be critical because public schools will be the beneficiary. If there will a good adoption plan that’s supported by the government, that will influence other schools as well.