[LINK] Open source and government: Brazil to install 356, 800 Green Workstations into schools (open source based tools)

[Fernando Cassia]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Phillip Musumeci <p.musumeci at ieee.org> wrote:
> [Apologies if this was noted in LINK previously.  My somewhat late alert
> came via a European source, and in Europe there is much more interest in
> government use of open source technologies.]
> The Brazil government is installing linux based virtualised systems
> into schools (plural!) in "all of Brazil's 5,560 municipalities".  The PR
> blurb from the supplier is at
> http://www2.userful.com/company/linux-desktop-virtualization where the
> per-seat price is quoted as US$50 + {keyboard, screen}.
>
> Some underlying technology from Canada and Brazil is proprietary but the
> students see a typical linux desktop and that is what is centrally *and*
> remotely managed.  A more powerful central node gets shared/virtualised
> between up to 10 users.
>
> They also note that the first 18,750 went into rural schools, presumably
> where disadvantage was greatest.  This might be of interest in Australia if
> budget pressures reduce the distribution of laptops into schools with little
> computer access.  It would also require a mindset change by education
> authorities who appear, in the main, to be locked into proprietary
> technologies.
>
> Phillip Musumeci

Down here in Argentina (the country South-West of Brazil, for the
record ;), the Education Ministry originally signed a letter of
intention to buy 1M OLPC computers when the price annouced was $100.

The Wintel lobby got into full motion, and nothing was ever achieved
(the OLPC project had its own mishaps). And now we learn that the next
administration (the current one) purchased 250,000 Intel Classmates
preloaded with WinXP.

:-(

Few people realized (or explained) the OLPC potential... in getting
kids interested in CODE TWEAKING, by looking at the apps source and
modifying it.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1001027/olpc-retro-futurist

Oh well... if I were a kid I wouldn't be very excited about running
Linux, something which looks like Windows ... yes, they would see
"something different" but it won't get them excited about programming.

Best case scenario: another batch of Office-savvy workers.

FC