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[school-discuss] Linux support for World Book



I represent Schoolforge, a coalition of over 70 organizations from 
around the world dedicated to fostering the use of Linux and other open 
resources in educational settings.  I'm not sure that either tech 
support or customer service is the right place for me to send this 
message; if htere's someone better positioned to address the points I'll 
raise here, please forward this to that person.  Thank you.

Many of the schools we deal with are interested in installing Linux in 
their schools, for many varying reasons.  One of the concerns we 
regularly hear about is the ability to use the educational software 
they're familiar with.  Some schools have gone so far as to say, "If 
World Book won't run, we can't use Linux."  We plan to test the ability 
to run your Windows software on Linux via WINE (a compatibility 
program), but we think having a native Linux version would be much more 
desireable.  Since you've already ported the 2002 encyclopedia to Mac OS 
X, this would seem like a fairly straightforward thing to do (since OS X 
is Unix at the base).  We would be interested in assisting in developing 
such a Linux port in any way you'd like, even up to doing the port for 
you ourselves.  We haven't allocated any resources toward that yet, of 
course, but if you're interested in this please contact us and let's see 
what we can do for each other!

-- 
Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant