[school-discuss] Linux support for Britannica

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

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 there'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 
Britannica 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 encyclopaedia to the Mac 
OS, this would seem like a fairly straightforward thing to do.  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