[seul-edu] Re: [K12OSN] Beyond awareness... moving

["David Trask" <dtrask@vcs.u52.k12.me.us>]

k12osn@redhat.com writes:
>Hello Folks,
>
>It's been a week since Eric and I went up to the ACPE conference.
We
>spoke with tech coordinators from 25 large Oregon and Washington
school
>districts being audited by Microsoft for softwa

Wow!  Paul and Eric...you guys ROCK!  I'm on the East Coast (Maine)
and some of us have also recieved the letters...and we only got 30
days....upon calling we also got the same angry reaction from M$.
And to think that at one time I used to be a dyed in the wool
Windows fan and a genuine Mac hater.  Now I happen to like the new
Mac OS X (I'm even going to buy an iBook....GASP!)  And I am
thoroughly fed up with M$.  Licensing schemes....activation
fiascos...and so forth....ENOUGH!   We starting adopting StarOffice
earlier this year (on the Windows platform) and the kids thought it
was cool....thay all wanted copies for home.  The new version will
be even more like M$ Office.  OpenOffice is also nice, although
packaged clip art and stuff would make it more enjoyable.
Nonetheless....we'll be moving in a definite Linux direction with
K12LTSP rolling out this fall.  I'm psyched.

As many of you know....Maine is giving (the state will still own
them) the schools laptops for all 7th and 8th grade students
beginning this fall.  They will be iBooks running OS X (Apple won
the bid).....   Yesterday all the Tech Coordinators from all over
the state converged for a meeting with the Maine Learning Technology

Initiative folks.  The biggest thing that seemed to come through was

a tremendous amount of fear among those folks running proprietary
network software (in particular...Novell) and how they'll be able to

integrate the iBooks.  OS X is simply Unix with a cool GUI.  The
nice thing in my case and the case of a few others here in Maine is
that those of us who broke free from the bonds of proprietary server

OS's and went with Linux (I'm running E-smith/Mitel and RedHat
servers) are finding any and all migration and integration to be a
no-brainer.

Simply put...long live Linux!  And thanks guys for all you do!

David N. Trask
Technology Teacher/Coordinator
Vassalboro Community School
dtrask@vcs.u52.k12.me.us
(207)923-3100