Due to the rampant pirating of Windows within the Russian education system, Russia decided it was time to move towards the open source operating system, Linux, in order to prevent further pirating. Armada Group of Companies (RTS, MICEX: ARMD) claims to have completed the first stage of the project to provide the Russian educational institutions with the Linux operating system. It should save the Russians millions. But what about TCO (the Total Cost of Ownership) for Linux? Aren't all the Microsoft reports true that Linux's TCO is much higher than that of Windows? If that's the case, it doesn't seem to be affecting countries all over the world and their switch to Linux for schools.

"We plan to launch the distributives in pilot schools in February and would like directors and teachers from all Russian regions not to wait till 2009 but start implementing OSS just now", said Alexey Kuzovkin, Armada director general, "The necessary information will be published on the project site linux.armd.ru one of these days." The conversion to OSS tools in Russian schools is going to be a speedy process. 

The open source software tools are developed to be extremely efficient and capable of running on the cheapest of hardware. A lot of the Russian schools computers are equipped with only 128 mb of RAM, and the OSS tools were designed with this in mind. Within 2008 the company has to provide no less than 50% of city and 20% of rural schools with OSS in three Russian regions: the Republic of Tatarstan, Perm Territory and Tomsk Region.

Who else is doing this? 

Russia isn't the first nation to look at the open source operating system as an alternative in the classroom. Back in 2006, School districts in India made the plunge and dropped Microsoft Windows in favor of Linux. In 2005, some Italian schools switched from proprietary software to the open source variety. Last year, the Nigerian government opted to go with Linux for its schools (see a previous news item here on that topic). And, believe it or not, even several states in the U.S. have seen a number of their school districts switching to or incorporating Linux in their learning environment, such as Indiana (20,000 students and growing in 2006).

But Linux can't be all it claims to be, right?

So, what's the deal? Why isn't TCO scaring these school districts to sticking with Windows? Well, maybe it's because TCO is a bunch of ***insert expletive here***, and the world is gradually waking up to this reality. The Linux operating system is open source, and therefore, you can get it for free. The software is open source, and therefore, you can get it for free. Linux was built from the ground up to be server-based, so it's extremely easy to install PCs as thin clients, hooked up to one central server, which does all of the work of housing the software; this means that an IT professional need only worry about installing and upgrading individual software tools on one machine. These days, the learning grade is minimal; several distributions have done such a good job of creating GUI tools for system administration (such as Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu) that one hardly ever needs to know the underpinnings of the system to administer upgrades, create users, and set up networks. TCO is garbage; it's FUD, and no one should believe what Microsoft says anyway. Who honestly believes that Linux costs more than Windows? The only people I know of fool hardy enough to trick themselves into thinking so are Microsoft IT professionals too afraid to consider some competition in the market. 

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Comments (8)

5. 19-01-2008 00:14

Linux in schools

Microsoft is finished. We are just watching the giant best dying in pain with those under hand tactics. Linux is the future.

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