My colleague Ben Melançon has already cross-posted this twice: you can find his full post on his own Agaric blog or on the PBS MediaShift Idea Lab.

Microsoft made tech news in the past week with reports that schools in Nigeria would use Windows XP rather than the Mandriva Linux on 17,000 computers ordered from Mandriva, a French GNU-Linux vendor. Public statements from Mandriva officials suggested foul play, but not many details were reported. Now, the Nigerian government has overruled the switch, Jeremy Kirk of IDG News Service reported, and his article published online yesterday by Computerworld UK has a lot more information on what actually happened.

[...] Ben goes on to say [...]

Everything a student learns about Windows and every program that is built for Windows are in a sense owned and controlled by Microsoft, because Microsoft decides what happens to Windows next (and what happens will usually involve your wallet).

Everything a student learns about GNU-Linux, especially every program she makes or contributes to is both truly belongs to her and belongs to the whole world at the same time.

This distinction is not limited to Windows versus GNU-Linux; it holds true for every proprietary versus free software choice.

Nigeria has started on a path of building knowledge and technical resources that can't be held hostage. We probably have not seen the end of what Microsoft will do to try to jump Nigeria's claim on the future.

I find that people I talk to who aren't already sold on software purism have a hard time with this line of reasoning, but I think Melançon is absolutely right. This is why our software choices matter, not because open source software is cheaper to use right now, but because the long term impact of the communities we build is a broad and lasting impact.

I think I'm getting the hang of this blogging thing. There are some folks, down at the end of the long tail, that will be very happy to read about the meeting I had this morning at my kids' elementary school! So, here ya' go! I attended a great meeting at my kids' elementary school this morning. The computer teacher had convened a meeting of geek parents in the town to share her todo list, ask for help, and talk about the future. The topic of applications (Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint, and Adobe Photoshop) came up and another parent did a great job of advocating for free software solutions. While I put in a few supporting comments, I mostly held back my opinions on the overlap between free software and public education, mainly because Rob was doing a better job than I could. Here's are my take aways from the meeting: * Schools hear software and they think TechSoup. It's the defacto standard. * Not all schools can use TechSoup directly (you have to be a 501c3). However, most can find a way (via other orgs that are 501c3's). * That free software is gratis is not a compelling argument. * That all kids can take home a CD with the same software they use in school _is_ compelling. * That you can do this and not have worry about tracking licenses is also a big plus. So here's my idea: * if you use a free softare app and would like to help promote it, put it on TechSoup as a free download (send an email to downloads - at - techsoup - dot - org). For example, no Kubuntu up there. No Edubuntu. No Sql-Ledger or Scribus. * maintain the posting so it stays up to date. * work with tech soup to make sure the links to forums on the downloads page matches. For example, On the downloads page for databases (which does include MySql), it says the appropriate forum is "software." But then there is a seperate forum for free software. Also, Gimp is listed under web applications. * if you are really ambitious, provide support in the forums., For me to do this last bullet effectively, I need a tool where I could say "send me an email whenver someone posts about sql-ledger to a techsoup forum." Hmmmm, nosi.net project? The other issue I see is that TechSoup separates products from free downloads. Since we all know that "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "you get what you pay for," my guess is that free downloads are 2nd class citizens. (I could tell if I saw the relative page view stats for free downloads versus donated products.) Perhaps it would be helpful promotion and advocacy to have a NOSI brand on the donated products page, and have reliable free software tools available there as well.