On 3/9/07, Devendra Laulkar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi, I think Microsoft provides no cost MS Office to schools. Also it provides training to teachers for free permission before using images in school newsletter and How to request and maintain logs for such permissions.
Don't you think this forum can help in creating awareness about such obvious traps? Why should the children be locked into proprietary technology when we have free alternatives available? I am really upset that a Free tool as important as gcompris in penetrating dominant-player barriers is being used to further the use of proprietary operating systems and productivity applications. Take a look at this amusing Gcompris strategy to get back at demoware-style extortion supported by Microsoft: http://gcompris.net/Buying-the-Windows-version . Its Linux version, however, has all the features, and is Free. News have recently been published that Microsoft now provides Office 2007 to students in some US universities at a 95% discount. It is distributing Office to Maharashtra's schools for free, and some might think that it is a great magnanimous handout. Nobody mentions that by adopting OpenOffice, the State would have been able to avoid getting obligated to Microsoft, and would have been able to keep real, viable, Free options open for its future generations, which now will only understand Word and Excel and look for the latest and greatest patches to Windows. Anyway, you all know how the rest of this rant goes, and I will say no more. All the best, Maharashtra. -- ______________________________________________________________________ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List: ([email protected]) List Information: http://plug.org.in/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug-mail Send 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for mailing instructions.
