The Government of Cyprus / Ministry of Education has recently decided to fund high school students to buy a laptop. The funding will be about 400 EUR for each student. The website and more information about this is unfortunately posted in Greek: http://www.moec.gov.cy/ekpaideutiki_metarrythmisi/index.html
The problem is that they have set a strict requirement, that laptops would come pre-installed with Windows Vista operating system. A local newspaper has reacted to this (in Greek): http://www.politis-news.com/cgibin/hweb?-A=840834&-V=archive&-w=VISTA@&-P Members of our local community have strictly opposed to the fact that the laptops would come with Windows Vista (in Greek): http://ghadjikyriacou.blogspot.com/2008/12/vista.html http://ctrl-alt-backspace.blogspot.com/2008/12/blog-post_13.html http://ctrl-alt-backspace.blogspot.com/2008/12/laptop.html Theodotos Andreou of the Ubuntu-cy local community has recently sent a letter (by mail and electronic mail) to the Ministry of Education requesting a specific reason to the question "Why Vista?". Furthermore, he requested to leave the choice for the students to decide whether they would want a Macintosh, Windows or GNU/Linux installed. He also included numerous reasons about a more convenient choice of a Linux-based operating system, including freedom, speed, stability and price, which make a Linux operating system a much better solution for educational purposes. The email has been posted in our mailing list (in Greek): https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-cy/2008-December/000154.html http://n2.nabble.com/%CE%93%CE%B9%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%AF-Vista--td1672094.html The same letter has been forwarded to major media stations in Cyprus and has been posted today (Sunday, January 11th 2009): http://www.scribd.com/doc/10061438/123165639623481-wwwpolitisnewscom http://pdf.politis-news.com/pdf/pdf?-A=132214&-V=pdfedition The Ministry has not replied to the letter, neither acknowledging nor acquiring more information about it. -- Ubuntu-cy mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-cy
