Russian schools consider switch to linux

[chestnut1969]

Interesting article

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/20...witch-to-linux

[Brunellus]

. . . for about as long as it takes for MSFT to offer them a 90% rebate.

[rocknrolf77]

. . . for about as long as it takes for MSFT to offer them a 90% rebate.

Don't think so. The school is going to court because of pirated windows. Don't think they have a good relationship with micosoft anymore.

[Brunellus]

Don't think so. The school is going to court because of pirated windows. Don't think they have a good relationship with micosoft anymore.

MSFT would rather lose a bit of profit than lose users and their continued marketshare dominance. Watch: everything will be nice and Windows-ey in Russia for a good while to come

[Kateikyoushi]

. . . for about as long as it takes for MSFT to offer them a 90% rebate.

Which is why most of the time linux is brought up unfortunately.

[prizrak]

MSFT would rather lose a bit of profit than lose users and their continued marketshare dominance. Watch: everything will be nice and Windows-ey in Russia for a good while to come

Actually Russian Linux vendors have been on the rise lately. You have to take into account how Russia operates when it comes to computers.

1) The technical education level is pretty high in the general population since Russian schools emphasize math and science.

2) Computers are still mostly used by what you would call power users/programmers/geeks. Even though the economy is improving and prices for hardware are dropping, it's still a very hobby/business thing.

3) Russians are fed up with Windows, MS and the way US does it's business. You won't find a country that makes more Windows/Gates jokes.

4) Schools never really had computers up till now so there is no vendor lock in.

Basically there is a very low barrier to entry and cost of switching when it comes to Russia. There are excellent local distributions (I used to use one before Ubuntu and it was great) that don't have inflated hardware requirements. Couple that with mostly "geeky" computer users and general distrust for MS/US and you have a great place to switch to Linux.

[mykalreborn]

1) The technical education level is pretty high in the general population since Russian schools emphasize math and science.

it's true in russia - and pretty much the whole of eastern europe, in romania too - we do a lot of maths and science. but you would be surprised of how few people actually know these things. everyone just cheats on tests, and generally just gets much bigger grades than they would deserve. not to mention the skipping of clases.
so people are not techies or anything like that. that's why i find it quite not-fessable for russia to start using linux

edit:
i thought you were fromn ny, but then i saw your signature. correct me if i'm wrong

[prizrak]

it's true in russia - and pretty much the whole of eastern europe, in romania too - we do a lot of maths and science. but you would be surprised of how few people actually know these things. everyone just cheats on tests, and generally just gets much bigger grades than they would deserve. not to mention the skipping of clases.
so people are not techies or anything like that. that's why i find it quite not-fessable for russia to start using linux

edit:
i thought you were fromn ny, but then i saw your signature. correct me if i'm wrong

I live in NY now. You would actually be surprised how much knowledge is retained even with cheating and such. I coasted through HS in the states on math/science I learned in junior hight in Russia without paying a whole lot of attention to it. Generally speaking though Eastern Europe is very receptive of new technology since it lacked the ability to get any for a long time. While people aren't necessarily techies they still don't see a computer as an appliance and realize it will take time/effort to learn.

[mykalreborn]

While people aren't necessarily techies they still don't see a computer as an appliance and realize it will take time/effort to learn.

i still can't see russians schools using linux. maybe it's just me.

[Sammi]

This is just one more of those things that we Linux users just WANT to believe in. We HOPE it's true so much, that it clouds our judgement.