The Carroll County Tech Council has a program known as CompuKids that brings computing to children who could not otherwise afford one.
http://www.carrolltechcouncil.org/pr.../compukids.asp
I went last time and it was fun, but I was slightly dismayed to see Microsoft Windows XP installed on all of the machines. I decided that the project could still use my expertise, but I stayed over in hardware for the day.
I haven't inquired about where the program gets its licenses.
There's another work day tomorrow.
Does anyone have any suggestions in how I would be able to advocate using GNU/Linux and Free Softare in such a setting, instead of Microsoft Windows XP?
One of the biggest issues is that every computer needs to ship with a modem. The lead tech said that the modems he was installing were real hardware modems, but I haven't played with modems in years, so I couldn't tell if this was going to be a software-controlled modem (aka losemodem) with drivers included or something that a Free OS would be able to use. I'm sure there are functioning modems that operate at full-speed, but considering the child's family can't afford the computer, affording Cable Internet is going to be out of the question.
I have a few spare hardware 56Kbps modems that my company was throwing away but they are harder to come by.
I suppose I could serve on the board as I do live in Carroll County, but I think there'd be some inertia to overcome.
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