23,000 Linux Computers in Philippine Schools
Computerworld Australia reports on a rollout of 23,000 computers in schools in the Philippines.
“Providing high school students with PCs is seen as a first step to preparing them for a technology-literate future, but in the Philippines many schools cannot afford to provide computing facilities so after a successful deployment of 13,000 Fedora Linux systems from a government grant, plans are underway to roll out another 10,000 based on Ubuntu.”
Cost may be the primary reason for this migration, but just like France’s Gendarmerie, the Philippines will reap many other benefits from the adoption of Linux and open source.
“(IT Consultant) Gonzalez believes the project has helped begin a mindset revolution for accepting the power of free software: ‘People in the government now understand Linux can do so much for so little outlay,’ he said. ‘In a brand new computer 50 percent goes to the operating system and office suite, so how many people can afford that?'”
Adopting Linux at an early stage of its computer and internet growth will allow the Philippines a much easier migration path. Instead of replacing existing infrastructure, they will start fresh, using open source, and the population will be trained on it from the beginning.