[plug] suggestion: PLUG 4 Schools

[sol]

"Our greatest resource is our local user group. We need to
help schools and LUGs around the country make connections. Towards this
end we're going to start promoting a July 4th. software freedom day.
Sponsored by LUGs all over America, this event will bring together
Unix/Linux experts and schools to establish local support connections
for training and migration to GPL software."


Hi there,

Was pondering some of Leon's previous postings from seul-edu and an idea came 
upon me that I thought worth putting past PLUG. Above is a quote from one of 
the posts to the seul-edu list regarding schools migrating to Linux in the 
States. It occurred to me:
Why doesn't PLUG make a public offer to metropolitan schools (say the first 
one to sign an agreement with PLUG) to have PLUG members migrate their school 
over to Linux servers and workstations and offer supplementary assistance in 
the form of technical advice and initial training for teachers for a (say) 
three month period completely free of charge. We could possibly even have an 
installfest for teachers and students in the school to install on their PC's 
on a particular day to accompany the school's migration.

This would be an outstanding opportunity to promote Linux/OSS to the broader 
community and could act as a show case to the education sector of the 
benefits of migrating to Linux/OSS. It could get the ball rolling by 
debunking M$ propaganda and demonstrating that it is a viable alternative 
with numerous advantages to proprietry solutions.

Of course, I understand that there could be plenty of gotchas (ie: potential 
for legal liability needs to be dealt with; may need to make offer 
conditional in case one of the "superschools" decides to take up the offer 
and we don't have resources to deal with it; an inspection of the school's 
available hardware would be essentail prior to sealing off any agreement) 
that could be associated with making such an offer. But if it were well 
coordinated and due consideration were given to potential difficulties that 
could (and usually do!) arise, I think this could be a very positive project 
that could have the Education Department looking very carefully at the 
results.

Any thoughts?

sol