[plug] [link] SchoolNet Namibia: why we had to refuse Microsoft's help

[Leon Brooks]

SchoolNet Namibia explains why they had to reject Microsoft `help' and stick 
with rolling out their own Linux-based solution:

    http://www.schoolnet.na/pr/msftrelease.html

    From the outset of our consultative meetings with Microsoft, it was
    made abundantly clear that SchoolNet and NetDay would be happy to
    provide Microsoft with an opportunity to develop a potential
    alternative to our viable Open Source LTSP refurbished LAN and
    stand-alone Linux-PC solutions for schools and teachers in Namibia
    and further afield in Africa. The original understanding was that
    each of five pilot schools would be furnished with a 20 refurbished
    diskless thin-client computer + contemporary server laboratory, at
    Microsoft's cost, to show and tell Microsoft's extraordinary
    commitment to affordable LAN computer technologies for education
    in Namibia.

    At our consultative meeting at Microsoft offices on Thursday 17
    October, it became imminently clear that the development of a
    potential Microsoft alternative to our viable Open Source LTSP
    refurbished LAN solution at five pilot schools in Katutura would
    incur considerable cost for SchoolNet, given the revised
    understanding that Microsoft would not be paying for the
    refurbished hardware, but would only provide the software platform
    at some unknown Research & Development (!!) cost resulting from
    co-opting expertise from other third-party Microsoft partners. 

    [...]

    Microsoft is very keen on harnessing major publicity along the
    lines of "Microsoft replaces Linux at SchoolNet Namibia". I'm
    afraid that is simply not going to happen. [...] SchoolNet has
    no desire to FUND Microsoft in such an endeavour [...].

    SchoolNet provides strategies, technologies and network
    implementations that solidify Namibia's nascent knowledge economy.
    Our products bespeak a great opportunity for replication, and
    promise to narrow the digital divide in the majority of developing
    countries in Africa.

    [...]

    As rightly pointed out by www.bridges.org earlier this year, the
    real issue for schools is not the cost of proprietary software
    licensing, but the challenges and costs of deployment, maintenance
    and skilled human resources of sustainable ICT infrastructure at
    often very remote schools. Conventional Microsoft products have
    rapid product cycles and quick obsolescence, along with expensive
    long-term maintenance and support implications. In the few urban
    settings in Namibia, there are probably enough MCSE paper tigers
    to get some affordable, albeit dubious, maintenance and support.
    However, such probability declines as one travels into remote
    areas of Namibia.

Lots of other interesting stuff about things you *can't* do under a special 
whiz-bang Microsoft deal, but you *can* do with Linux. SchoolNet Namibia has 
as their logo the DDT-resistant Formica Ant. (-:

Cheers; Leon