From Schoolforge-UK

The following clip comes from the [eSchool] website - you'll need to register to see the whole article - but it is free and an interesting read.

Open-Source Software

Novell
May 2, 2005

By Paul Nastu

In Kearney, Mo., district IT director Keith Waller recently established four new classroom labs for teaching with technology. Each includes an interactive whiteboard, a teacher workstation, a teacher laptop, and a student-to-computer ratio of 2 to 1. The computers in two of the labs run on Microsoft's Windows operating system, while those in the other two labs are powered by Linux, the open-source software platform that is mounting a growing challenge to Microsoft's dominance in the computing world.

Not only did the Linux-based labs cost half as much as the Windows-based labs to equip--but system upkeep is much easier, too, Waller maintains.

....

Ron Gerstenmaier, principal of Norton High School in Norton, Ohio, has a similar story. Norton High School has been using open-source software for six years now, according to Gerstenmaier. Not only does the school pay a fraction of the cost it would require to run proprietary software programs, but "we've never had a virus problem--and the downtime is zilch," he says.