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Re: OpenSourceSchools Journal Online



On Tue, Oct 02, 2001, David Bucknell wrote about "OpenSourceSchools Journal Online":
> Many of you are interested in education, so I'm hoping you'll find this
> of interest. OpenSourceSchools.org is a free
> and open source online journal meant to foster the adoption and successful
> use of free and open source solutions for education. Several of you were
>...

A couple of days ago I read in a newspaper an article about the fact that
many schools (in Israel) get broken into and their computers stolen, especially
during the summer when the schools are like ghost-towns.

Anyway, one education official was interviewed for the paper, and what suprised
me the most was that he said that one of the worst things about your school's
computers being stolen is that the insurance only covers hardware, not
software, and they end up needing to get money to buy all the software again!
One would assume that software companies would simply allow you to reinstall
the same software on replacement computers (the installation CDs can be kept
in a seperate safe place), without paying again - but apparently they refuse
to allow that!

Yet another reason why schools should use free software...

Offtopic P.S. It's a similar scam to what our country is running with car
theft. The very high taxes on cars in Israel are probably justfied, for various
reasons (cost of building roads, cost of traffic police, cost of polution,
etc.), but why when your car is stolen are you forced to pay these taxes
again when you buy a new car?? This "scam" is even worse than the software
thing, because it gives the government an incentive to let more cars get
stolen and not do anything about this problem; If any of you ever had your
car stolen and you contacted the police, you'd know what I mean: they don't
lift a finger even if you have eyewitnesses who saw the thief and the car
they came in, even if the thieves just escaped a minute before, and even if
you found fingerprints of the thiefs. [and I'm not talking about the last
year when the police arguably had an excuse for being busy in more urgent
things than catching thieves].

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |    Thursday, Oct  4 2001, 17 Tishri 5762
nyh@math.technion.ac.il             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Someone offered you a cute little quote
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |for your signature? JUST SAY NO!

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