Spanish Government Reconsiders School Laptop Project
A widespread project to equip Spanish primary students with laptops was under attack by the free software community for being an undercover operation from Microsoft to take over the educational system in the country. Now the government is considering a kind of dual booting system.
As we reported some days ago here, a widespread project to equip Spanish primary students with laptops was under attack by the free software community for being an undercover operation from Microsoft to take over the educational system in the country. In the ongoing flurry of official announcements since then, the government has back-pedaled several times, changing its original agenda to include regions that are already using free software, and then again to announce that the systems would be dual-booting devices.
Note that dual booting does not mean in this context what it means to the rest of the world, the idea being that recipients of the machines would choose the OS they want to use during the first boot and the non-selected OS would be erased from the device automatically. However, this would still mean paying Microsoft for licenses on all laptops, even though in many cases their software would be jettisoned. This would be against the law in Spain, because the government would be paying for products and services that it is not receiving. This was pointed out by HispaLinux, which led to more backpedaling. The latest announcement, coming from Leire Pajín, Secretary of Organization of the ruling socialist party, explicitly states that "we are going to make sure that those computers come with open source."
But it still seems that the powers that be in Spain haven't given this new focus much consideration: publishing school textbooks in Spain is a multimillion-euro business and many publishers have insisted that the digital books that go on to the laptops be DRM-protected. How exactly this would be technically and legally implemented on an all FLOSS-based device remains to be seen.
Comments
comments powered by DisqusIssue 263/2022
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
Deepin 23 Preview Release is Available For Testing
The developers of Deepin have made a preview release of their latest offering available with three exciting new features.
-
The First Point Release For Ubuntu 22.04 is Now Available
Canonical has released the first point upgrade for Jammy Jellyfish which includes important new toolchains and fixes.
-
Kali Linux 2022.3 Released
From the creators of the most popular penetration testing distributions on the planet, comes a new release with some new tools and a community, real-time chat option.
-
The 14" Pinebook Pro Linux Laptop is Shipping
After a considerable delay, the 14" version of the Pinebook Pro laptop is, once again, available for purchase.
-
OpenMandriva Lx ROME Technical Preview Released
OpenMandriva’s rolling release distribution technical preview has been released for testing purposes and adds some of the latest/greatest software into the mix.
-
Linux Mint 21 is Now Available
The latest iteration of Linux Mint, codenamed Vanessa, has been released with a new upgrade tool and other fantastic features.
-
Firefox Adds Long-Anticipated Feature
Firefox 103 has arrived and it now includes a feature users have long awaited…sort of.
-
System76 Refreshes Their Popular Oryx Pro Laptop with a New CPU
The System76 Oryx Pro laptop has been relaunched with a 12th Gen CPU and more powerful graphics options.
-
Elive Has Released a New Beta
The Elive team is proud to announce the latest beta version (3.8.30) of its Enlightenment-centric Linux distribution.
-
Rocky Linux 9 Has Arrived
The latest iteration of Rocky Linux is now available and includes a host of new features and support for new architecture.
Corruption = Microsoft = ROBERY
For me is a question of Europe independence, honesty, progress and evolution. Hope the Spain people, make a good example, of this, to all Europe and stop Microsoft invasion in schools... The future is the children, and is very important they begin to use Linux or other computer solutions besides Microsoft. So they can growth healthy and open minded adults, to a bigger universe of solutions.