RfD: FSFe-education [FSFE projects]

[Gerhard Poul]

> > d) exposed to Microsoft products early due to the fact that this company
> > has an unfortunate tendancy of literally giving their products away to
> > educational establishments. Good marketing.
> Maybe fsfe should do the same. For example distribute [easy-install]copies
> of linux
> to schools etc.

I think you miss the whole point here. - What should be the top-priority
for teachers? -> teaching students (!)

An easy-install copy of linux is worth _nothing_ if they have to 
read thousands of pages to even maintain it.

I know. - I also often say that free software is _easy_ to use.  But the
reality is something completely different.

I know of a school with a full-time systems administrator and he needs
the help of some enthusiastic students to keep up with the work.
Now, many schools don't have this luxury of a dedicated sysadmin.

If it is _harder_ and _costs_ more money to maintain GNU/Linux it will
not be used and the copies you sent them are _wasted_.

Sun introduced a model of an Education Service Provider.  I think this
might help in this situation.

What about an FSFE ESP that helps schools to outsource and maintain their
infrastructure? - The maintainance would be (hopefully) lower and teachers
would be able to focus on their _work_ instead of playing with some 
administration tools.