Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi

>Rather than concentrating on a product that actually works, and actually helps educate
children, you focus on something that is dogmatically correct, but late to the party and
almost completely useless when it gets there.

I find it hard to apply terms like "dogmatic" to Free Software when I witness the vibrant
mailing lists and support forums. The body of ideas behind Free Software is working. People
*are* sharing and participating. People *are* helping each other. And people *are* enjoying
being in control and self-sufficient.
These are good things to learn, which is why good educators should stress such values.

>If you really believe that a child with a Windows laptop is less well equipped for learning
that a child than a child with no laptop at all, well, I don't think terribly highly of your
reasoning. 

I do not find it unreasonable to assume the hidden agenda that comes with windows
pre-installed will significantly hinder actual learning. Even up to a point that just reading
books instead might be more productive than being subverted to become the next generation of
office-users. 

The not-so-secret agenda of Free Software embodies values that should be right up any
educators alley. Claiming to drop these values to *increase* education is just odd, to say the
least.


Even though Free Software might be "morally superior" from an ethical point of view, it is the
practical effects of Free Software here that are very much compatible with what is generally
understood as education.

"All software should be Free" doesn't even enter the equation here. And with politics aside,
the practical effects of the four software freedoms alone should warrant enough benefits to
reject non-free software in any educational project of this size.