All Schools in Kerala use GNU/Linux
One of the reasons Kerala has a big reputation in the world for free software is that its IT@School project - initially set up by Microsoft, from what I can see - has set up all the computers in schools in the area with GNU/Linux
Specifically, a Debian derivative, with the published ISO images. There’s a “schoolgnu” mailing list with a press release post about the switch to freedom from just over a year ago.
Praveen passed me the email address of someone involved in the project, so I hope to know the latest status of the project shortly. Chatting to Anivar on #smc-project today, printing is deprecated in Kerala schools because computers are used to learn other subjects interactively, and there is little need to print things. Anivar also pointed out that the most common printed text layout engine is Firefox, since people print others’ documents - web pages - more than they print their own. Which is an excellent observation.
Regarding screen scenarios to test, there is also an OLPC pilot in India, and a GNOME developer in India recently received his development XO. A XO screen, a Neo1973, perhaps a Nokia 880, plus regular monitors and laptops, seem like more than enough selection to choose from.
I also found the indicfonts mailing list today, but sadly its been empty for nearly a year.

The All Schools in Kerala use GNU/Linux by David Crossland, except the quotations and unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Comments
Leave a Reply