sabbab

=__Open source software for education purposes: India- a case study__=

[|source]

__**The main scenario and the stakeholders:**__
India has beeen using[| Linux], an [|open source software], for the last few years. It has been going on in the southern province of the country mainly in Kerala where schools have already introduced Linux and the situation is now such that only a very few students actually know what windows really is. This means that 2600 high schools of that area would have students who are only used to using Linux and not Windows. Thus about 1.5 million students would only be aquainted with a Linux based operating system. One such example of an institution is the [|Cotton Hill Girls High School.] As mentioned in the previous paragraph windows will be loosing out to Linux especially in India,as Indian IT specialists predict to have Linux based operating system in almost all of the government instituitions. Even today 18 out 26 Indian states are either using Linux or windows.

Thus for the above mentioned case Microsoft would be the stakeholder as it might loose out to Linux(In June, Microsoft Corp. had 68% of the server market, vs. Linux' 21%, compared with 70% for Microsoft and 11% for Linux two years ago.(In June, Microsoft Corp. had 68% of the server market, vs. Linux' 21%, compared with 70% for Microsoft and 11% for Linux two years ago.) [|source]

__**Social and Ethical Issues**__
Using open source software for education purpose would be economical as it is completely free. Yet people might argue on the fact that Windows does give educational instituitions a 90% discount, so why should Linux be used? The answer to that would be even if you are paying one tenth you are still paying something whereas[| source code] for open source software is just free. Thus getting software source code for free would allow educational instituitions to spend money on other sides. Besides that in developing countries like Bangladesh and India this would be a great advantage as the money saved from buying expensive software could now be spent to implement a few more computers, for example. Although we have advantages the main disadvantage is of reliability and security. Since the source code is free and can be editted hackers can easily change ones source code statement which would give rise to havocs. A big issue that must be looked at is that if Microsoft looses out to Linux Microsoft will then suffer great economic losses but that is none of the educational instituitions' problem as for more than a decade Microsoft had done a monopoly of business and has earned a great deal.

__**Problem and solution**__

The only problem with the open source software is that it is not that widely used. As a result of this finding Linux trained engineers is really difficult. Next comes the problem of security: hacking and [|counterfeiting]. Since the source code is open and easily available people can easily change them and the result would be a nuisance and obviously unwanted. So the solution to the problems could be to convince more and more people about Linux and open source software and also to train engineers so that they can become experts in Linux and windows as well. For the security issue, [|anti-hacking softwares](for e.g. Zone Alarm pro) could be used and also passwords can be introduced which would be only given to authorized people so that hackers cannot edit anything of the source code.


 * Note: Even Munich is now moving to Linux for all government purposes. [|source]

A presentation on the above issue **