Building on the last post, I welcome the opportunity to share some of my experiences with deploying Linux in schools. It is a very broad topic however I will stay with the previous outline. First of all, it is a matter of migrating schools to Linux, not selling them. Second, the approach is different based on whether the school in located in a developing country, the EU or North America.

Sell- Verb (used with object)- to persuade or induce (someone) to buy or use something That’s one of the many definitions of the word sell, it is also the definition which allowed me to use the word in this context.

"If you try to sell a machine that can copy itself you have a problem: you'll only sell one," says Dr Bowyer. "So we're giving the entire design and all the software away free like Linux and Firefox."

In a previous post, I cited some data on how doable it might be to put a Linux netbook or notebook in the hand of every kid in school, paying for the effort by getting schools to go paperless--or near-paperless. With Linux-based netbooks such as the Asus Eee PCs dropping well below $400 for basic systems and stocked with lots of good open source software, every kid could have a personal computer.

Novell Inc, the the No. 2 publicly held maker of Linux software, said on Friday it has no plans to sell itself after an analyst said the company's finance chief considered the idea.

SCO is hoping to sell its UnixWare line of business software and some of its mobile technology to investment group York Capital Management for $36 million.

I sometimes happen to be in a dialogue like this:

X: According to GPL, you can sell copies of your software at any price you want, right?

Me: Right.

X: But your customers can in turn sell copies of your software at any price they want, right?

Me: Right.

X: So, the only way a GPL developer can make money is by charge for development of their software?

I've been reading lately about how Dell is slated to sell just 20,000 PCs with Linux loaded on them. I've seen that number thrown repeatedly into the faces of an uncaring blogosphere by folks who obviously have no love for either Linux of Ubuntu.

This is an excellent guest post by Scott Rowed on the use of Linux in K-12 schools, including strong evidence that school districts that do not have students using the Linux operating system are placing their students at a disadvantage, as well as a description of one outstanding success story in British Columbia.