Australian schools are subscribing to proprietary software - but the choice between proprietary and open source may have not been made on entirely equal ground, according to Kathryn Moyle, an Associate Professor who researches issues arising from integrating information and communication technologies into school education at the University of Canberra.

One week after Palamida reported a rather sluggish start to GPLv3 adoption, we're up 41% and growing quickly. This could represent 10% of all active open source projets.

It seems that every year there are claims by some industry pundits that this is the “Year of Linux.” Obviously, they have been wrong to date. However, a couple things have happened recently that have led me to believe that, even if not in 2007, then by the end of the decade, Linux will have its year.

In a classroom setting, Linux presents a lot of advantages for me as a teacher. I can easily use and experiment with cool new software and expose my students to a variety of platforms in a controlled environment. As Marc points out, doing this at an enterprise level is a much different story.

Determining usage and growth of Free software has always been a challenge. For over a decade, arguments have been held – sometimes flamewars – whose central point was the usage level of software that is freely distributed. While market share can be estimated based on sales numbers, Free software usually replaces existing software that is proprietary, i.e.

Like it or not, there are some people who will NEVER adopt Linux, no matter what. Such as...

The biggest obstacle Linux faces in winning new users is the install process. Aside from specialty resellers like system76, personal computers preloaded with Linux are virtually non-existent. Or was, at least: Dell now offers Ubuntu on both desktops and laptops (www.dell.com/open).

I have often been called a fool for paying for software that everybody else pirates. Suddenly, I was neither paying for software nor stealing it. I felt relieved, literally. I was no longer a fool, and I had stood my moral ground. My data was accessible and safe. My whole computer was safe, for that matter, as months went by with neither virus nor operating system crash.