Hi, All that is said here was (and is) the "cause" for the GNU/Linux Kinneret project. We aim at delivering a system suitable for educational institutes, while maintaining compatibility with Windows/Office users (file formats and UI).
We are currently in our first steps, but the next version we're about to release (0.3) will be usable enough, and close enough to Kinneret's target, in order to start and demonstrating it to the ministry of education (an exception: no internet support, yet, will be delivered with 0.5). Out final goal: delivering a copy of the Kinneret LiveCD to every student in between the first grade, and the 12th grade, in Israel, and maybe installing it as a replacement OS in schools. You can refer to the discussion led to the project at Whatsup's forum, here: http://www.whatsup.org.il/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forum&file=viewtopic&topic=1064&forum=12&152 As you can see, the trigger here was the illegal action (piracy) the system causes the students to commit, because of the fact that the ministry of education uses non-free software. As from version 0.5, Kinneret will enter it's final Beta phase and (we hope) will be able to answer most of the needs of the ordinary student. We then hope to start and make Kinneret the standrat school-computing OS. You can read more about Kinneret at http://www.linux-kinneret.org (site is down until Friday though). We are already trying to address the issue mentioned in this discussion, but we have a long way ahead of us before we could get Linux into the ministry of education... It might be a little ahead of time, but in order to get Kinneret into the ministry of education, we're gonna need some help from the community and the media... After all, Micro$oft and other companies will not give up in their education-market-share piecfully... If anyone have any idea on how to get Kinneret into the ministry of education, we'll be glad to hear... :) Itay Duvdevani. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]