Schools and Charities at Robert Pogson

Charities are interesting. They are organizations providing needed social services and they are diverse. There are many regions, target populations, approaches and cash flows. Schools are the same although usually much more heavily funded by government except for private schools. M$ has been known to supply schools with free software (not free at any price because of the burden of a poorly designed OS with policies working for M$) and charities have been getting a break. Now we read that M$ has started to squeeze blood from stones. They are disallowing charity status for charities with a few business income streams. The result? Charities are turning to Free Software to be free of M$. Sweet.

At the same time, those who have dabbled with migration have found it even easier to do than they thought and businesses are finding 20 to 80% of their users can use GNU/Linux just fine. I wonder if M$ will triple the price of “7″ to maintain their income stream. The choices they have been making make it difficult to keep the milk flowing from the old cash-cow.

Isn’t freedom wonderful? When you do not have to do someone’s bidding, options open to you. Breathe the fresh air again like we used to do that.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.