Hello FSB,
Hi Tony My replies inline...
Their school has proposed a "bring your own laptop for education" program. The proposal specifically mentions that Microsoft Windows or Apple OSX be used. I do not know if this proposal intends to insist on either of these, or if they are listed merely because parents may be wondering if perhaps their existing laptop meets the requirements. For example, the proposal may intend to be diverse, but inadvertently only lists Windows and Apple in an effort to convey that diversity. The proposal then goes on to talk about "meeting minimum requirements" and discusses anti-virus software and so on.
That's a possibility, but there are others: Some educational institutions (e.g. QUT, where I am studying) only officially support Windows and Mac OSX connecting to their networks, so if you are using something else then you are "on your own". For me personally, this has never been an issue because I've never needed their tech support. :-) A related possibility is that the school prefers that students use a particular set of programs. Unfortunately this might include Microsoft Office, among others. On a side note, many schools, especially Catholic, have deals with Microsoft (such as the Live@edu offer) where they get Microsoft Office and email for little or no cost. The other possibility that I can think of, apologies if this is alarming, is that the school intends for your children to essentially install spyware on their computers. My former high school asked this of students who brought their own computers and had it pre-installed on all school computers and laptops. More worryingly, the spyware contained a keystroke logger which remained activated all of the time, even when not at school, and stored the keystrokes in a log that could be retrieved by a teacher the following day. Apparently the school didn't share my opinion that installed spyware is a terrible invasion of privacy, especially if it remains activated outside of school hours, whether the computer is school-owned or not. The excuse for mandating spyware was that children needed to be monitored/protected and that the measures would only be used sparingly.
Nevertheless, I have decided to take a stronger stance on this issue in that my children will not be using Microsoft nor Apple operating systems. I am looking for advice on how to approach this issue, because I have not taken a strong stance like this before.
Also interested in opinions on this. I think that a big step would be to encourage the school to use LibreOffice on all of their computers. Explaining freedom to teachers, or anyone non-technical can be difficult, but if you can do it then that's great. Otherwise, price and compatibility issues are compelling arguments for schools to switch to LibreOffice IMHO. Perhaps you could explain that your children and possibly other families don't have Microsoft software and that anyone can get LibreOffice for no cost and without restrictions. -- Andrew Roffey http://andrew.roffey.org [mailto|xmpp]:andrew@roffey.org see website for GPG/OTR pubkeys