Your cause is honorable however for Linux to turn the trend. you must first prove to those schools that Linux is better and that it can do things far better than windows. In the Linux community there has to be a leap in ideas where when the user logs on he/she is presented, ready to use icons on the desktop, like open office and the if the user places their mouse over the top the icon gets larger. In the background the programs are already loaded and when clicked the package opens in less then 2 seconds. When the OS is first loaded its check the hardware and looks for the drivers. it then displays them to the user to confirm these driver are ready for download. These are just some of the ideas that would make Linux more sellable to user to choose what OS their looking for.   <div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 8:56 PM, Vinothan Shankar <<a href="mailto:neversaymonkey@googlemail.com">neversaymonkey@googlemail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I've created a petition to the Prime Minister to make the primary OS in schools free and open source - it can be found at <a href="http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nonMSschools" target="_blank">http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nonMSschools</a>.  To anyone that points out I should have suggested Ubuntu for Education, the first submission did, but was rejected on the grounds that it was "promoting commercial products or services".  The petition should probably also have pointed out that schools could keep the same hardware, but petitions there are restricted to 1000 characters including spaces. Please sign. -- <a href="mailto:ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk</a> <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/" target="_blank">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/</a> </blockquote></div> -- Robert Flatters, AMBSC