Converting MN Colleges to OSS

[Aaron]

Hey all,

I came up with an idea for a potential project that we could maybe look into
if people are interested.

On any campus you visit in the Metro area (and I'm sure elsewhere) they all
appear to be using Microsoft Office to do their word, spreadsheet, and
database processing. While this isn't inherently an issue, as I'm sure you
are aware these pieces of software cost LOTS of money not only for the
colleges that provide computers for the students to use but also for the
students who in part pay tuition fees to cover the software and pay money
for the software for their own personal use. Why increase the cost of higher
education unnecessarily with it can easily and effectively be replaced with
free and open source alternatives such as Abiword and Open Office?

Here's my idea, and if there is enough interest we can look into doing
something with it. If I'm not mistaken colleges just like any other business
are looking to cut expenses, why not show them an effective way to cut their
expenses with out loosing anything? Normandale (where I currently go)
already has Firefox installed on all the computers and is set as default
browser, they obviously aren't opposed to open source software, we just need
to show them that there are more options out there.

Anyways, I thought I'd run it by you guys, if there is interest maybe we can
make a plan, get a presentation together (made on OSS yay!) and maybe show
these guys the future.

Let me know what you think,

Aaron
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