Linux Spreads its Wings in India

With 4,000 students and just 21 computers, the Cotton Hill Girls High School in the south Indian city of Trivandrum wouldn't appear to be at the vanguard of anything related to information technology. Yet the 71-year-old school is abandoning Microsoft (MSFT) Windows software in favor of its free, open-source rival, Linux. So when students -- typically eight to a machine, seated at two benches -- turn on their PCs they see Linux desktop software that helps them navigate their way to all manner of math, graphics, and writing programs. ``We're using something called Linux,'' says 12-year-old Arya VM as she plays with Tux Paint, a Linux drawing and painting application. And Windows? ``Never heard of it,'' she says.

The school is one of 2,600 in the state of Kerala making the shift. That means each of the state's 1.5 million high school students will grow accustomed to working not in the Windows environment familiar to computer users worldwide, but in Linux. And over the next two years, computer science based on Linux software will be made mandatory in all of the state's high schools. ``As a government that keeps the interest of society over corporations, we are committed to the use and development of free software,'' says V.S. Achutanandan, Kerala's sarong-clad chief minister.