Warrington School, in Otago, has decided to jump ship and deploy the GNU/Linux operating system with free software across the board by a target date of 2010, says the school’s principal, Nathan Parker.

The complete switch to Linux has been approved by the Ministry of Education, and Parker is now hoping that a portion of the money that would normally be paid to Microsoft for software licences will continue to be paid to the school. Parker says he would use the money to employ a local technician and further develop the Linux environment.

“Otherwise we are being disadvantaged,” he says.

Two years ago, Parker installed Linux on a couple of computers that were no longer supported by Microsoft. As Parker, who doesn’t have a technical background, found the operating system easy to install and use, the school gradually moved over to the open source platform.

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