[ Thanks to Niki
Scevak for this link. ]
“This week saw the launch of Red Hat’s University Program, a
“global program designed to use Red Hat’s comprehensive resources
to accelerate the use of open source solutions in the educational
environment”. Fundamentally, the program sees Red Hat directly
funding universities with software designed to promote the use of
open source software in universities, to “build out their Internet
infrastructure with open source and expand universities’ teaching
and development resources.”
“This move makes a lot of sense – universities have typically
been the breeding grounds for new ideas and new technologies,
especially in computer science. It was at university that an
engineering student named Linus Torvalds developed his first
experimental Linux kernel. It was through universities that the
ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, grew and was encouraged
along into the vast network we take for granted today. To encourage
the development of open source software in universities is simply
common sense.”
“At the universities of today, you can find some of the world’s
most active Linux user groups housed. You can find budding
engineers and scientists testing their teeth against the older but
active minds of their professors, many of whom are involved in the
Open Source movement. You can find students actively promoting
Linux install-fests and giving away Linux CD’s. You can also find a
heck of a lot of beer, pizza and late night video games, but that’s
beside the point.”