by Dwight Johnson
According to a report by Arturo Espinosa Aldama posted to
gnome-list today, the Mexican project Scholar Net plans to
install 140,000 centers over the next five years to bring computers
and the net to every elementary and mid-level school in Mexico.
Scholar Net plans to use the Linux operating system on these
computers with a GNOME user interface. Scholar Net will undertake
independent development of GNOME to make it user-friendly for
elementary and high school students.
Scholar Net plans to have 20 users per machine.
Those interested in more information and who wish to contribute
to the Scholar Net project may contact Arturo Espinosa Auturo Espinosa.
Below is Arturo Espinosa Aldama’s complete post.
Greetings, beloved GNOME users and developers.
I work as the proyect leader of the "Scholar Net", a program that aims
to bring computers and the net to every elementary and mid-level school in
Mexico. We expect to install from 20 to 35 thousand labs per year to a
total of 140,000 centers in the next five years.
Due to matters of cost, reliability and configurability, we plan to
use GNU/Linux to replace the propietary server options and, now thanks
to GNOME, the propietary desktop application options.
We will develop GNOME to a point where we can get a useful and friendly
enough desktop for the elementary and high school student. There are some
aspects of GNOME, such as uniformity, spanish translation, bug fixing and
application development which we will address to achieve this.
At an average of 20 users per machine, and being all of them school
children and teachers, GNU/Linux will become, at the long term, a major
influence in Mexico. In the short term, GNOME will get an additional
impulse from us and those who will contribute following our guidelines,
and GNU/Linux will prove to be a real-world option for the end user.
For further information and details on the Scholar Net and, specially
for GNOME developers, on how to contribute to GNOME for us to arrive to
deployment stage, please contact Arturo Espinosa .
Arturo Espinosa Aldama
Proyect Leader
Academic Services Coordination
National Autonomous University of Mexico
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