Webjunk: Why Use Open Source When Microsoft Products Are So Cheap…?

“Australian public schools have an agreement with Microsoft,
that entitles them to use the full suite of ‘serious’,
school-related software from that company, for a nominal fee
(nominal for the schools that is, there ‘might’ be hidden costs
involved at higher level).

“Since there’s nothing wrong with Microsoft software, why would
a school choose to use Open Source software instead, gaining no
economic benefit therefrom and creating more work sourcing out what
the schools need to cover their software needs, downloading the
software (Microsoft software is ‘kindly’ delivered to the schools
as it is released) at some expense (actually, a totally unrealistic
expense, compared with the free market options)?

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