Linux provides cheaper alternative for schools in India, Jan 09, 2002

Red Hat India, part of a prominent global corporation dealing in Open Source and Free Software, has come up with an innovative plan, which was promptly seized by volunteers pushing for the speedy computerisation of schools in Goa. Under this plan, schools will get access, not just to all the software they need, but also to free training for teachers and volunteers.

The argument is this: Competition breeds better products. And without competition, Microsoft products would become as bad as -- well, as bad as they have become.

Here's how it works. A company which has a monopoly has no incentive to improve; in fact, it has no reason even to maintain the quality of its products. Where else are you going to go? (As to Linux, consider the salesman's pitch, "Yeah, there's this other little thing that some guy in Sweden or somewhere did as part of a term paper, but you and I understand each other, don't we? We're both in business.")

ZDNet UK logs reveal rather obvious vote rigging, and prove that it originated from within Microsoft:

There is a very high incidence of people attempting to cast multiple votes, even though the poll script blocked out most attempts at multiple voting. The one that wins the prize made 228 attempts to vote. This person was from within the microsoft.com domain.

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