Neat use of open source software

[Eric Dunbar]

Hello, cross posting to two lists.

I noticed a little press release that Apple had won a contract to
provide the state of Maine with 36000 computers for their grade 7 and
8 students and teacher
(<http://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/03/22.9.shtml>... this is
good for battling the Windows hegemony).

In their bid, Apple provides the standard suite of Apple software (of
course), and some other really cool educational software (not all cool
software has to be open source), but, what's noteworthy is that there
are two open source packages included in the list of software provided
by Apple (http://www.maine.gov/mlti/rfp/index.htm):

GRASS GIS (a geographic information system) and NeoOffice (OpenOffice.org).

What's impressive is that Apple considers these two apps stable enough
and user-friendly enough to include on a platform for young teens*.

*And... if they think GRASS is easy enough for 12 and 13 year olds to
learn I might just be able to learn it as well ;-) (I know ArcView GIS
and MapInfo and am curious to see how GRASS compares).

Eric.