TheOpenDisc and OpenEducationDisc

Interest in the OpenCD since Software Freedom Day and our local press reports has been both gratifying and stimulating. Comments received have been very rewarding.

Well, times do change and I believe the following change will be for the better of the FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) community. The OpenCD project is no longer supported but a new project, TheOpenDisc, has been announced.

Chris Gray, project lead for the past eighteen months, is now in charge of TheOpenDisc - http://www.theopendisc.com/ -

Peter Kemp, formerly of OpenEducationCD, will be joining Chris on OpenEducationDisc - http://www.theopendisc.com/education/ - which is an extension geared to schools and students. Peter recently won the prestigious School Projects Award from the British educational charity, Teach First - http://www.teachfirst.org.uk/ - for his work with FLOSS.

The two main goals of the project are:

* To provide a free alternative to costly software, with equal or often better quality equivalents to proprietary, shareware or freeware software for Microsoft Windows.
* To educate users about Linux as an operating system for home, business and educational use.

The majority of programs featured on OpenDisc are also available on Linux. (Program list with versions is available at the wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDisc -)

Chris and Pete hope to release updated versions regularly so software will always be fresh.

Time To Switch?

If you use a computer, it's a pretty safe bet that you will have heard of Microsoft Windows. The best way to explain the job that Windows does for your computer is to imagine it as a kind of brain. It's the 'intelligence' that knows how to print a document or display a mouse pointer or connect to the Internet. If we were to refer to this 'brain' by its proper name, we'd call it an operating system.

What you might not know is that there are other operating systems out there for your computer, many of which work better than Windows, some of which are even free!

Let me introduce you to my favourite operating system. It's called Ubuntu, and it's my favourite for many reasons. If you stick with me, I'd love to explain why.

Click Here To Read Full Article