Open source could slash school IT bills, says government

The open source community will receive a major boost this week from the UK government's ICT agency, which has investigated the potential benefits of using free and non-proprietary software in education.
The research, carried out by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association (BECTA), concluded that primary schools could cut computer costs by nearly half if they stopped buying, operating and supporting products from software vendors such as Microsoft, according to the Times Educational Supplement.