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The Digital Divide -- there isn't a nation where it doesn't exist, yet it seems so relative. In one place, a child going online via dial up using a PII seems at a disadvantage. Elsewhere, that child has a tool that could change his life. The opportunity to learn not only facts, but how everything fits together is platform independent. The PII is just as valuable as a new laptop costing thousands. Both are meaningless if children can't access all they offer. Any technology costs money.
Open source has much to offer here. Lower costs, good support for old hardware, and software that can be modified to individual needs. OLPC champions low-cost laptops for every child. Userful takes a different approach.
Open source software encourages learning, the exchange of knowledge and information, and project improvements that rely as much on its users, and its developers' colleagues, as it does the developer. It's not unlike education. Ideally, learning is a continuous cycle of taking in, processing, and giving back, with modifications.
It's puzzling, then, that the adoption of open source software has been relatively slow, even in higher education. However, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, open source course management software is starting to gain a foothold.
