Well, there goes another batch of potential Vista upgrades it looks like. While Linux is not for everyone, it sure has been gaining a lot of ground lately.

Microsoft is being shunned in the southern Indian state of Kerala, where 12,500 high schools are slated to switch to the free Linux operating system Friday, according to the Associated Press.
Kerala is currently ruled by a leftist coalition led by chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who is an advocate of open source.

The state is hardly turning to free software out of poverty, either. It has a 91 percent literacy rate and residents have a life expectancy of 73 years, rivaling figures in much of the developed world, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

“It is our stated policy that only free software should be used for IT education in Kerala’s schools. The government is introducing Linux-based software as tools to teach various subjects,” the state’s education minister M.A. Baby told the Associated Press.

While the transition will save money on licensing costs, experts said it will also require training users to transition to the new technology and put in place the necessary talent and skills to support and service the software…. Source: Red Herring