What is Operating System (OS)

This chapter presents a case study of a migration to open source software (OSS) in a South African school. The innovative aspect of the case study lies in how the entire implementation was motivated by the collapse of the school’s public address system. It was found that an OSS-based message system provided a more cost-effective replacement option whereby the speakers in the school were replaced with low-cost workstations (i.e., legacy systems) in each classroom. Interestingly, this OSS implementation happened despite the fact that, in South Africa, Microsoft Windows and MS-Office are available free of charge to schools under Microsoft’s Academic Alliance initiative. The chapter also analyzes some critical themes for adoption of OSS in the educational environment.