Really you think that is good? I can put 10K in BPT (British Petroleum Trust - Alaskan Crude) paying ~11% a year. This will give you 1100 dollars a year and after taxes and your energy bill you still have money left over. Now once all your friends have brought down the cost of your solar energy system, you will be able to buy it and still have some cash left over. That is a good deal. In other words the price is still too HIGH. Here is what we need to do - Force the supply by passing legislation that requires all new homes to have solar. No solar - No home. Make it a requirement that energy utilities have to pay individuals for their excess capacity, thus allowing home owners to create and maintain these "cottage industries" with the tax benefits now only available to large utilities, this will also subsidize retro fitting existing homes, and let small companies put solar on their roofs (ie Wal-Mart).

Very Interesting Question, sad that it devolved into the usual theology. There are good things and bad things about every OS. The os you should choose is the one that best meets your and your schools needs. That is the whole point of computers, meeting needs and solving problems. There are many good linux OS's and most of them are free. The biggest advantage is that they are free and there is lots of free software. Linux is not used by a majority of computers or companies where these children are likely to grow up and be hired. So, in the long run you may be dueing them a disservice. Instead of being experts, they will be a little better then novices faced with the task of relearning everything they knew, which is typically no fun. Make no mistake, a big company will not care that the software is free, they will only care about their standards, and whether your student can use the software. You will have deployment and administration costs, no matter which way you go, but you better factor it in. Linux admins are likely to cost you more as they are harder to find. Supply and Demand. Another issue is the transferability of the knowledge. The kids parents are likely to be Windows users and kids learning will be noticed by their parents and the school is likely to be appreciated for its efforts. Finally, besides cost you may want to consider the software applications that you want to run, are they Windows, Linux, Mac? Are there applications you may want to buy in the future? What about your staff? Do they know how to use the software? I have seen companies go to free software and the people stop using the machines, because they can no longer figure out how stuff works. I can imagine that staff that are uncomfortable with the idea of looking stupid will probably not want to use the computers.