I for one see a potential for this initiative. Though I think it would have a better chance of succeeding somewhere like South Korea or Japan; where the children are more respectful of property and appreciative of education. At the very least this can be used to lessen the weight carried by children in text books. If it's even slightly successful other districts might do something similar, maybe experimenting with differing devices and content. In my view this shouldn't be a replacement for how children are taught, but an alternative to carrying heavy books. Personally I would have started by using a cheaper low cost book readers loaded with the material needed for that school or grade, rather than the more expensive iPad. Will the LA School Distinct and Apple succeed, I'm not sure, but it does pave the way to progress that might just catch on with other districts.

I agree; Linux users are probably more dependent on the individual distro's repositories. The bigger and better maintained the repo the less users have to venture to outside sources.