I recently started a short evening course with the local college - nothing too complex, and it might helpfully slow my brain's deterioration ever so slightly.

It's a brilliant place. It's friendly, it's welcoming, it's reasonably organised (hey, I spent enough time in education years ago to know that this no small feat) and the course is fun.

But - the IT side there... It's all blimmin Microsoft. The computers run Windows 7. The internal e-mail system uses the MS e-mail client (Outlook, I think.) The interactive whiteboard runs proprietary software. I've had a fairly long search - there seems no free open source equivalent for organisations that might not be able to afford it. And apparently at least some of the software for the clever boards is subscription-based.

All the productivity stuff is MS Office. Students can even download MS Office for free - but only keep it for the duration of their courses. By which state, presumably, MS relies on their having become dependant on it, or frankly unaware of alternatives or reluctant to change.

As far as I can see, staff and students are all being conditioned to be good little MS consumers. These are intelligent people, uncritically accepting a status quo devised by and for the benefit of a huge corporation. (All IMHO, of course.)

For all that he can be a little overwhelming, I think, increasingly, that Richard Stallman is spot on. (A quick "for instance" -   http://www.gnu.org/education/edu-schools.html   ).

The college and its staff and students are probably trapped. It would take enormous and expensive efforts to change things.

And I'm honestly and seriously depressed.

(Wonder if it's too late in the evening for a restorative beer or two. I suppose so...)