San Jose's Mike Beever, for example, started considering open-source alternatives after his brush with the BSA. Open-source software is software for which the underlying source code is made freely available to the general public. There are no restrictions on copying, modification or even resale. Over the last five years, free and open-source software has proliferated on the Web and teachers all over the world are paying attention.

Especially in the arena of productivity applications, today's current state-of-the-art free software programs are not yet a slam-dunk alternative to commercially available offerings. But the gap is narrowing, says Columbia's McClintock. Teachers can now find free software that will help students draw geometrically correct formulas or molecular structures, or programs capable of mapping local crime patterns and pulling out trends. They can also create free virtual classrooms, or augment traditional classes with network applications like the University of Texas' LinguaMOO.

One ambitious group of educators has even launched a Web site called OpenSourceSchools.org that aims to act as a school technology warehouse -- a place with "all the basic pieces, and the help necessary, for an open source tech program." A Web server, network tools, mail, bulletin boards, course building systems, library system and school database system will all be offered as of October, says co-founder David Bucknell.

Bucknell and the other founders are hoping that the site will instruct teachers in the value of open-source, while also giving them a place to ask questions and try out what's available. Eventually, they figure, educators will recognize that open-source software and education belong together.

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"A project [like the open-source software movement] that is people-oriented, open to scrutiny and altruistic by design -- successive generations are guaranteed the rights of their forebears -- is right for education," says Bucknell. "Education is the place open source began, as a means of ensuring the possibility of computer science itself, and education is the place where it has the best chance of becoming 'the way' things are done."

Already, some schools are forging into the free software world. Dozens of school systems now use Sun's StarOffice, a free, open-source competitor to Microsoft Office which has also been adopted recently by the U.S. Department of Defense. Teachers, administrators and students at two New York public schools -- Bronx Science and the Beacon School -- have gone even further, switching over some systems to Linux-based operating systems and writing their own free software.

At Bronx Science, Ted Nellen has created what he calls CyberEnglish, a computer-aided reading and writing course. Instead of simply researching Shakespeare in the library, Nellen's students have Net-enabled computers on their desks in class. They communicate about each other's work via e-mail, Nellen posts the class's schedule on a Web page and each student mixes listening to Nellen's lectures with individual instruction. Almost every piece of software that's used was obtained at no cost.

"I don't think I've bought a piece of software in years, since I now use free stuff and what comes bundled," Nellen says. "Proprietary software isn't an issue. Open source is changing this a great deal and the Internet has helped. I think as more and more kids get online and begin seeing how easy it is to work with open source, they will."

The Beacon School's students get an open-source education from the start. Mandatory freshman computer classes include lessons on Linux-based systems and Pine, a free e-mail program from the University of Washington. The Beacon's teachers have also written three free software programs of their own. One helps teachers publish homework assignments on the Web so parents can keep track; another helps students publish their own online newspaper; and a third gives teachers and student advisors instant, secure access to students' personal files. Whenever a teacher enters a comment about, for example, a student's slipping grades in Math, his or her advisor immediately receives an e-mailed alert.

More than 100 schools have contacted Beacon's technology department to find out more about the software, which is available free of charge, says Chris Lehmann, the Beacon's technology coordinator. Once he and other teachers and programmers finish this summer's project -- portal software that could guide, for instance, calculus students to a calculus home page -- Lehmann predicts that even more schools will inquire.

Along with saving the school thousands of dollars, "open source technology makes the most sense for education," says Lehmann. "Good teaching wants open pedagogy; good teaching wants students to understand why things happen. Open source allows that. It rewards curiosity, it gives students the chance to see exactly how things work, which is exactly what we're aiming for in education."

Five years from now, Nellen and Lehmann's stance will probably be considered commonplace, says McClintock. Linux-based systems and other free software applications could command the majority market share in schools within the decade.

"Open source isn't quite there yet," he says. "There needs to be a good presentation in an operating system, as there is in StarOffice, and there needs to be a good package of Internet capabilities. But when it all comes together, schools will start having a zero dollars software budget, which is what I've been advising for a while."

Philadelphia would clearly welcome the opportunity to access software without paying. The school district is running an estimated $200 million deficit for the coming year. But for now, it must deal with Microsoft's demands. Kowalski considers the scenario a veritable tragedy; Microsoft is saying that schools must comply with the law, regardless of circumstances. But Tokofsky, speaking from Los Angeles, believes that the relationship between schools and the software industry must change. Instead of absorbing "the missile of Microsoft's anti-piracy campaign," he says, teachers, parents, and school boards should start fighting back.

"They should send a multiple warhead back at Microsoft and say we're willing to go to court, we're willing to fight for our students," he says. "Because in the court of public opinion, Microsoft will lose. As a former teacher myself, I know there was no [malicious] intent in the copying that they're doing. The only intent they have is to get more poor kids connected to the computer, and that should matter more than intellectual property."

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