Kerala plans to replace Microsoft with Linux on high school computers.

Microsoft is being shunned in the southern Indian state of Kerala, where 12,500 high schools are slated to switch to the free Linux operating system Friday, according to the Associated Press.

Kerala is currently ruled by a leftist coalition led by chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who is an advocate of open source.

The state is hardly turning to free software out of poverty, either. It has a 91 percent literacy rate and residents have a life expectancy of 73 years, rivaling figures in much of the developed world, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

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