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Re: [Dfey-nw-discuss] saving schools money


From: Chris Hilliard
Subject: Re: [Dfey-nw-discuss] saving schools money
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:34:17 +0100

To some extent, I agree with you - a massive saving across the board
could be achived by the utilisation of open source software, but there
are major issues with this idea that nobody has solved as yet.

Firstly, you speak of schools moving completely to OSS. This is all
well and good, but doesn't it remove one of the most important parts
of OSS and the free software movement? It implicitly removes freedom
of choice by creating a monopoly - this has a tendency to stifel
innovation as we have seen from Microsoft's dominance.

I also strongly disagree that we have the inferstructure or the
corectly taught staff to facilitate this change. Most systems admins
in schools are purely trained on windows, caussing serious issues for
a changeover.

Another issue that is of concern is the movement of data and more
specificaly databases of student information off the propriatory
windows systems, which is not easy to start with, as it can often mean
manual data imput, and for a school of 2000, that's no joke.

Finaly, there is the long standing issue of windows licences -
Microsoft forces a school to licence every computing device,
irespective of wether it runs Windows or otherwise, meaning that even
apple machines in schools are slapped with a Microsoft tax, so a
smooth transition would be more expensive and cost prohibative than
the current setup.

All in all, there are a significant number of barriers to getting
widespread Linux useage in schools, many I hope, can be removed fairly
soon.

Thanks,
Badspyro

On 9/27/09, Paul Sutton <address@hidden> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
> In response to this article about having to make 2 billion savings in
> schools.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8267745.stm
>
> the following package is currently pretty much standard in schools,  but
>  runs only on windows, which of course requires a windows server to
> store data etc
>
> http://www.capitaes.co.uk/sims/
>
> What is needed by a school to go fully OSS is a real alternative, to the
> above,  PLUS related support and infrastructure to back it up,
>
> I think there are solutions out there.
>
> Paul
>
> - --
> Paul Sutton
> www.zleap.net
> Support Open and ISO standard file formats ISO 26300 odf
> http://www.odfalliance.org
> Meetings 1st Saturday of the month - Shoreline, Paignton from 3pm
> Software freedom day 2009 - Saturday 19th September 2009
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>

-- 
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