Re: [Fsfe-uk] BECTA discriminate against FLOSS?

[ian]

On Sun, 2003-12-21 at 11:18, Nick Mailer wrote:
> I wrote a book about the Internet in education, and so had to deal with 
> BECTA (or NCET, as it then was). I found them to be a stultifyingly 
> dull little quango, and recent evidence suggests nothing much has 
> changed.  They always seemed to attract people with little or no 
> imagination, 

I once applied for a job, made the shortlist but didn't get it. Did me a
real favour as I started my own business instead ;-)

> who used to do little more than find a nice, warm 
> corporate nest in which to put all their eggs. I really wouldn't hold 
> out hope for any particularly enlightened or courageous stance from 
> this bureaucratic sludge-tank, whatever data they manage to cook up one 
> way or the other. Microsoft has nothing to fear herefrom.

Don't be too defeatist. Ok, in some ways it could end up as despite
BECTA rather than because of it, but in the end, BECTA have to do what
the political masters and the DfES tell them to do. Most civil servants
are cautious grey suits but there are exceptions. If BECTA publish TCO
stuff that is against what we want, hardly anyone will use it and it
will be fairly easy to discredit. If they do publish data that is in our
favour we can use it. It was inevitable that BECTA would get into TCO
studies etc. That's what they do to justify their existence with the
DfES. At least we are showing that we are at that stage in the
development route. Better for them to be negative than to ignore us as
irrelevant, we can always prepare arguments against negative views and
keep FLOSS a high profile.

-- 
ian <address@hidden>