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

[ian]

On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 00:07, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Hi,

> 
> Lastly, there's nothing to stop you from charging GBP250.00 for the CD,
> printed manual, and six months support which some places will prefer
> over downloading over the Internet, and working through it un-assisted.

Most of the cost of schools admin packages is I believe support. In fact
for SIMS you can buy it direct from Capita or from the LEA but Capita
want the LEA to provide support so they make it less expensive by that
route. (Maybe LEAs end up subsidising it? It would be very difficult to
be certain) An Open Source project could be funded by a small
contribution from each of the 100 or so LEAs similar to CLEAPSS
(Consortium of LEAs for Provision of Science Services) with each then
providing the support. They would then control development which has
been painfully slow and fragmented with SIMS over the years.

The best way to do this would be for someone to capture the imagination
of say half a dozen Chief Education Officers and get the ball rolling.
Better still a DfES pilot, say with £250,000 of initial funding with
invitations to LEAs to join in if they provide £25k each. That would get
an initial fund of say £500 if 10 LEAs came to the party. In the longer
term each LEA pays £25k a year to join in which provides £2.5m a year in
development money and they all benefit by freeing up the commercial
monopoly.

Since the DfES put £11.25m into a pilot for E-registration - and that
would be a trivial part of the entire admin. package, what I am
proposing is low risk and very inexpensive.

-- 
ian <address@hidden>