[Wolves] BBC Technology poll - vote now :-)

[Mark Harrison]

stephen welch wrote:

[Loads of stuff I agree with, or have learnt from, or both, and 
therefore aren't commenting on deleted...]

> I agree with you there but most would probably audit once a year 
> anyway and if you can get away without paying £500 to ms by using Open 
> source then that is certainly a consideration.  In any event you would 
> need to keep on top of all the other software (in schools) that is in 
> use.  In a Jolly by Golly sense that is a lot - most of it crap.
I agree that not paying because you were using O/S is a good idea.

The point about £500 pa was a comment on the "just pay a fixed fee per 
PC, irrespective of which MS software you load on it" licencing model. 
I'm not saying that this model is best, only that I _don't_ find it 
particularly morally reprehensible as an option.


>
> It would interesting to see how many to the fifteen or so Becta 
> approved bidders for the Building Schools for the Future Project or 
> the large academy bids actually utilise or readily supply other OS 
> such as Linux.  I used to work for one and they certainly didn't.  You 
> need a a lot of money to get through bidding processes like this and 
> this sort of cash is not generated by flogging software that doesn't 
> cost anything.

Sun? IBM? Both make a shed load of cash from their "services" arms, 
selling "solutions" which include a lot of free software.

>
> Chances are that
>> the job is done by a teacher or an office support person, who "knows 
>> a bit about computers", and anything more complex than that is 
>> referred to the LEA, who have a standard recommendation :-(
>
> Not so true in that most schools do have dedicated ICT support on 
> either a full time or temp.  The quality is variable and the quality 
> of advice sometimes constrained by the local council policies or there 
> nexus.  Ultimately the decision will rest with the school and they 
> will normally go with what they know best (MS).
OK. My sample was one school (my daughter's), which is a small local 
infant school.
>>
> True in some senses but things like moodle and Joomla are a big in 
> quite a few local councils and a lot of there systems run linux, et al 
> but nearly all schools (the users) use MS and until people in general 
> start using open source more frequently than MS then the scales will 
> be tipped only one way.

The difference I see is that Local Councils tend to have IT 
Departments... and whenever three or four IT people shall gather, there 
shall you find OpenSource getting a foot in the door :-)


M.