[SLUG] Re: Linux in schools

[Stephen O'Neill]

Bob Garrood wrote:
> To be fair they have a lot of other things to do.  
> Alternatives mean spending time and money on computing expertise and 
> training.  So they fall back on MS.

Therein lies the crux of the problem, and herein lies my mini, 
in-congruent essay.

Obviously you're stuck with a self fulfilling prophecy - people leave 
school only knowing MS, get jobs in school, teach MS to new children.

It is worth pointing out that there a few different battle grounds for 
computers in schools, as there are with all computer related things - 
i.e. desktops, servers etc.

For those that don't know, I work for a company that sells web based 
software solutions to schools... and I have what I think is a scary story:

In order to be approved by BECTA in the future you need to show that 
your software is capable of collaborating with other systems. This is a 
bit of a pipe dream of BECTA, but never-the-less that is what they're 
saying...

One of our guys was at a conference type thing a few months ago and was 
discussing our product with a MS guy and the whole collaborating issue 
and it was said "why don't you just use our sharepoint technology".

So, we've looked into sharepoint 
(http://www.microsoft.com/office/sharepoint/prodinfo/default.mspx) and 
we had a visit from a MS guy who did a demo.

The demo was really demoralising from a programmer's point of view.

Not only was Sharepoint a really good CMS/collaboration tool with lots 
of features and an intimidatingly slick web interface, but they also 
have tight integration with the desktop. So, you can publish from your 
office applications directly to your sharepoint server - your desktop 
becomes inextricably tangled with your server and you now need both 
singing the Microsoft tune.

Despite our Microsoft reliance here at work our development team are 
really quite pro-open source. However we all left that demo wondering 
how Linux, and ultimately *we*, can ever compete in the long run - 
Microsoft has a clear and effective plan. Schools and every other 
organisation will become more and more tightly tied to their products - 
because the features are fantastic, but I just can't see open source 
keeping up.

Schools can't have a chance of fighting the MS machine - after all, they 
have little incentive to. BECTA's collaboration rules seem like a good 
thing, but unless you have an architecture which supports them then you 
don't get to play - Microsoft offer that architecture and schools have 
no choice but to follow.

It's all good that a few rogue sysadmins will install a Linux server, 
perhaps with the blessing of their headteacher, but this will be an 
isolated occurrence. The bureaucracy above the sysadmins and at the 
LEA/national level will always beat them - the LEAs will only by the big 
box ticking solution.

And... another thing that wouldn't fit in to my ramble... the 
back-office applications which schools are totally dependent upon (i.e. 
SIMS/CMIS etc) are MS only. These packages are complex and have lots of 
features specific to the complexities of running a school and aren't 
likely to a) be ported to Linux or b) ratified by BECTA - so those 
servers/apps will always need windows too.

Though, one interesting thing is that despite our collective suspicions 
of .Net this may actually help. If .Net makes it easier to port 
applications to Linux then maybe, just maybe, this may start to change.

Steve O

		
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