Free Software in Education -- was: Re: [Wolves] RE: Sick of ...

[Richard Smedley]

On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 18:49 +0100, Chris Fox wrote:
> the.lock.keeper at ukonline.co.uk wrote:
> > Maybe you miss the point.  If we leave it as a matter of choice and do nothing
> > but improve the OS hoping that it will get noticed, our tax money will continue
> > to be spent on Microsoft Licenses and children will be unaware of an
> > alternative.  I wasn't bashing Microsoft for everything they do - just the sly
> > way they market their products to children (maybe some parallel here with
> > MacDonalds, Coke etc.).
> 
> > Just merely pointing out that there isn't a level playing field and likely won't
> > be for many years to come.  I haven't referred to Microsoft as the enemy - even
> > though senior figures at that company have referred to Linux with much stronger
> > language than that!  Just sick of their underhand tactics.
> 
> But why don't the likes of Redhat, Novell and Canonical start giving 
> away cheap hardware with Linux preinstalled and free support in the same 
> way? Let's not pretend that they can't afford it.

Hello Chris,

I can't answer for Red Hat, et al., but some of us are
involved in giving hardware and support to schools.

To co-incide with the Open Schools Alliance event in 
Liverpool on 19 October, OSA & M6-IT, with help and 
support from FFII, OSC, ICDC & Blue Fountain, will
be bringing a junior school up to the same level of
IT as schools in Extremadura - i.e. one PC per two pupils.

This will be done with recycled and/or low power consumption 
hardware, Free Software (LTSP / Edubuntu), appropriate 
training, and a year's support.

> (Also, why no mention of Apple's courting of the education market in the 
> US? It doesn't seem to be a donation, but when they're selling 23,000 
> laptops to one county's schools I bet there's a substantial discount 
> involved. I'm sure that's detracting from getting Linux into schools 
> too, but Apple don't seem to attract the same vitriol from some people.)
> 
> I really don't see what's so unethical or "underhand" about MS creating 
> goodwill by donating computers to schools.

I think it depends upon why people are complaining. Personally
I object to locking schools into MS through special licensing
deals - many schools in the UK pay a fixed amount per PC, so
100 Pentium I GNU/Linux thin clients will cost the school ten 
times more in licensing than ten Pentium IVs running MS Windows &
MS Office XP :-(

There are other examples of where this convicted monopolist's 
altruism can't be taken entirely at face value, but these sorts
of discussions get a little depressing, so let's return to
positive action that we can take for education in the UK :)

> I'd love to see kids going to school and having a real choice about 
> their OS, or at least an understanding that they have that choice. But 
> at the end of the day, the schools are going to use what they want to 
> use and overwhelmingly they seem to want to use Windows.(1)

Most schools lack in-house expertise in IT - a direct function
of the abysmally low wages paid to school technicians. Thus they
defer to BECTA for advice and information - and BECTA says run MS:
BECTA even seems to want schools to avoid Moodle, the biggest
Free Software success in the education world =^/

Where support and political will have backed change - cf. 
Extremadura - schools have been happy. In the UK it takes a
strong-willed headmaster, and a committed head of IT, to stand
out from the crowd and go with LTSP or other GNU/Linux solutions
(cf. Handsworth Grammar in Brimingham, or Skegness Grammar).

> I think that these are the minds we have to change, and it's not just a 
> matter of price. Hence, we're back to demonstrating that switching to 
> Linux is a worthwhile exercise, and these people need a lot of convincing!

In the last three years elc funding has bought £330 million
of extra proprietary software for schools on top of the normal
MS, Adobe, etc apps - yet schools are not successfully using
software in all areas of the curriculum. iow it's not (just) 
about money. :-/

The aim of October's install is just such a demonstration
- and I hope it won't be the last ;-)

> (1) When I was at high school (this was about 1999), they rolled out 
> Windows NT running through Citrix on old Acorn hardware. I know RiscOS 
> was dull, but that's  what I call desparation!

We got a Commodore Pet before I left, to supplement the
teletype and 300-baud modem - but we did most of our 
programming on paper, prototyping with flowcharts :-)

 - Richard

-- 
Richard Smedley,                                         rs at m6-it.org
Technical Director,                                     www.M6-IT.org
M6-IT CIC                                        +44 (0)779 456 07 14

Sustainable Third Sector IT solutions. PRINCE2[TM] Project Management
Web services * Back-ups * Support * Training & Certification * E-Mail


M6-IT is a Community Interest Company, limited by guarantee.
Registered in England & Wales,               Registration No: 6040154
11 St Marks Road, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY9 7DT

Northern Office:      4, Hollins Green, Bradwall, Cheshire, CW10 0LA.

Welsh office/Swyddfa Gogledd Cymru: e-mail / e-bost - cymru at m6-it.org

Southern Office: Bristol                    contact matthew at m6-it.org