Unlike almost everyone else in my family I have never been a teacher outside higher education, but I am very concerned that any educational sector is wasting money on legally questionable licences for faulty,
A common "fault" with much closed source software is that it appears to be written with the assumption that it will be run on a standalone machine and that for network use invividual loading on each workstation is a sensible idea. As well as things such as "site licences" which are actually licences for up to X machines.
closed source software products rather than on sound educational resources. I have lobbied various levels of government (initially alone
Sound educational resources with a bias towards the UK, too.
and later alongside Malcom Herbert) to do something about this. As I am sure you are aware it is a direct result of our efforts that the new Labour government will be standing at the next election on a platform of outlawing the sale of closed source software in the UK*. Last year Malcom kindly invited me to talk at his Open Source in Education meeting about the public Human Genome Project (the HuGeP), a massive scientific endeavour which simply couldn't have been completed without Open Source software.
*Another "joke", I'm afraid: Everyone still uses Microsoft, many civil servants think I'm mad, and Malcom has resigned from BECTa.
It's a great pity Malcom wasn't able to be at the meeting, it concerns me that a supposedly impartially publically funded body may be influenced by a forign company with dubious ethics. -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763