Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (150 mails)
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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Open Souce Conference - a way forward...
- From: ian <ian.lynch2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 07:49:43 +0000 (UTC)
- Message-id: <1049788280.1375.219.camel@xxxxxxxxxxx>
On Mon, 2003-04-07 at 23:06, Richard Rothwell wrote:
> * we look for a major publicity drive in September by
> when a number of UK schools should be runnning large
> scale open source solutions.
(Several are now!)
There are a number of issues related to marketing open source solutions
to schools and marketing is as important as the technical stuff - in
fact more important if the stuff is to broaden its appeal.
1. Relative effectiveness of individual enthusiasts and commercial
companies
2. Lead in time - the financial new year starts now not in September
3. Risk and innovation - target schools who are innovators rather than
risk averse.
4. Understanding the way schools are funded and how to use this
positively.
Probably some others too. While I believe that there is no great harm in
doing whatever we can in the short term, I think we should at least
consider a collective marketing strategy and we could work on this using
the Wiki and at the next conference. Some practical things that could
help:
1. Drum up support for the next conference. I posted a brief report on
the uk.education.schools-it group and invited people who didn't know
about it and were interested in the next conference to give me their
E-mails. If everyone starts publicising through their networks and
contacts it should not be difficult to double the size of the next
conference.
2. Support companies who promote open source (ok I declare a vested
interest!) Consider this. If you are in a school or business and you
need say a data projector and buy it from an OSS company it contributes
to that company's well-being making it better able to support open
source. If the value for money checks work out why give the business to
those who make no effort with OSS? If you also tell companies that don't
support OSS that all other things being equal you will buy from OSS
companies it provides commercial pressure on them to take part.
Perhaps we should draw up an on-line list of companies supporting OSS
and the types of products they supply. One of the problems is knowing
what each company can supply and support.
3. We need some focussed lobbying and political strategy. I currently
have the OFT investigating MS schools agreement and I have enlisted an
MP and former minister to help reinforce the case. While MS schools
agreement requires every Pentium to pay annual licenses to MS whether or
not it runs any MS software its going to be difficult to add some extra
low cost Linux thin clients to a network in a school operating schools
agreement.
Ok there are other things but 3 is enough for the time being!
Regards,
--
Ian
> * we look for a major publicity drive in September by
> when a number of UK schools should be runnning large
> scale open source solutions.
(Several are now!)
There are a number of issues related to marketing open source solutions
to schools and marketing is as important as the technical stuff - in
fact more important if the stuff is to broaden its appeal.
1. Relative effectiveness of individual enthusiasts and commercial
companies
2. Lead in time - the financial new year starts now not in September
3. Risk and innovation - target schools who are innovators rather than
risk averse.
4. Understanding the way schools are funded and how to use this
positively.
Probably some others too. While I believe that there is no great harm in
doing whatever we can in the short term, I think we should at least
consider a collective marketing strategy and we could work on this using
the Wiki and at the next conference. Some practical things that could
help:
1. Drum up support for the next conference. I posted a brief report on
the uk.education.schools-it group and invited people who didn't know
about it and were interested in the next conference to give me their
E-mails. If everyone starts publicising through their networks and
contacts it should not be difficult to double the size of the next
conference.
2. Support companies who promote open source (ok I declare a vested
interest!) Consider this. If you are in a school or business and you
need say a data projector and buy it from an OSS company it contributes
to that company's well-being making it better able to support open
source. If the value for money checks work out why give the business to
those who make no effort with OSS? If you also tell companies that don't
support OSS that all other things being equal you will buy from OSS
companies it provides commercial pressure on them to take part.
Perhaps we should draw up an on-line list of companies supporting OSS
and the types of products they supply. One of the problems is knowing
what each company can supply and support.
3. We need some focussed lobbying and political strategy. I currently
have the OFT investigating MS schools agreement and I have enlisted an
MP and former minister to help reinforce the case. While MS schools
agreement requires every Pentium to pay annual licenses to MS whether or
not it runs any MS software its going to be difficult to add some extra
low cost Linux thin clients to a network in a school operating schools
agreement.
Ok there are other things but 3 is enough for the time being!
Regards,
--
Ian
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