On Mon, 2005-10-03 at 16:53 +0100, Thomas Adam wrote:
Most people on this list do. :) I myself do not -- indeed, it has been a long time since I have done any work with Linux and education.
particularly interested in whether you have encountered problems when asked to support educational solutions be they installables or web-based resources (such as Learndirect courses)?
I have heard of a lot of problems, yes. It basically boils down to a lack of understanding by the CC (or LEA, or whomever it is that ultimately overseas such decisions about how computers are to be used in education) as to the benefits that FOSS can bring. Thankfully, this is changing, and more and more awareness of it is introduced, but it is far from perfect. Essentially, no one adapts well to change, or to the unknown.
Its worth bearing in mind that we have direct contact with BECTA and the DfES through SchoolforgeUK and Open Source Consortium. While this is so far more focussed on schools there is no real reason why it should not apply to FE and HE. In terms of migration strategies etc Open Source Consortium is probably better placed than BCS in giving advice on use of FLOSS in existing environments. Indeed many members of OSC are also BCS members.
Any way you can, basically. You push and push, and push. At some point (by Christmas? Hell, maybe hell will freeze over first) the computers here will use VMWare to allow Linux access. This has been a tremendous effort by a number of people --- essentially though, what had to happen, was to get the support of people from the BCS (and other parties) so that the LEA took such a suggestion seriously. I know it seems stupid, but there's _a lot_ of red tape surrounding all of this.
Since I'm the official point of conatct between BECTA and the Open Source community, I'm quite willing to talk to any LEA that requires some official basis for considering these issues. Regards, -- Ian Lynch <ian.lynch@zmsl.com> ZMSL