Gentlemen, Not to set myself up as an expert on this subject, but as a person who formerly performed pre-sales support and Service Management over several thousand schools in New England, I have to agree with both arguments. This at least for the grade school level. Colleges and Universities change everything. I think the truth is that you SHOULD sell hardware to the Director of Technology for a School District and the software to teachers. In actual fact, you might be doing some of both providing the teachers get involved with the process. It is correct that for the most part, teachers do not concern themselves with either hardware or networking, and frequently learn whatever tool is given them to do the grade book or assessment thing. The focus point might be best described as making the tools transparent to hardware or OS. My son is in 6th grade will a school full of computers running Windoze save two. His computer teacher is running Linux on two systems. One web server and the other her client that she uses for everything else. Maybe the web is the way to transparency as Browsers work a lot alike. So, working the back end apps like grade book etc. might be the foot in the door. Open Source software can save significant monies on both hardware and software. Staving off a "hardware refresh" can save big dough. Downloading applications from a web or local repository that are free is more money for other things, like training. Color me squarely in the middle on this. I guess I'll go find a gym that serves beer :>) Regards, Ralph Ian Lynch wrote:
On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 10:55 -0500, Rodney Donovan wrote:
Hello James. I think ole Ian needs a pint of brew!
Just going to the gym :-)
If it wasn't for OSS, we would all be Microsoft slaves. Yes! It is about hardware, and yes it is about software.
I'm completely in agreement that at some point we need to get everyone using OSS, I'm disagreeing with the approach to achieving that.
The issue is how much can you save on software by replacing commercial with open source software.
Free beer or freedom? I think Freedom is more important and more in tune with educational culture.
This is what makes IT a black hole in regards to resources. You can throw the whole kit and kaboodle into IT and still not have what is needed to succeed. With proper use of OSS, there can be savings had and many things learned.
As for "No Child Left Behind," believe me when I say that this has caused more problems for schools than any other law I know of. I don't believe that our federal government should be getting involved in state matters. But then again, have you seen some of these kids? That is right, they should not be left behind, they should be shipped out!
Hm, not one for inclusive education then ;-)
Ian
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