Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Re: FLOSSIE Conference
On Friday, Dec 12, 2003, at 02:01 Europe/London, MJ Ray wrote:
On 2003-12-11 10:35:26 +0000 Alan Harris
wrote: 1. I'd love to come but it's difficult to make a day trip to London from Llanelli / Carmarthen and get there before 11.00 a.m., especially if you don't have you own transport.
Off-list: isn't this just a case of getting a train to Swansea and catching the first GWR, or am I missing some complication?
Leave Carmarthen 02:41 arrive London 06:43 or, leave Carmarthen 06:00 arrive London 10:00. Of course I could book the overnight stay but would probably end up paying for the lot out of my own pocket, getting the new regime in this place to pay for such an action is probably not going to happen. They refused to pay for two non-teaching members of staff to attend a basic MAC OS/X course in Cheltenham - cost was only £65 per person!
2. Most of the people you want to influence are in school management and, in my experience, either not in the least bit interested in OSS or downright hostile.
Maybe we should subtitle this event "Bring a Manager (get one free)"? ;-)
Not a bad idea actually.. Any comment Ian?
3. Schools are going to require a mixture of operating systems and hardware - pushing OSS alone is not going to work BUT OSS in conjunction with different
Hrm, not sure on 2 counts. I think we have to push a pure free software platform, but mention the other possibilities as migration and interoperability options. The non-free stuff has other people to promote it.
I'd swop to Mac OS/X & Linux on PC's tomorrow no problem. So would 75% of pupils. Teachers on the other hand.....
4. You really need to host two / three of these events, one in each of the three major regions (England, Scotland & Wales)
Do you know people in Scotland and Wales who could help make this happen? AFFS is surely interested.
I'll forward Ians original flossie announcement to my local lug list and see if our management would be prepared to host such an event here, I'll also forward to our LEA's 'techlist' and challenge them to see if we, as a group of technicians could try to support such an event and make it happen.....
5. Push very hard the 'inclusive' aspect of OSS - you don't need the latest versions of software to do your work. OSS is not exclusive
...unless there are software patents. That's why I don't like "OSS" alone. I suggest promoting FLOSS.
Yup, you're right here - I'll start calling OSS FLOSS from now on
Perhaps a way forward here (prepares to be flamed out of existence) is that we begin to report such occurences to M$ [...]
Would they care? Is the profit from having the software everywhere in schools, even in ones that won't pay for it, more than the loss from copyright infringement by those schools?
Good point, my comments were born out of total frustration with silly arguments put forward by silly unknowlegable people in positions of so called importance
-- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
On Fri, 2003-12-12 at 09:22, Alan Harris wrote:
On Friday, Dec 12, 2003, at 02:01 Europe/London, MJ Ray wrote:
On 2003-12-11 10:35:26 +0000 Alan Harris
wrote: 1. I'd love to come but it's difficult to make a day trip to London from Llanelli / Carmarthen and get there before 11.00 a.m., especially if you don't have you own transport.
Off-list: isn't this just a case of getting a train to Swansea and catching the first GWR, or am I missing some complication?
Leave Carmarthen 02:41 arrive London 06:43 or, leave Carmarthen 06:00 arrive London 10:00. Of course I could book the overnight stay but would probably end up paying for the lot out of my own pocket, getting the new regime in this place to pay for such an action is probably not going to happen. They refused to pay for two non-teaching members of staff to attend a basic MAC OS/X course in Cheltenham - cost was only £65 per person!
2. Most of the people you want to influence are in school management and, in my experience, either not in the least bit interested in OSS or downright hostile.
Maybe we should subtitle this event "Bring a Manager (get one free)"? ;-)
Yes - open to any suggestions on flexibility to get as many there as
possible. I just have to be seen to be even-handed and I would like not
to lose too much on the event. Other than those two criteria fine. If we
can BOGOF to get managers there great idea (as long as we don't get
loads of temporary promotions ;-) )
Regards,
--
ian
participants (2)
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Alan Harris
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ian