Hi all
Roger Whittaker wrote:
Which is why I make no apology for contibuting this link also for those who are interested:
http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,610133,00.html
Excellent article Roger! I think it's a great pity that people are threatening to withdraw from this list - I'm a tax payer and i object to my money being wasted in an extravagent and un-nessecary manner by people who have think a web browser is a newspaper reading spider! In this area i don't think it matters that it's microsoft, the same argument would apply if it were reveresed and sun were charging 70 million for staroffice and microsoft were offering xp for free - as long as office offers value for money.... As a school network manager I am disgusted at the attitude of our mp's to ict education and, if this NHS deal goes through, believe me, it won't belong before the same deal will be inflicted on us - never mind that we could'nt afford the hardware to run it on in the first place. I would'nt protest if the government were prposing to spend xx million with lotus because smartsuite offers better value for money than office does. On another note - don't you people find something immoral in spending 70 million with a company for software that is not required when large numbers of people spend 12 hours+ on trolleys in casualty departments? I personally know (as i'm sure we all do) of people waiting years for operations.... come on blair - spend the money where it's needed and use ecent, free software to improve our health and education systems. Ok, rant over.... alan ----------------------------------------------------- Alan Harris Network Manager Bryngwyn School Tel : 01554 750661 Fax : 01554 758255 E-mail: alanh@bryngwyn.carmarthen.sch.uk ----------------------------------------------------- Notes: 1. The contents of this email may be snooped on by interested government parties for unknown purposes! Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000. 2. The opinions expressed in this email are personal and may not be shared by Bryngwyn School. -----------------------------------------------------
Dear all
I think it's a great pity that people are threatening to withdraw from this list - I'm a tax payer and i object to my money being wasted in an extravagant and un-nessecary manner by people who have think a web browser is a newspaper reading spider!
Nice to see Jono Bacon subscribe to this list :) The above issue of tax payers being ripped off is just the reason why I have written a letter to my Member of Parliament about the software deal between MS and the NHS. It might be that this does not directly support Linux in Schools but it does support the ideal of the tax payer being given the right to know where his or her money went to. This is something that parents would also like to know about. Anything that supports the IT technicians who work in schools from the point of view of keeping their jobs must be a good thing. Of course, I'm supposing that low cost of licences as opposed to high costs of MS licence is something that we want. Thanks -- Richard www.sheflug.co.uk
In this area i don't think it matters that it's microsoft, the same argument would apply if it were reveresed and sun were charging 70 million for staroffice and microsoft were offering xp for free - as long as office offers value for money....
Except that in practice you could easily be talking in the order of a billion (US fortunatly) pounds to get the hardware to run this software.
As a school network manager I am disgusted at the attitude of our mp's
Being non teachers the usual position appears to be that we don't exist...
to ict education and, if this NHS deal goes through, believe me, it won't belong before the same deal will be inflicted on us - never mind that we could'nt afford the hardware to run it on in the first place.
Wonder how much it would cost to produce educational "content" which worked with Linux/*BSD/etc. Either as locally running programs or web based? (In the latter case I certainly don't mean "must have IE 5...").
I would'nt protest if the government were prposing to spend xx million with lotus because smartsuite offers better value for money than office does.
Or maybe X million on a sustainable open source system. One other problem with this money is that it isn't a one off payment it could end up as 70M (plus X% compound) per year. -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763
On Monday 03 December 2001 14:10, Mark Evans wrote:
In this area i don't think it matters that it's microsoft, the same argument would apply if it were reveresed and sun were charging 70 million for staroffice and microsoft were offering xp for free - as long as office offers value for money....
Except that in practice you could easily be talking in the order of a billion (US fortunatly) pounds to get the hardware to run this software.
One of the intriguing things is that when I asked how they arrived at the figure of a £50m saving I have been met by deafening silence. I can only assume they are using something like the calculation for MS agreement in schools. ie take every Pentium computer, think of an amount like £40 and multiply the number by that amount. Now take each computer and calculate what it would cost using a MLP for upgrades and calculate the difference. Of course the obvious flaw is that many (most?) of the machines will not be able to run XP without significant hardware upgrades and these will not necessarily happen. Also many people using say Office 97 for routine admin will have no reason to upgrade. Therefore the saving is complete smoke and mirrors. Furthermore if the NHS say the individual heath groups are free to use whatever software they like, they are in effect paying up front for licenses that they will never use. I have pointed all this out to both the NHS procurement people and the National Audit Office and neither has provided the basis for the calculated saving so it makes me just a tad suspicious. In fact my dialogue with the NAO suggests they are completely clueless about licensing and they have relied on the NHS claim (Imagine an OFSTED inspection doing that :-) ). In turn, it seems the NHS could well have relied on figures fed to them by MS. Obfuscation is the name of the game so lets keep nagging until we get some clarification.
Wonder how much it would cost to produce educational "content" which worked with Linux/*BSD/etc. Either as locally running programs or web based? (In the latter case I certainly don't mean "must have IE 5...").
We all just need to work on it. Web based is probably best or based around Star Office - eg macros in spreadsheets etc. Best to target statutory requirements through QCA schemes of work. After all if all statutory requirements could be met with free content there is a pretty powerful argument for adoption.
I would'nt protest if the government were prposing to spend xx million with lotus because smartsuite offers better value for money than office does.
Thing is that with Star Office we can develop content around it knowing that we can guarantee to provide the program to run the content without having to expect the school or anyone else to have paid out.
Or maybe X million on a sustainable open source system. One other problem with this money is that it isn't a one off payment it could end up as 70M (plus X% compound) per year.
Its £70m over 3 years but in principle I should think 10% of that would provide pretty well full compatibility and all the gaps filled so that there were open source replacements for all tha applications. Hell, how many times have you heard them bleat "Its only a tool" In that case let's use the free one. -- IanL Open Source - save money - employ more teachers Use Star Office the free replacement for Microsoft Office
On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 02:10:10PM +0000, Mark Evans wrote:
In this area i don't think it matters that it's microsoft, the same argument would apply if it were reveresed and sun were charging 70 million for staroffice and microsoft were offering xp for free - as long as office offers value for money....
Except that in practice you could easily be talking in the order of a billion (US fortunatly) pounds to get the hardware to run this software.
As a school network manager I am disgusted at the attitude of our mp's
Being non teachers the usual position appears to be that we don't exist...
to ict education and, if this NHS deal goes through, believe me, it won't belong before the same deal will be inflicted on us - never mind that we could'nt afford the hardware to run it on in the first place.
Wonder how much it would cost to produce educational "content" which worked with Linux/*BSD/etc. Either as locally running programs or web based? (In the latter case I certainly don't mean "must have IE 5...").
I would'nt protest if the government were prposing to spend xx million with lotus because smartsuite offers better value for money than office does.
Or maybe X million on a sustainable open source system. One other problem with this money is that it isn't a one off payment it could end up as 70M (plus X% compound) per year.
The government should really fund a sustainable open source system for the NHS and schools, 70 million would get the ball rolling nicely. As you say it's not a one-off payment for the MS software. As other businesses are aware it's just one payment of many whereas an open source project it really would be a one-off expenditure. It would be interesting to know if they've managed to negotiate themselves out of the enforced upgrades that other businesses are being saddled with by MS. What terms have they negotiated? Or are they going to keep this to themselves? I think we should be told and I trust that this whole sorry business is going to be scrutinised by the public accounts committee. -- Frank *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Boroughbridge. Tel: 01423 323019 --------- PGP keyID: 0xC0B341A3 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/
participants (5)
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Alan Harris -
Frank Shute -
Ian -
Mark Evans -
Richard Ibbotson