My focus was on 'an opportunity' and how to use the govt funding to further enable/support Linux roll out rather than on another point of complaint.....the issue of free and open source is of course a problem in this context......but any money a school could save from it's own budget by using elcs would be spare money for other things...like linux support! If it's too hard then so be it! Rgds Chris -----Original Message----- From: ian [mailto:ian.lynch2@ntlworld.com] Sent: 09 October 2003 10:13 To: chris_thing-e Cc: 'Chris Puttick'; 'fsanta '; suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com; duncan@ctv.es Subject: RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] can we stay? On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 09:36, chris_thing-e wrote:
On a totally different subject.....are there Linux resources registered with curriculum online and eligible for ELCs...if not why not???
ELCs are only eligible for edu content. ie OpenOffice.org or Suse Linux
distro would not count. Freeduc might but you have to state which nit of
the NC it supports and go through the registration procedures with COL.
Also, why bother doing all that if it can be got free? ie will anyone
spend ELCs on a free product? Seems to me to rather defeat the object.
You can't use ELCs on support, so the government are effectively
providing a subsidy for one particular software model, ie the licensed
one at the expense of another. ie if you are in the business of
licensing software you get a massive injection of taxpayers money to
further your development. If you are an open source developer you get
zilch!
Write to your MP! Or E-mail the opposition to get a question asked in
the house. I have already put some stuff out to politicians on this but
the more the merrier.
Keep it straight and simple.
The government are subsidising big foreign corporates who own much of
the licensed software being sold through the E-learning Credits Scheme.
They are providing no help at all to fledgling British Businesses
working in the free software market locally and selling support in order
to put investment back into open source development.
--
ian