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Permalink Reply by Jon Foster-Pedley on April 7, 2008 at 11:05pm

Great, Dave - this looks like a very productive discussion. Leigh Meinert has just joined this network. Leigh is md of TSiBA, which is a University in Cape Town that provides, like CIDA in Johannesburg, wonderful and free/subsidised education for talented individuals who wold not otherwise have the means to go to University. I'm not sure what their open source status is but I am sure she would be most interested in your support and insights.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Everitt on June 24, 2008 at 3:57pm

Jon - those projects are inspiring indeed. I've added another post below because I think it's an issue worth returning to. The case for open source in business is already a well-argued one (although still not discussed enough), but I'm more concerned for the education sector, where funds - although always at a premium - are sometimes spent unwisely, due in part to a lack of ready information and a shortage of time for staff and decision-makers to maintain their knowledge. So let's hope others pitch in on this discussion!

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Permalink Reply by Dave Everitt on June 24, 2008 at 3:50pm

I recently had a discussion about open source with a colleague responsible for my local schools' computing maintenance and advice. While he's keen on introducing open source (and is a Linux user himself), there is a whole load of legacy admin software that only works on Windows. Yet the policies that bring this about are short-sighted, and lead to all-eggs-in-one-basket dependency problems.

The UK creative collective Mediashed has a very good page explaining it's use of open source, with some points containing mention of educational policies, where I think the issue is most pertinent. I'd still like to know what others think, but this thread has not really taken off yet.

At least, with a huge part of internet functionality (and computing history) provided by Unix-based and Unix-derived platforms, education environments should include these systems. If Linux is too geeky to be functional on a day-to-day desktop basis, Apple's OS X (for those already using it) with the FreeBSD underpinnings is another route to the same knowledge. Alternatively, the server technologies of many ISPs are a further way of gaining Unix familiarity. An otherwise redundant or older machine can also be easily installed with Linux, and become useful once more.

But open source is so much more than *nix - on both Windows and OS X there are now many highly viable alternatives to industry standard software packages. We should also be thinking about media portability, and the web as a primary delivery platform, which means using open standards rather than proprietary file formats that tie media producers (and often end-users) to certain software packages. Yet in many areas of the public sector, the IT advice is still 10 years old.

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