[H-GEN] QLD Education

Ben Fowler fowlerb at optushome.com.au
Tue Jun 4 22:20:46 EDT 2002


Hi All,

> > Unfortunately we don't have software freedom in our schools in
> > Australia, I offered to set up Linux servers using LTSP (for free) to
> my
> > kid's primary School in Queensland, Australia. Below is the response
> > from the headmaster and my response to him

I have a close relative who works as a primary school teacher, and who's
an active unionist.  My understanding of the situation is that Microsoft
got Education to sign an agreement that licenses all software and all
machines for a single hefty figure.  In addition, teachers are
supposedly free to take the software home for their own use for
work-related activities (although I'm not terribly sure, I'll have to
ask the person concerned).  It was _very_ expensive (again, don't know
the exact figure), so the teacher's union objected strongly, said
relative included.

To be perfectly honest though, this sounds like a bit of a beatup.  I
think this licensing arrangement is quite reasonable: a licensing
agreement relieves Education of having to be so thorough with their
software auditing and teachers can "borrow" the software they need to
get their work done without getting their arses kicked by the copyright
police.  The one problem would be the enormous price tag, which may or
may not be appropriate considering they're charging a non-profit
enterprise.

In my not-so-humble opinion, I'm highly skeptical that Free software
people can successfully argue that Linux/BSD/whatever is superior, or
can come anywhere near challenging Windows on the desktop.  The Mexican
fiasco is an example where some (comunity-spirited, absent-minded,
possibly irresponsible) activists sold the Mexican government on the
benefits of Free software for the desktop (for schools, libraries, etc),
but neglected to mention that such software would require a considerable
amount of support.  If Free UNIX desktops can get polished and
integrated with the OS to the degree of Max OS X, it might stand a
chance, but I personally very much doubt any sooner.

"Free software is only free when your time is worthless".

Macs are a good, but expensive solution.  As we all know, Macs are good,
dead simple to learn and use (except for my Grandma perhaps :( ) and
were used in schools extensively.  My teacher-relative has this ancient
68K colour Mac, and we still have to prise it out of her fingers with a
crowbar.

-warmest regards,

Ben.

--
Ben Fowler, email: <ben.fowler at humbug.org.au> pgp/gpg key id: FFDE6AF7
  vanity web page: <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~zuul/>

                      "Who now remembers the Armenians?" -- Adolf Hitler
                                   (see http://groong.usc.edu/fisk.html)

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