[H-GEN] QLD Education

[Shaun Nykvist]

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Hi all

on another note - what various states do around qld is very interesting as 
well - nsw is largely macintosh in the primary sector and when I was 
consulting in the territory they were planning a move to all linux servers 
on the curriulum side with the adoption of staroffice/openoffice

Cheers
Shaun


At 02:22 PM 5/06/2002 +1000, you wrote:
>[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
>[ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
>
>On 5 Jun 2002, Ben Fowler wrote:
>
> > 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
>
>I think we're looking at 2 different issues here.
>
>The agreement with Microsoft seems to have 2 components, at least as
>mentioned here:
>
>1. A single organisation wide licencing agreement.
>
>No problem.  I agree with Ben that it frees Education Queensland from time
>consuming software audits (at least to some extent)..
>
>2. A requirement that Education Queensland has to pay licencing fees to
>Microsoft even for PCs that do not contain Microsoft products.
>
>I believe that this does not follow from point 1 and is unreasonable.  I
>believe it is foolish for any organsiation to sign an agreement with a
>requirement like this.
>
> > In my not-so-humble opinion, I'm highly skeptical that Free software
> > people can successfully argue that Linux/BSD/whatever is superior, or
>
>In the last few months I'm hearing more & more people in everyday life
>complaining about the same limitations of Microsoft products that many of
>us have been complaining about for years.  Reports of large Free s/w
>deployments are now happening every few weeks rather than once or twice a
>year.  Things are changing.
>
> > 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.
>
>I'm not familiar with this one.  Any organsation that uses software
>without fully addressing the implications is bound to be burnt eventually.
>In my experience Free software requires less maintenance that alot of
>commercial software.  Many boxes I've setup or seen setup don't need admin
>interaction for months at a time (security excepting of course, but that
>is true of any OS).
>
>Cheers,
>         -Rob
>
>-- Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert at timetraveller.org  ICQ: 104781119
>    Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org)
>    "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah
>
>
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