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Story: Government: Open source could halve school IT bills

Posted by: Anonymous (Tuesday 10 May 2005, 12:31 PM)

@ martin:

"We'll have a generation of people taught to use non-standard software" - wont this then make a new standard - those that can use open source software?

As for those people who instantly dismiss software and architectures on the basis of it requiring some hard graft to get it working 100%, then they should be shot. It is exactly that (work shy) attitude that propagates the rumours which discredit what is otherwise excellent software.

As for the rest of the luddites, who to be honest are fortunate to have a job with that attitude, good luck - you will need it. The very nature of IT encourages growth, change and diversity.

As for the real topic here:

Open source software represents real "Best Value", but only in the long term. It would take a large commitment, and a country (or at least county) wide, well managed effort to REALLY make this work. The benefits would however be available to all. Parents would see a reduction in cost of their pc – making it accessible to more people, schools could reduce their ms licensing bill to virtually £0 and businesses could reap the rewards of being able to use open source software due to pre-trained staff too.

In no way however am I assuming that support costs wouldn’t initially rise though – however, this would only be an initial cost as over time the skilled population will increase, especially as more people are brought up with the open source offerings themselves.

In short, open source could be excellent, however the short term problems and costs are likely to dominate any management decision, and result in its dismissal – the unfortunate way of the world we find ourselves in today.