Re: [Hampshire] Persuading a school to start using FOSS

Adam Cripps wrote:
> Typically, schools are not that interested in the platform that they
> use, but are primarily concerned with the support they receive.
> Switching to Ubuntu on a big scale is not going to happen quickly.

The situation is getting more difficult every day, as the ICT provision
is included as part of the Building Schools for the Future project. That
means a county- or region-wide contractor providing and supporting all
the ICT equipment and software in schools. Generally the contractor will
provide a central data centre facility and on-site support. It doesn't
automatically mean that Linux will be excluded, after all a contractor
could choose to base their proposal around it. (Given that the people
bidding for these contracts are the "usual suspects" though, it's a long
shot to find them proposing Linux on the desktop at least.)

The difficulty for people like Craig is that the school has even less
say over their infrastructure and how it operates under BSF than they do
now. Even if a sympathetic teacher can be found, they won't be able to
just install Ubuntu on a machine to play around with.

This has already happened in parts of Scotland; RM won the contract
there. It's happening around England now too.

Tony