[K12OSN] NewsWire feed (long)

[Alan A Hodson]

Strange - I got the feed right away, and it wasn't that far removed 
from the thread about what to say to administration, yet there are no 
comments - perhaps a posting like this is miles away from the usual 
type of arguments, especially if we deal only with sound bites...
Oh well, as I tell my students, "if your heart was in it, take pride 
in your work"
cheers
alan
-=o=-


>Hi gang
>Feel free to forward the enclosed article to your local newspaper or 
>wire feed - if you have any suggestions, please send them off list 
>to ahodson at elp.rr.com
>===============================================================================
>Open Source Software and Linux - avoiding a lawsuit
>by Alan A Hodson
>
>In the not too distant future, when taxpayer groups decide to hold 
>their school districts and Board of Trustees accountable for the 
>senseless spending of hundreds of thousands of dollars in computer 
>technology purchases, especially software, there will be court 
>sessions where the Prosecutor will be grilling the district's Legal 
>Counsel with questions similar to these:
>
>P: Was the district aware of the existence of Open Source 
>applications that involve no cost and no licensing fees to install 
>in Mac and PC laptops?
>LC: Yes, I am aware of at least one department that after purchasing 
>laptops found that they had no money left for software, so they used 
>StarOffice, an Open Source application that is equivalent to 
>Microsoft's Office...
>P: Are you saying that the district knows that there are software 
>products that require no licensing, can be given to teachers and 
>students to use, and still insist on paying hundreds of dollars per 
>computer to provide basic functionality to desktops and laptops?
>LC: I am told that "the real world" uses Microsoft, so the district 
>buys the product the child is likely to see in the workplace when 
>they graduate.
>P: Please indulge me - what kind of car did you, madam, learn to drive on?
>LC: It was a 64 Ford truck with standard transmission...
>P: Did you learn to drive 64 Fords only, or were the skills learned 
>transferable to any car, anywhere, at anytime?
>LC: You saw me parallel park this morning, what do you think?
>P: I frankly was impressed... very precise maneuvering. The point 
>is, regardless of how you learn a skill, if you learn it well, you 
>will be able to use it appropriately in the future, don't you agree?
>LC: It seems reasonable to accept that statement.
>P: So, if the skill of learning word processing, spreadsheet use and 
>presentation software use is learned correctly, say using software 
>that loads and saves in the "real world" formats, as Open Source 
>software allows, then there is no need to spend all that money for 
>proprietary products, is there?
>LC: Looking at the results, you may have an argument. But I 
>understand districts want uniformity and a vendor they can call when 
>anything with the software goes wrong - Does Open Source provide 
>that?
>P: Because applications such as StarOffice or OpenOffice are Open 
>Source, and programmers can look at the code that runs these 
>applications, the international community is very quick in finding 
>solutions to potential flaws and problems. They have an intellectual 
>interest in making sure that the Open Source application stays 
>problem free, so instead of an 800 number offering classical music 
>you have the Internet with Special Interest Groups that are 
>monitored 24 hours a day, again for free. That being said, have you 
>directed the district to adopt a policy of Open Records that applies 
>to the software they use?
>LC: I am not sure I follow...
>P: Open Records can be interpreted not only as the transparency of 
>the dealings of the district, but also as the use of proprietary 
>formats that may change over time at the software maker's whim. Open 
>Source software, on the other hand, uses standards and coding 
>available to any programmer, so records become independent of the 
>application that created them. In a sense, you exclude proprietary 
>vendors from the record gathering or storage process. The question 
>stands.
>LC: Nobody has ever challenged the electronic access format of any 
>of the district's records, but I suppose eventually someone will. 
>How would recommending Open Source adoption change anything? The 
>district would still have a file called FILENAME.DOC created via MS 
>Word or Open Office.
>P: The difference is that the district would not be spending tax 
>money from Joe Taxpayer's payments - he's worked hard enough to earn 
>them, and there should be a policy in place at the district level to 
>make sure money is not being thrown away.
>LC: You could make the same case for any government agency... We all 
>use proprietary software.
>P: There will be other lawsuits and motions to address that 
>irregularity. I want to make sure Legal Council admits for the 
>purpose of this trial that there has been no distinct effort on the 
>part of the district to reduce the so called Digital Divide, by 
>incorporating Open Source software installation and distribution as 
>a priority in all computer desktops and laptops, and that in fact no 
>serious studies have been made to use Linux as a desktop Operating 
>System, replacing Window's propensity for infections by viruses and 
>hackers.
>LC: Linux as an operating system? What does that have to do with Open Source?
>P: All Linux code is Open Source, all the applications we've been 
>discussing are Open Source applications that run on Linux also. 
>Under certain circumstances, you can have Mac and PC computers also 
>running Linux, making it the one operating system that runs on all 
>platforms. This is the one standard that the district could have, if 
>they decided to protect the investment made in hardware.
>LC: Protecting the investment? Are you talking about old equipment also?
>P: Proper research and a willingness to change from the traditional 
>solutions would point out that Linux is ideal for old equipment, and 
>that for machines whose hard drive or CD player no longer functions, 
>the district could turn them into diskless clients following the 
>K12LTSP.org model, labs with one powerful server and PC diskless 
>workstations of every make and model.
>LC: You mentioned MS Office products - what other Open Source 
>products would there be as an incentive for the district to start 
>considering the "official" adoption of Open Source as a district 
>standard?
>P: Linux comes with hundreds of free applications, and can be 
>installed on any PC as a dual boot system, to at least offer 
>students that choice. For Macs and PCs, there are major applications 
>such as GIMP, a Photoshop equivalent, Mozilla a powerful browser and 
>HTML composer, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP), TuxMath and 
>TuxPaint, and many more. Almost every major application in the 
>market has its Open Source equivalent.
>LC: I would like to ask for a recess to meet with my client and 
>propose a settlement. What major arguments would the Prosecutor 
>suggest I put forth?
>P: Open Source software has several distinct advantages over 
>proprietary software. The widespread peer review process involved in 
>open source development creates software which is more error-free 
>and resource-efficient than proprietary software. In addition, Open 
>Source is a must for security-critical applications- true security 
>is never achieved by attempting to conceal any security defects that 
>a program may have, but rather by allowing anyone interested to seek 
>out these flaws and eliminate them. Open Source allows for that. In 
>terms of who will survive, if resilience is an issue, the 
>open-source culture will triumph not because cooperation is morally 
>right or software "hoarding" is morally wrong, ...but simply because 
>the closed-source world cannot win an evolutionary arms race with 
>open-source communities that can put orders of magnitude more 
>skilled time into a problem.
>And so, Legal Counsel goes off to try and convince the district, 
>that being accountable to the taxpayer's rights, and saving money by 
>embracing Open Source alternatives are issues that must be addressed 
>sooner, rather than later.
>===============================================================================
>
>
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