[K12OSN] Open Source in K12 questions

[Greg Farrell]

Hello everyone,

My name is Greg Farrell and I'm researching a White
Paper on the viability and cost of school districts in
British Columbia, Canada, switching to an Open Source
model for their terminals and servers, as well as
curriculum-appropriate applications.

The number one issue I've been having difficulty
finding reliable information about is the cost of
ongoing maintenance and support for Open Source in
K12.  If anyone has any information on this subject, I
would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Examples of the kinds of concerns I'm looking to
quantify are (if you've made the switch from Windows
to Open Source):

What kinds of ongoing issues (including any staff
issues?) have you been dealing with since you made
your switch, if any?  
If you have a problem, what is the nature of it and
how long does it take to fix it?  Is this longer or
shorter than before you switched to Linux?
Is your support and troubleshooting done internally,
or do you hire out?  At what annual cost?    
If it's handled internally, did you hire someone as a
permanent or part-time staff member, or are you using
the “resident geek in the basement” model (which seems
quite common)?  
Can one support person handle more than one school?

Any statistics to put this information in perspective
would be great, such as:
Details on your overall system (number of terminals,
number of labs, server specs, etc)
How much of your overall system (terminals, servers,
and applications) is Open Source?
How many students/staff use your system, and across
what grades?
How long since you switched to Open Source?

Thanks to anyone who responds, I appreciate your
taking the time to help me out.

Sincerely,

Greg Farrell


		
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