School opts for free software

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By Sam Stevens on Sat, 21 Jun 2008
Your Town: Warrington | News: Dunedin | Education | Linux | Microsoft | Technology
Warrington School principal Nathan Parker and Florence Sorrel (9) compare a single software disk, downloaded free, with a package provided by the Ministry of Education for school use. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Warrington School principal Nathan Parker and Florence Sorrel (9) compare a single software disk, downloaded free, with a package provided by the Ministry of Education for school use. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Warrington school is to stop using school management software supplied by the Ministry of Education.

Recent amendments to the school's charter would enable it to download and use free computer software by 2010.

Principal Nathan Parker believed the changes would make Warrington School the first in the country to exclusively use free "GNU/Linux" software on school management and classroom computers.

The ministry paid Microsoft licensing fees for products used in New Zealand state and integrated schools.

Warrington School would ask the ministry to reimburse "a portion" of the licensing fee paid to Microsoft, which would be used to employ local people in technical support roles, he said.

"The cost of licensing school software is covered by the ministry, so it's coming out of the education budget. We're saying, 'Give us the money back if you're not paying for us to use [the software]'," Mr Parker said.

"It's not just the financial savings. It's the philosophy behind 'freeware', and reducing 'e-waste'. If a laptop crashed now, it would have to be sent to the North Island for software to be reinstalled. But we can repair systems at the school with a disk, and we aren't especially savvy."

Ministry of Education ICT unit manager Murray Brown would not disclose the amount paid to Microsoft to licence software on the school's 13 personal computers as it was "commercially sensitive".

In April 2007, the Government renegotiated contracts totalling $32.9 million to supply computer software to all state and state integrated schools.

"Schools are free to use the computer systems that they think will best meet their needs in delivering their courses of work.

"By using free software such as Ubuntu, Warrington School is doing what many thousands of schools are doing globally.

"The vast majority of schools in New Zealand choose to use Microsoft or Apple platforms. However, the Ministry of Education encourages innovation and has no problem whatsoever with what Warrington wants to do."

The ministry's's web-based systems could still be accessed and schools could still submit documents to parents and the ministry.

 

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Viruses on Linux

Submitted by davelane on Wed, 25/06/2008 - 9:39pm.

Very interesting theory, Keith.
Perhaps you could point me to a reference about those Linux viruses, as in my 14 years of running Linux on the desktop, I've had neither virus nor trojan... Nor have I heard of any other Linux user experiencing one.
If it were true, I can think of at least one US corporation who would immediately allocate a few hundred million dollars from its marketing budgets to trumpeting the news from the rooftops.
Regards,
Dave

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MS or "Free" software

Submitted by Keith McCabe on Wed, 25/06/2008 - 4:40pm.

I agree that all users should consider and utilise software from many sources. However I find it quite amazing that "experts" continually carry on about Linux and Apple products as being virus free. That is simply untrue. It is true that most virus's and malware trojans and the like are aimed at MS systems. However there are virus's out there aimed at Apple and even the minuscule population of Linux systems. Anyone who listens to so-called experts stating that users don't need anti virus and anti spyware software is going to get a very nasty shock.

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The retail costs for MS products...

Submitted by davelane on Wed, 25/06/2008 - 3:59pm.

It's great to see this move from the Warrington school.
That said, I find this quote from the Min of Ed quite unpalatable:
Ministry of Education ICT unit manager Murray Brown would not disclose the amount paid to Microsoft to licence software on the school's 13 personal computers as it was "commercially sensitive".'
That's our tax dollars being wasted on proprietary software that our schools don't need. As a taxpayer, it's unacceptable that such deals be considered "commercially sensitive."
For the record, a retail copy of MS Windows Vista costs between $169 and $599 and Microsoft Office costs between $199 and $1148 (according to Dick Smith Electronics).
That's between $368 and $1747 per computer at every school in NZ. And that's only for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. For 13 computers, that's at least $4784 total (or as much as $22,711) - that'll buy a lot of local support!
I should point out that the costs above don't include antivirus (Ubuntu Linux above, doesn't need antivirus software) or drawing packages, or video editing software, etc., all of which are available at no cost on Linux, but are typically purchased at great expense from Microsoft or other proprietary vendors.
I, for one, want to know how much of our taxpayer money the government is paying overseas corporations for proprietary software when they could be using open source just for the cost of some local support. By using open source software in schools, they lose nothing in functionality, and all the profit stays within NZ.
Good on you, Nathan Parker, for cutting through the bureaucratic BS and giving your school real value, and leading the way for the rest of NZ.
On a separate note, the new Otago Daily Times site looks great! It's brilliant to see that you've chosen to build it on an open source platform: Drupal.
All the best,
Dave (a commercial Linux support consultant in Christchurch)

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