Canadian academia and open source

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

In a beaucratic environment, the need to protect one's rear end outweighs
any possible advantage in saving money, especially saving someone else's
money. And one way to protect one's rear is to buy from an established
source, regardless of the quality of the product.

I had this argument in spades back in the 80's when I was trying to
persuade my university to buy Sun workstations instead of some brain-dead
IBM terminals. The IBM equipment was 4 times the price for essentially
zero capability. They bought IBM and the things were being turfed out a
year later, replaced by guess what? Sun workstations.

Now Sun is the establishment and the place is full of Sun workstations.

And the school boards are intensely beaurcratic.

Peter

> James Knott <james.knott-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> said:
>
>> kburtch-Zd07PnzKK1IAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org wrote:
>> > At May's PegaSoft dinner meeting, Libeaucratic nux in schools (not
universities)
>> was
>> > discussed:
>> >
>> > "There has been a significant interest in Linux in schools,
>> particularly
> in the
>> > UK.  The problem with bringing Linux into schools in Canada is that
>> schools
>> > here have established agendas, hierarchies and large budgets.  There
>> needs to
>> > be spending cuts to education in order to generate interest in Linux.
>> Schools
>> > in the UK have smaller budgets making Linux more attractive."
>> >
>> > http://www.pegasoft.ca/minutes/may_2005.html
>>
>> I guess you missed this.
>>
>> <http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-05/sunflash.20040527.1.html>
>
> No, it was discussed.  I believe the opinions were that they were buying a
> commercial product (StarOffice) not OpenOffice.  The point was that the
> heavily funded and beaucratic school boards in Ontario will always buy the
> commerical software and most of them are heavily biased against installing
> Linux or using open source because they don't care about price--they can
> always pass the cost back to the government.
>
> This is compared to the UK where the school board are run differently and
> Linux and open source are more attractive options and meeting with much
> success.
>
> KB
>
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-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Professor Emeritus,
Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Ryerson University
416-465-3006
www.ee.ryerson.ca/~phiscock

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