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An Informal Study Of K12 Classroom Software Costs
PGillingwater writes "Rob Lineweaver has written a concise summary of how much it would cost (and the savings that can be achieved) to set up the (almost) complete infrastructure in the Harrisonburg City Public Schools. He estimates that using commercial packages instead of open source would have cost the K12 schools an extra $27,000 in software license costs.
More interestingly, he states that this is not only about cost. He says: 'This makes it apparent that not all of the benefit of open source software deployment in is the form of cost savings; much of the benefit is in terms of capabilities gained. In other words, through the use of free software, I am able to do more within my budget than I could if I only had commercial solutions available.'"
they get the same support they get from windows and other commercial products..
/free software... and the support is there and easily found.
:-)
if ANYONE thinks that just because you bought a program form a store means you get magical free technical support they are disillusional mential cases..
Microsoft support is MORE expensive than redhat support. Qcad support is MORE expensive than eaglecad support (and eaglecad is not open source!)
support costs are equal or less for open source
I am so sick and tired of this lie touted by Microsoft Fanatics who have no clue.. Me? I can show you the invoices for 1 year of technical support from both microsoft and redhat... guess which one was cheaper...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Could somebody please provide a brief definition of what "k12 schools" are?
K-12 means Kindergarten thru 12th grade which is schooling for kids, roughly, from ages 6 thru 17, or 7 thru 18, depending on what part of the year you were born. Many schools consider the 7 years of K-6 (K, 1-6) as elementary school, 7-8 (or 6-8) as middle school, and 9-12 as high school.
A lot of schools outside of the US don't have middle schoool.
Ever wondered why you have a lot of younger foreign classmates in college here in America? Or how an immigrant with all their degress is under 22 years old. Now you know a possible reason.
As others have said, support is close at hand with the community of both users and developers.
As the primary author behind an open-source school administrative package, I understand this situation, and I understand that if something breaks someone will need to know what's going on. That is why I have the support policy that I do -- if someone is using LISSARD (the aformentioned software), they can go through the normal channels (mailing lists, etc.) in case of a problem or they can talk to me directly by phone, even at home.
No, it's not a promise of 24x7 support. But, remember that you're not dealing with trained monkeys on the other end of an 800 number, but rather someone that no only knows what's going on but why it happens that way and knows the situation backwards and forwards. In the end, my open-source project has better support than any of the other commercial offerings, because a resolution is reached within minutes rather than hours or (in some cases) weeks.
One more thing: the support contract never needs renewing. I will help whoever is using my software, because I know what it's like to be totally ignored.
On /., the rage is always "Look I can replace this proprietary setup with Linux/OSS/FSF/whatever." While this can be an excellent idea given the right personel, what about a solution that is more feasible for a successor who is not necessarily a Linux guru to maintain. Given the list of what this guy wants/needs, he could get it all set up (other than the x86's) for under $3,000 using Apple hardware and software. For $2,500, a K-12 school can get an XServe that comes with an unlimited client license for OS X Server. All the server software he lists either comes with OS X Server (usually with a nice GUI) or can be compiled under Darwin. For the 5 Macs, he can get OS X for 70 bucks apiece (education discount again) for a total of $350. So aside from whatever he chooses for the x86 desktops, he could have everything else set up for $2,850. So rather than having a setup where it would require someone with a pretty hefty knowledge of Linux to administer, for a few grand more he could have a setup that is able to take advantage of all that open source software while providing a much greater ease of use.
I started using Linux around Slackware 3.0 or so, on my blazing fast 486 dx2/66. I didnt have a clue what I was doing at the time, so I spent probably 3 days dual booting between 'Doze 95 and Linux just to get X working. Most of the help I got was from IRC too, though later I started using USENET to find answers. I think the channel was #linuxhelp or #linux on EFNet, and there were plenty of talented Linux users in there to help me out. The only questions that got an RTFM were people who came into a channel and demanded help using a command when they could have just as easily typed 'man command' and gotten the answer. Yes folks, sometimes there ARE such things as dumb questions =).
And yea, trolls are funny like that =). I think the perfect troll is one which is glaringly obvious, yet impossible not to reply to!