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An Informal Study Of K12 Classroom Software Costs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hey-that's-property-tax dept.

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.'"

51 of 442 comments (clear)

  1. yea but... by mschoolbus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Getting the software for cheaper (free) is one thing, but what kind of "costs" are you going to get for using this software. Sure you may save $27k but what happens when something break? Will you need to hire someone capable of handling open source software and how much will he cost per year? What if something breaks and a service is down for a while, there will be no company to hold up their software and support it, it is now up to you.

    1. Re:yea but... by mrojas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      once again the known answer, you can get support from the community

      i was the reponsible of the computer lab in a little school in mexico about two years ago, we ran linux, staroffice, gnome, kde, gimp, whatever you can name, aside from apache, sendmail, etc., and never run into troubles, nothing gets broked, no virus, etc, etc

      oh, and the school owners where extatic about not having to pay a cent in licenses ;)

      of course, if you take a project like this, you need to know some things, but hey, isn't about learning and having fun with the process? :)

      so, maybe it's just a case of knowing what resources you can get from the community, and use them

    2. Re:yea but... by morgajel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I posted anonymous to save moderators from wasting points on something so trivial, but if you insist....
      ok, non-anonymous, with karma bonus.
      here's a study
      here's another one just to make sure.

      both are google caches of the pdf's (1,2)

      the bit about the windows admins is my own 2 cents- that's completely based on my biased opinion.

      --
      Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
    3. Re:yea but... by delta407 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    4. Re:yea but... by FortKnox · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Maybe its just me. Whenever I had problems, I asked on IRC (this was several years ago) and always got the "RTFM" when either there wasn't a manual, or one written so poorly that didn't have any answers. If I didn't have friends to help me out, I would have been very disenchanted with Linux. Maybe the times have changed, and you can ignore me, but you won't see me back in IRC asking questions.

      Sidenote - I love it when people call me a troll at the end of their long critique of one of my posts. Isn't the point of fighting a troll not to reply to them? ;-)

      --
      Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
    5. Re:yea but... by ChaosDiscord · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Will you need to hire someone capable of handling open source software and how much will he cost per year?

      And someone skilled at handling proprietary software will be cheaper? Sure, you can get someone cheaper, but you get what you pay for.

      What if something breaks and a service is down for a while, there will be no company to hold up their software and support it, it is now up to you.

      If you think a local high school computer class teacher (who is usually the entire schools "computer guy") is going to get any sort of support from a large proprietary software company, you've got some strange conceptions. Instead you're going to get the clueless "Try rebooting, try reinstalling" we all face when we call the outsourced support centers of various companies. And while you're getting the barely useful support, you are stuck on the phone dealing with it. Not much of a win.

      --
      Search 2010 Gen Con events
    6. Re:yea but... by kableh · · Score: 3, Informative

      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!

  2. Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skewl by SexyKellyOsbourne · · Score: 4, Funny

    While all that he posted is very true, as how they were going to save money if the local redneck tech people could maintain a Linux network at the schools properly, introducting technology was never the point of bringing PCs to every school.

    The whole reason we even have PCs in schools in the US is just the fact that it is outright corporate welfare to computer companies such as Gateway, IBM, Dell, and sometimes Apple, due to shady deals with politicians.

    Schools simply don't have the programs for technology education, and even in the high schools there is, at best, only a typing and a Microsoft Word class, and if you are extremely lucky and well funded, a class that will teach Q-Basic.

    Most computers in schools just sit around in the science room, and are used only once per semester, and sometimes as entertainment devices for a public school system that's nothing more than a communist daycare center anyways.

    However, PC companies, with Microsoft behind each one, get rich off our tax dollars, and hence we have PCs in schools. Putting Linux wouldn't ever fly, as it's purposefully $27,000 a year in corporate welfare to Microsoft.

  3. Educational software by fitten · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know of lots of educational software titles for Windows. How many titles are available under Linux? How many of the Windows titles will run under Wine?

    1. Re:Educational software by b0r1s · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And equally important, what kind of computer skills are these kids going to leave the classroom with?

      Facing the facts: 90% of those using these computers are not going to be software developers, engineers, or sysadmins. Most of these kids are going to go out and work for relatively little money. They're going to need basic computer skills, and for corporate america, this means familiarity with MS Office.

      Putting "Familiarity with Open Office" on a resume is fine if you're a sysadmin, but it won't get you very far if you're trying to work for a company that uses MS software, as most do.

      --
      Mooniacs for iOS and Android
    2. Re:Educational software by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >but it won't get you very far if you're trying to work for a company that uses MS software, as most do.

      Nonsense, the decision to hire someone has a lot more to do with than what software they're famaliar with. I know that sounds crazy to some geeks, but if you're doing hiring based soley on whether Jane knows Outlook, Notes, Pine or just Hotmail then your company is in deeper trouble than any commercial software package can fix. Your post also ignores the fact that most office software can be learned in an afternoon and the user can be brought up to the level of intermediate user if not expert in a couple weeks of real use.

      You can't have it both ways. Either commercial software is easier to use than OSS thus making learning easier or you're admitting that commercial software has no real benefits over OSS.

      Secondly, being exposed to a typical office app or a browser regardless of brand is more than enough to teach someone "computers." If you can use Moz you can use IE. If you can use Open Office you can use any office software.

      Your post sounds like another justification to do whatever the market is doing regardless of costs. "So what if we have to cut the arts and science budget, people are using MS!!" There are priorities in education and teaching the latest and greatest and most expensive is simply unrealistic.

      Even in CS this problem is pretty non-existant. A school can teach new CS students Java for nothing or they can open their pockets, raise tution, etc and buy a copy of VB for everyone. If you know Java then learning VB is cake.

    3. Re:Educational software by mgkimsal2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Nonsense, the decision to hire someone has a lot more to do with than what software they're famaliar with.

      COMPLETELY dependant on the HR person in companies big enough to have those, which I think the original poster probably had in mind.

      I know that sounds crazy to some geeks, but if you're doing hiring based soley on whether Jane knows Outlook, Notes, Pine or just Hotmail then your company is in deeper trouble than any commercial software package can fix.

      Most companies ARE in deep trouble when it comes to effectively dealing with technology.

      Your post also ignores the fact that most office software can be learned in an afternoon and the user can be brought up to the level of intermediate user if not expert in a couple weeks of real use.

      HR people don't care. Many don't know much themselves about the ins and outs of computers, and generally don't assume anyone else can learn past what they know.

      I tried using a headhunter agency once to find me a job. I didn't have 'CGI' on my resume, just Perl and Python and PHP and a few others. He said I wouldn't get hired anywhere. I took 30 seconds to explain that CGI was effectively shorthand for someone who knew Perl or something like that. Didn't get an interview, didn't get called back, never returned calls, etc. I'd insulted him by showing him up, even though I was trying to help him more effectively do his job, which was keeping up with technological buzzwords.

      --
      creation science book
  4. Seeming Repetitivness of /. Articles by neurostar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apologies to those who don't like this idea, but it seems like there have been a lot of "we saved x dollars by switch to linux" or "we lost x dollars by using commercial software."

    /. is a bastion of open-source advocacy. People don't come here to read "I saved money" when everyone here already knows that commercial software is more expensive. It is basically preaching to the choir. The people who don't know that free/open-source/GNU software is cheaper aren't reading /.

    So it seems kinda pointless to keep stating the obvious over and over again.

    Just my $.02

    neurostar
  5. It's a great idea, but... by SecretAsianMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a great idea, but out in the real world, people use commercial software. If kids aren't educated in how to use it, they won't be able to compete. I think introducing free software and its concepts into the education system is a good idea, but we shouldn't forsake the kids' futures for the sake of indoctrination. Teach both, and let the kids decide what's best.

    --

    Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.

    1. Re:It's a great idea, but... by Penguinoflight · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, but when we were growing up, schools used macs, when people in the real world were using windows. Now people in the real world (well, everything but servers, high end graphics, video editing, computer animation, web site design, programming) heh, that's a lot that's done on Linux. And Linux usage isn't going to get smaller, by the time these kids are in a good job Linux will be standard. Of course by that time they will have forgot it all anyway, so what's the fuss? :-)

      --
      "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
      1 John 4:14
    2. Re:It's a great idea, but... by An+Onerous+Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
      "It's a great idea, but out in the real world, people use commercial software."
      Granted, but to the end user, there's not a whole lot of difference between the most used proprietary applications and their open source equivalents.

      Web browsers? For 95% of what 95% of people do, there's no difference. Type the URL in the address bar, click on the links, and hit the Forward/Back buttons. Anyone who is kind of familiar with IE will understand Mozilla pretty well.

      Word processors? OpenOffice behaves much like MS Office. There are quirks, of course. But to say that someone who has been using OO will be "unable to compete" with all those knowledgable Office users, or that an OO kid will fall on her face when presented with Office, is absolutely silly.

      We can also claim to be effectively at parity regarding mail clients (Outlook/Evolution) and desktops, if you take it to mean that a person using one would have a pretty good idea what to do with the other.

      You could argue that, when you get into the power user range, there's a lot of knowledge that just doesn't flow freely between the proprietary and open software worlds. So what? Teaching such skills to anyone prior to the 9th grade is a waste of time anyways.

      "If kids aren't educated in how to use it, they won't be able to compete. "
      My firm opinion is that teaching computer skills to youngsters (excluding strong typing skills and a few "this is what the mouse does" basics) is a horribly ineffective proposition. For example, for the cost of about twenty middle-of-the-line computers, you could fully fund a music program. The only difference is, half of the instruments will still be usable in five years.

      I've also got strong reservations about most of what passes for "education software" these days. Aside from mostly being poorly conceived, poorly written, and badly matched to the end-user's skill level, when a kid is playing on it he's not getting the human interaction that should be a vital part of his education.

      "I think introducing free software and its concepts into the education system is a good idea, but we shouldn't forsake the kids' futures for the sake of indoctrination."
      Agreed. Indoctrinating kids to any particular agenda is bad. But we do it all the time. If we provide a "Windows only" school, we're promoting a Microsoftian agenda. If Coca-Cola or Nike pays to place banners around the school, we're promoting their agenda. If we teach evolution in schools (or refuse to), we're promoting the agenda of one entity or another.

      In the case of computer software, it shouldn't be about teaching "computer skills" which most adults could pick up in a one week crash course. At best, we should be looking at ways to use technology to aid learning about other subjects. We should also be open to the possibility that the technology is actually interfering with education. More below.

      "Teach both, and let the kids decide what's best."
      My response: Teach neither. Get technology out of the classroom.

      The year I got to Junior High (1989) was the first year the "Channel One" fiasco started. Our already terminal attention spans were ratcheted down a couple more notches by all the fast, pretty pictures, vacuous (but good looking) "reporters," and manipulative commercials. Plus, thanks to the suddenly ubiquitous classroom televisions, it became much easier for teachers to integrate "multimedia" into the curriculum. Trust me, for every hour I spent in high school watching something intellectually mind-blowing, there were a good three or four hours of questionable videos.

      Oh, and don't even start me on the number of hours I spent cooling my heels while the teacher tried to figure out what was wrong with the blasted equipment. I remember a geometry class (the hour before mine) where the teacher spent literally a third of her time fussing with cranky "telecourse" equipment. She didn't have the choice not to, because she was responsible for teaching a group of twelve kids located a hundred miles away.

      In order for technology to be useful in the classroom, it has to be reliable and intuitive enough that it practically blends into the background. It also has to be cheap enough that we're not dipping into other, more important resources in order to obtain it. At the moment, many of the things people are trying to do in the education field are too intrusive and too expensive to be justified.

      Okay, I'm probably being too harsh on many points. But thanks for letting me rant.

      --

      You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

  6. server room vs classroom by proky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The title of the report is "Cost savings of open source software in the server room." If you let the kids back there, you might be in trouble.

    Of course, this will probably just have the effect of freeing up $27,000 for windows machines in the classroom.

  7. Re:Support? by enderak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you automatically get support with closed source? Not usually. Just about every time I try to get ahold of a 'real person', you still have to pay for anything if you want more than what they happen to have already on their website.

    The open source community typically provides much better online support than closed source, and you can still purchase support from RedHat et al, if it is needed. So support is really a non-issue, at least in my book.

  8. Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew by entrager · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have to disagree with this generalization. While I agree that many of the PCs in the school system are pretty much a waste of space and time, that doesn't mean they don't have a place.

    At my high school (I graduated in '99), I took multiple classes about multimedia design and computer science. In fact, the Computer Science 1 class I took in high school gave me college credit which transferred easily to just about any major university in the state (Colorado).

    At the same time however, there were 3 large computer labs at my high school and I recall being herded in there several times only to waste half of the class time learning completely useless software that barely demonstrated what we were supposed to learn. Given that, I think it's fair to say that computers in schools may be overhyped, but that doesn't mean they don't belong there.

  9. I too have saved a lot of money by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Funny

    But not by using open source. No, instead, we use pirated software.

    Clearly, this does make it possible for the BSA to close us down, but the fact is, that they will not get anything from us. We're a not for profit organisation. They know that if they sue us they'll suffer from so much bad publicity that it's not worth it. They'll not get any money from us. We have none.

    It would be nice if they prosecuted. We would use as our defence that we have a licence since I clicked "I agree" when it was installed. We may then be able to prosecute them if they caused damage. Not that we'll get a lot of money. The BSA is a non-profit.

  10. OSS in the classrom should be everywhere. by intermodal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why? simple.

    1) because it saves time and work in keeping track of windows licenses.
    2) because it actually teaches children about computers, rather than just about GUIs and what can be done on them. When all the low-level things are done in the background, its no wonder the average american doesn't know what formatting a hard drive does aside from kill all their data.
    3) teaches troubleshooting. Using nothing but windows, you'll never realize how much easier it is to use a command line tool for something simple.
    4) provides compilers and development environments for those who are adept enough to care to use them
    5) difficult for learning students to bring down the whole computer from a user-class account
    6) it's free, and provides alternatives to almost anything that can be done under windows that they'll need to do in anything but very specific areas (which will catch up with time anyway).
    7) UNIX is time-tested as a style of environment. Windows is controlled by the whims of the market.

    There are others, but that pretty much covers the basics. Anything I missed, besides:

    8: PROFIT!!!!

    --
    In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
    1. Re:OSS in the classrom should be everywhere. by Quill_28 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      2) because it actually teaches children about computers, rather than just about GUIs and what can be done on them. When all the low-level things are done in the background, its no wonder the average american doesn't know what formatting a hard drive does aside from kill all their data.

      And in other news, drivers ed classes will now require that student rebuild an engine.

  11. Harrisonburg is SMALL.... by wumarkus420 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As somebody who has lived close to this area in the past, I must say that Harrisonburg City only has 4000 students TOTAL in only 6 schools (only 1 high school and 1 middle school). So I would think of it less as a city and more as a small rural community. This means there is likely only one or two people that would essentially be setting up and running this network. Perhaps it will indeed save them money when deploying their new infrastructure, but god forbid this guy move out of the area! I also must question some of the software packages and their "amounts" that he has determined. While I am not advocating Windows by any means, Apache, PHP, mySql, analog, and plenty of other packages he has listed run completely fine on a Win32-based system. I would be concerned about how well the teachers/faculty/students will be able to utilize the system efficiently (reminds of yesterday's kids on linux post), and be able to do trivial tasks. I'm just not sure that these costs are in line with the size of their school system, and whether or not the savings are actually going to amount to a better learning experience for the school community.

  12. My experience with school migration by mao+che+minh · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I saved a local state college-ran-library about $35,000 with a migration to Linux on their 35-40 desktops and their app/file/web server. Basically, they had a bunch of pentium 233 systems running Windows 95, Novell clients (so that the IT staff could manage them with ZenWorks), MS Office, and some C and C++ development utilities. To run newer software and some hardware (odd peripherals used by some librarians) they were going to have to move to Windows 98 (for USB and software support), which in turn would force some hardware upgrades (CPU and memory, near complete overhauls for some systems). And of course, their office and Windows licenses were about up, and they were looking at thousands of wasted dollars on their NT server and it's software alone.

    I just moved the desktops over to Red Hat (I can't remember the version, but the kernel was 2.4.x), and installed free development utilitiies. OpenOffice wasn't really "there" yet, so I used Star Office. With the ability to lock down the machines efficiently (something difficult to impossible to do with Windows), the Novell client licenses were no longer needed. OpenBSD became their server. Voila, absolutely zero dollars were spent on licenses or new hardware. I billed them a measly $475 for my trouble (I used to work there, so I cut them some major slack. Besides, I really wanted to win one for the Linux crowd).

    The downside: my pay had to come under the table, because the state was so locked for funds they were not allowed to out source - even though they were still allowed to visit their local MS salesman and blow $30,000. Go figure. In the end, the manager just told the brass that his admin had thought it all up. :)

  13. Linux isn't an option. by bcrowell · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I work at a community college, which is not that different from K-12. My experience at my school was that I could not generate any interest at all in Linux.

    The kind of money they're talking about is not that much in terms of the total cost of having all the computers. The big costs have nothing to do with Windows licenses. They have to do with network infrastructure, paying people to maintain the hardware and software, and keeping the hardware current.

    The other problem is that the faculty and administrators want the machines at work to use the same OS they're used to using at home. That means Windows for 95% of them, and MacOS for 5%. I don't know a single person besides myself on my campus who uses Linux at home. It's hard enough to convince them to support MacOS.

    There's also the problem of unavailability of the relevant applications.

    --
    Find free books.
  14. I went to a K-20 roundtable discussion on RH tour by yorgasor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    On Monday, I attended a Linux-in-schools roundtable discussion at the end of RH's tour at Riverdale High School in Portland, OR. Riverdale built its entire network on a shoestring budget. It got a bunch of small IBM cases for $15/ea on Ebay, a $50 mobo and donated P2-350s from Intel, but they splurged a bit on 15" flat panel monitors. All their desktops are used basically as xterms that students can use to log into one of 4 beefy dual xeon servers (it's a small high school) over their gigabit network.


    They've got these computers scattered all throughout the school, all running linux. The art dept uses gimp for photos, etc. But their core apps are really a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, email & web. The beauty is, their elementry school is connected to the same network. Students get their account & homedir in 4th grade and it follows them until they graduate.


    They can do much more interesting things with these networks, offer better classes w/ more technical focuses with everything they have. They don't need to worry about forking out several $k for licenses for certain software just to teach programming concepts, administration, etc...


    This is exactly the kind of school I want my kids to grow up in, and if I don't end up homeschooling them, I'll do whatever it takes to get them in this one.

    --
    Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
  15. Re:Support? by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

    they get the same support they get from windows and other commercial products..

    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 /free software... and the support is there and easily found.

    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.
  16. Re:Support? by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    Funny, I was never told to RTFM when I asked for commercial support.

    No, you were likely just asked for a credit card number.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  17. Watch out, Revisionist Man! Behind you! by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 5, Funny
    The whole reason we even have PCs in schools in the US is just the fact that it is outright corporate welfare to computer companies such as Gateway, IBM, Dell, and sometimes Apple, due to shady deals with politicians.

    Uh-huh.

    Because you just know that Apple had Congress in their pocket when my school had Turtle Logo and Number Munchers on a bunch of Apple IIe systems back in the early '80s.

    Show those fscking politicians "Oregon Trail", and all they saw was dollar signs.

    Hell inna handbasket. Liberals! Liberals, I tells ya! And fluoride in the water!

    fnord

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  18. Gosh, what a surprise by Pedrito · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He saved money using free software instead of commercial software? How's that? Can someone explain the math to me? Duh...

    It's about a lot more than the up front costs. His pricing is simplistic and the writeup, pardon me for saying, but sophmoric, at best and doesn't apply to a number of other real-life situatins.

    How much is support going to cost? Are you going to have in-house experts? How much are they going to cost compared to the people who don't have to be as smart to run the equivalent Windows software?

    There are a lot of other fringe areas that need to be considered to come up with a true lifetime cost for software, and this doesn't even scratch the surface.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Open Source. I love my Open Office and I'm having a blast with Linux. But I'm a geek.

    Someone else mentioned the fact that most real-world companies use commercial software and these kids won't have experience with it. Good point.

    Sorry, but this is hardly a booster for Open Source. This is like saying, "People save money by shopping during a sale." Not exactly news.

  19. Re:Good learning environment by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    not only that, but when little sally asks how a webserver works, instead of the Microsoft answer that is "it just does" you can show her the sourcecode to apache and watch her little head explode.

    seriously.. having the ability to look at the nuts and bolts makes better students... teaching the kids the normal click and drool is not computer science... it's office machines / secritarial. It's about damned time that computer science classes MEANT computer science.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  20. At my son's school it goes like this... by dudemaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For a project at my son's school (I ws a parent mystery guest) I demonstrated to the kids how easy it is to install Linux over a Microsoft laden box and what you could do with it.

    For the most part the kids loved it, and they were so curious what the software was that could actually replace the great beast. Some of them thought it ran ontop of Windows. BTW - the kids are in 4th grade.

    So I left them with the disks for RH7.3 and now they get a kick out of installing RedHat over the XP disks they had paid for, and vice-versa. It's quite funny, but now they're learning how to replace the OSes back forth (for practice I 'spoze). I'm thinking of going in to show them more - dual boots, other things they can do w/ it.

    The real funny part is that my son said that a couple of kids got in an argument over what OS was better than the other, available s/w, games - etc. I think it's quite funny. Good think it didn't come to blows!

  21. Somthing that should be noted... by Xzisted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I went to college in Harrisonburg. It is the home of James Madison University. JMU's CS curriculum teaches people on the UNIX platform. Most all of the programming assignments are submitted via one of the Sun boxes there. There are a couple programming classes for MS applications but they are by far not the most popular. Also, they teach simple networking based on UNIX and linux as well. So if the city really wanted someone to support the infrastructure they built in the public schools, all they would need to do is form some sort of joint program with the college to have students come over and support it. Maybe give them Internship/CO-OP credits for it. The reality is that if more schools would work with colleges in a format like this then there stands the great possibility of major advancement in technology curriculum on BOTH sides.

    --

    Honesty may be the best policy, but apparently by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
  22. Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew by GMontag · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Interesting choice of pejorative statements just because their population density is different that the, obviously backward, town where your school computer was not used in your presance.

    I graduated from highschool in 1980, attended 2 different schools in the Knoxville, TN area and both had computers maintained by the students way back then. Not sure what my first school had, since I did not take a computer class until 1977, but it did use punch cards. The machine I was familiar with was a DEC machine hooked to 3 teletype terminals and paper tape memory.

    Even years later, rural highschools in the area were using microcomputers to enhance the football coach's play-calling ability and defense coordination. How do I know this? One of the coaches was a helicopter pilot in my National Guard unit and told us about the setup during a bad weather day. BTW, the coaches were the ones setting up the computers and programming them. So much for the stupid hick jock theory.

    In the same area, my son received his CCNA through his highschool during his Junior year. All of the equipment and instruction was provided by Cisco, free. The networking cable was surplus and installed by the students in the networking classes. The T-1 line was provided, free, by the local phone company. So much for the the direction of "welfare cashflow".

    The only thing holding back computing in schools is people like *you* that assume just because *your* school was full of helpless, clueless dolts that a smaller school *must* have a lesser level of ability, be it their accent that you do not like or some other non-issue.

    --
    Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
  23. considering... by night_flyer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    school children are failing at the basics, I say we are spending to much money on computers/software.

    --


    Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
    Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
  24. Getting sucked in by octalgirl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    eSchool News just did a recent story on Linux in schools. Nice read.

    For us, we are so locked into MS right now - the licensing fees are unbelievable. Servers, Cals, Office, Mail, etc cost us around 30K per year. In one recent example of price schemes - Office 97 and Pub 97 were separate packages (we didn't get Pub). For Office 2000 MS combined them and you got Pub for free. Office 2002 - they yank Pub back out (nice bait and switch!) and it costs an additional $5 per seat (5x1000+ pcs) We opted out and decided not be jerked around like that. We are a very technologically robust district with a computer at every teacher's desk and 1 to 5 computers in each classroom for student use, plus labs, libraries and tech ed rooms. In addition to the MS licensing, we have a huge investment in educational software and various databases to run the district. Our student pop is around 4000. Our anti-virus alone runs us 10K a year, plus firewall and citrix 10/10. There's more. I am stunned at how much we spend, versus starting with a meager 100K budget for everything, several years ago. We need our enterprise antivirus and firewall. We need our student information database and electronic libraries. But we were sucked into the MS spiral out-of-control licensing. We have invested years of training students and staff and administrators. It is very difficult to switch now. If I were starting fresh, I'd switch to free/open in a heartbeat.

  25. Read your EULA by Rupert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who do you call when commercial software breaks? Unless you're paying additional monthly or annual maintenance fees, chances are the vendor isn't going to want to talk to you.

    Someone pointed out the third "free" is free as in market. With commercial software, only the vendor can support you. You pay their price or you get nothing. With free-as-in-speech software you get free-as-in-market software support: you can pay as much or as little as you'd like, for varying levels of support, and presumably varying levels of expertise.

    --

    --
    E_NOSIG
  26. School is for LEARNING not TRAINING by lmsig · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The purpose of the general education system is to teach students to think and understand the world we live in. The point of school is not, and has never been, to train our youth to join the ranks of the working. That is the purpose of trade schools. If you teach a child how to learn then they will be able to tackle whatever work most interests them. Same goes for teaching programming languages in schools. Stop trying to teach Java to high school students; instead focus on something like pascal or better yet some kind of functional programming. These may not be used in the "real world" as much, but they sure do make you think.

    --
    .plan!! what plan?
  27. Re:$27,000? by Qrlx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How will someone be able to get a job when they lack such basic skills as using a Windows based machine.

    Uh....look around you. All those people using Windows and Office now, 98% of them have never had any training whatsoever. Most of 'em can't even type, though significantly more of them can type than can, say, use fdisk or regedit. They don't know the first thing about how to actually run these programs. If they need to learn an unfamiliar program, they co-pilot it with an experienced user, who probably did the same thing to learn it themselves.

    I spent 30 minutes setting up screensavers with a user yesterday. Part of it was fun, but the other part was helping her become a little more familiar with the UI.

    I do think it would be nice if people got some training in Microsoft products. But then Microsoft changes everything aroudn with each major release. Look at the XP desktop compared to the 2000 desktop; they're so different. The taskbar behaves completely differently now, etc. etc. So even if they do learn it in school, that knowledge will be semi-useless in two or five years.

    Oh, wait, you were joking. Ha ha. Nevermind.

  28. I've been thinking for some time now... by talks_to_birds · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...of going before my local school board and demanding a disclosure of the board members' holding in Micro$oft.

    One guy in particular single-handedly killed an implementation of the Linux Terminal Server Project at the high school with a relentless barage of FUD..

    t_t_b

    --
    I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
  29. It would be nice if it did... by cr0sh · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Actually, perhaps not rebuilding an entire engine - but teaching students how to check and change fluids, spark plugs, filters (oil, air *and* gas), as well as other basic maintenance (shocks, belts, hoses, etc) would go a long way to showing that an automobile is something that can be made to last far longer than the "3 years" that manufacturers seem to want you to use a car for. Not to mention that knowing how to do all of those things could save them money and time down the road (I can change my oil and filter FAR faster than a quickie lube place, and it costs less, too).

    There is nothing wrong with teaching and expecting someone to know more about what makes the tools they use everyday work (and I shudder to think what it would have cost me to get a new booster and master cylinder installed in my truck at a shop - I did it in about 3 hours last Sunday, for the cost of parts - pretty simple job, actually).

    --
    Reason is the Path to God - Anon
  30. Re:variety by why-is-it · · Score: 3, Insightful
    plus, it would expose the kiddies to something other than the windows that 98 % of people have at their house. back in school i was always excited to use macs, just for a change of pace.

    I agree with that thought. However, I know a few non-technical people who would argue the opposite:
    "What's the point of learning X when we use Y at home?"
    I am sure these same people would think it was a good idea that the kids learn to use m$ office because that's what everyone else uses.

    My kids are going to learn on UNIX!
    --
    *** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
  31. What about Apple? by MalleusEBHC · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  32. Re:DOS in the classrom should be everywhere. by t0qer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sorry man but I disagree...

    1) because it saves time and work in keeping track of windows licenses.

    While this may have been true in the pre win2k server days, using group policies you can really keep a handle on both OS and application licenses. Don't want a student installing that warezed copy of photoshop? Make a group policy, Only want the art computers to have photoshop? Make a group policy.

    2) because it actually teaches children about computers, rather than just about GUIs and what can be done on them. When all the low-level things are done in the background, its no wonder the average american doesn't know what formatting a hard drive does aside from kill all their data.

    So if I use a dos boot disk and type "format c: /s" that isn't teaching me? It doesn't matter if its pc windows linux mac or nextcube black, if a person doesn't know what formatting is and they nuke their hard drive the OS they're using has no relevance to that. Next point..

    3) teaches troubleshooting. Using nothing but windows, you'll never realize how much easier it is to use a command line tool for something simple.

    From my experience on the corporate lan, %85 of all trouble tickets go to outlook/exchange issues, %10 to network issues, and the other %5 go to hardware issues. So if you took outlook/exchange out of the loop and just dealt with the other %15 your troubleshooting methods would be the same on a windows machine as they are a linux box.

    [on the network]
    Open up a shell/dos prompt. Ping that router, ping that nameserver, do a NSlookup.
    [hardware]
    jiggle that card, make sure that ram is seated correctly, make sure cables are plugged in where they supposed to be, smell for smoke

    So basically you learn the same either way. The most basic networking tools exist on both platforms.

    4) provides compilers and development environments for those who are adept enough to care to use them

    You mean GCC? Here you can get it for windows too http://gcc.gnu.org/install/specific.html#windows

    5) difficult for learning students to bring down the whole computer from a user-class account

    I'll go back to my first point with group policies on that one.

    6) it's free, and provides alternatives to almost anything that can be done under windows that they'll need to do in anything but very specific areas (which will catch up with time anyway).
    I spent a month on RH8, i've got to say, it sucked for a desktop. Sure I love using it for a router and the website im in charge of uses it (check my sig) for a desktop it just plain sucks (didn't we have a discussion on this last week?) Sure there is open source alternatives (Read GIMP) but gimp isn't professional grade yet, it doesn't do CYMK seperations. Kids need to learn whats in the real world, real world desktops use windows.

    7) UNIX is time-tested as a style of environment. Windows is controlled by the whims of the market.

    So unix is like a stubborn child and windows does what the parents want?

    Like I said before, i'm not trying to dis linux/unix in any way, but it's still not ready for primetime. If you wanted to give kids an insight into unix, get a bunch of macs with OSX. Then that way you can give them the best of both worlds.

  33. Microsoft antisupport... by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you have to call M$ $upport, you are *fucked*

    A friend of mine in high school told me about someone he knew who decided he just HAD to go straight to MS support when something wasn't working. He spent 2 hours (to the order of $99-199) on the phone with MS, and they weren't able to help him a bit.

    He later mentioned the problem to my friend. My friend found the solution to the problem.

    In 2 minutes.

    FROM MICROSOFT'S OWN WEBSITE!

    M$ support techs aren't even intelligent enough to search their own damn knowledgebase...

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  34. Re:$27,000? by drive · · Score: 3, Interesting

    i find this completely irrelevant. in 20 years when these children are in the "business" work force i doubt that windows (as it exists currently) will be around. sure Microsoft will probably be, and they're products may still be as prevalent, but that they're little GUI menus will still be set up the same? i doubt it. most of us grew up using Apple II's. did that seriously affect our ability to use a computer today? most of the non-tech savvy people working today didn't use a computer at all in their youth. sorry, you can argue OSS in the classroom in a lot ways, but not this one.

  35. Re:Tech. education is not the point of PCs in skew by maraist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you really want to edumicate your kids, do it yourself.

    Actually, while I don't know what kind of studies there are for it, the best way of "having a child learn", is when they learn for themselves.

    Teachers necessarily can't know how to talk to a brick wall effectively, yet that's exactly what we bring generation after generation up as.

    In com sci classes at least, the people that require tutors, generally don't do well; requiring spoon-feeding and "can't you just do my project for me". Those that get deep into the material on their own can often ace at least introductory course-work (com sci can definitely be a mind bender, especially when dealing with number theory).

    The key is motivation. If you are unmotivated when you meet a person, you may remember little about them. Names are most famous: Many people (myself included) are already pessimistic about being able to remember hair/eye-color, names, etc. so I don't bother paying much attention when I meet someone.. Sure enough, it's a self fullfilling prophesy.

    People going to computer or math classes with such pessimism have little chance of succeeding (regardless of their background deficiencies).

    In my life, I've found that having desirable projects that happen to require learning a lot about a given topic affords an ample amount of motivation. In science, I crave sci-fi concepts; I want to understand them so I could possibly invent something new. With computers, I develop overwhelmingly complex goals (on the MRPG scale). Thus virtually every aspect of science, math and computer skills have been on my "I need to know" list.

    Conversely, I haven't found such motivators for history, art, music, literature, so I only give those subjects a necessarily passing glance. (Though at some point I developed an appreciation for the story-telling nature of history).

    While being totally non scientific (effective sample pool of 1), I still see such trends, and believe that inspiring your children in the single best way to teach them.

    The trick is of course, how to inspire. And how do you avoid making a project obviously contrived to the point of frustration.

    --
    -Michael
  36. Re:Good learning environment by Sabalon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Guess I shouldn't mention I have a Black Dell sitting under my desk (and a room full of Black Dell Servers).

    Sitting right next to my white Dell box.

    Ebony and Ivory...

  37. Re:Support? by irix · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Funny, I was never told to RTFM when I asked for commercial support.

    I doubt anyone offering commercial support of closed or open source software would tell you to RTFM.

    With the free support you get online, you are just as likely to get a "RTFM" from a Microsoft newsgroup/IRC channel as you are from a Linux one. Such is life with unmoderated public forums.

    The open source community direly needs to lose the punks for it to be reliable for education and commercial support.

    Yeah, because those "punks" are the same ones running companies who charge for commercial support of open source. Get real. Have you ever paid for commercial support of an open source product? It works just like closed-source support - a professional providing a support service for a fee, not some jackoff in an IRC channel.

    --

    Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
  38. Self fufulling prophecy by Flamesplash · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The problem with all this is that for the people that read /. using open source software is fine, they can figure the problem out themselves or enough of their geek friends are good with linux and will know the answer. They fufill their own prophecy that OSS is cheaper because they can get past the installation issues and and subsequent problems.

    But for people who don't know much about computers and really don't want to, or have the time to, is it really cheaper? Do they know how to use a newsgroup? do they know how to use IRC? Are they going to use these resources that for the most part are unstructured and not dependant? The community support for a product is only good if _a lot_ of people use it and _a lot_ of people have a the time to read newsgroups etc... Ever post to one of the CVS newsgroups? A lot of questions go unanswered, and it's not alone.

    I'm all for OSS, but no one thing is an end all. OS's, applications, programming languages, etc... are simply tools. Use the one that is best for you, what you need to do, and the resources you have.

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
  39. Re:Security Through Obscurity by ninewands · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First the rebuttal:

    > Many, many students will never program anything
    > in their lives.

    But it is not the school system's place to PREVENT them from learning to do so ... that wierd kid with the three earrings and rave-green hair just MIGHT be the next Dennis Ritchie or Nicholas Wirth.

    > They'll never want to, and they'll never need
    > to.

    But, unless you are prescient, you'll not be able to know which will and which won't ... that's sorta like telling Albert Schweitzer that he can't go to Med School because there are so many doctors that he'll never NEED to practice medicine ...

    > They need word processing.

    WP takes about three months worth of daily use to learn as well as 99% of the people need to know it. Most K-12 kids learn so quickly that they will have adequate WP skills to last most of their lives after writing two ten-page reports.

    > They might need graphics tools.

    Oh ... but there is a VERY limited job market for web designers and graphic artists, so they probably won't. Let's not offer them.

    > The vast majority do NOT need compilers, huge
    > bloated developing environments, or editors
    > with obscure keystrokes.

    And since only a few might benefit from them, NOBODY can have them? I'm certainly glad my children did not attend schools you administer.

    Then, my points:

    Kids need to be challenged, pushed beyond the limits they impose upon themselves, forced out of their "intellectual comfort zones." I sort of halfway agree that programming and systems administration aren't really appropriate core subjects in the "mainstream" curriculum of the public schools, but consider this ... very few subjects make a better tool for teaching critical and/or analytical thinking, as well as project planning skills and attention to detail.

    Programming and/or system administration suck as subjects taught for the subject matter skills they provide. Those skills become obsolete VERY quickly. However, as a vehicle for developing the mental skills that form the core of intellectual power, they are hard to beat.

    Regards,

    --
    utter rubbish