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South African Education Department Bans Free and Open Source Software
An anonymous reader writes "The South African Education Department has effectively banned the use of FOSS software in state-run schools by forcing all candidates writing the Computer Applications Technology examination to use Microsoft's Office 2010 or 2013 as the only supported options. In the same circular, the state has mandated that all schools use Delphi, instead of Java, as the programming language for the country's Information Technology practical paper. South Africa, notorious for its poor performance in Maths and Science and for having vastly over-crowded and underfunded schools, are now locked into costly Microsoft licensing because of this decision."
Yep. I'm a FOSS advocate, and I just read the memo linked in the similarly-hyped FA... but this story is a waste of a good outrage.
A state-led education department has picked a particular product used to cover their basic computing curriculum, and it isn't FOSS. That sucks, but we'll try harder next time. Meanwhile, other schools not under this authority are free to use FOSS, and any schools that can manage extra resources (unlikely, I know) can still present FOSS as alternatives, and FOSS can probably still be used outside the curriculum.
I set up a computer lab in Ghana, and they had similar policies in place, but with vague enough wording that I could use a carefully-configured OpenOffice installation to cover the requirements. I suspect the actual mandated curriculum in South Africa is likely similar, and this news is just a memo from the authority saying they made the easy choice for picking their standard software.
TRWTF is Delphi.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I'm not afraid to admit I use a quite of commercial software and have been quite happy with many products out there. Yes even a few MS ones. But as a person with a functioning brain and an interest in productivity you can bet your ass every time I'm looking at an upgrade I take a moment to survey the options. Often over the course of a major version upgrade cycle I learn that a cheaper or if I'm lucky an OSS solution has become viable for my needs. Any time I see an organization act outside of that simple principle I can suspect only one of two things and neither are good. I usually hope it's just narrow minded ignorance, which with luck can sometimes be cured, but when you lock people into a paid-for only solution it usually ends up being bribery of some sort. Governments are in the end just made up of people, and like in the corporate world the decision makers are often the most selfcentered people in the land. Add to that despite using and recommending certain MS programs and services I have little doubt in my mind that MS is one of the most unethical technology companies in the world- it's how they got where they are.
If my $10 mil company can't afford Office 2013 and is switching to Libre, how the hell can an African school system afford it?
The whole "Never ascribe to malice" thing was written by a very malicious person.
It is attributed to Robert J. Hanlon, though the idea predates him by at least 200 years.
That said, most people seem to miss the important clarifications of this adage: 1) the key word is "adequately", otherwise stupidity becomes the perfect cover for malice; 2) the "Heinlein's razor" variant that says "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice,"; 3) the corollary known as Grey's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
Far too often, I hear read people talking about various gov't bureaucracy, bloat, and largesse and thus declare gov't as "incompetent". Far too seldom do they ask the question "incompetent for whom?"
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
In the discussion below the original article, it is noted that Microsoft provides free software to the schools covered by this directive.
If a cigarette company wants to supply free cigarettes to your students, should you accept?
As an American college student, I use MS Office for the classes that require output in that format and LaTeX+Emacs for everything else. I find the interface of Libre/OpenOffice highly distracting and will not use them.
One thing that I have noticed: more and more professors are starting to say "submit a word document or a PDF". This is no surprise in my department (CS/Math; which actually will not accept word documents because holy shit the equation formatting sucks), but it is a bit more surprising coming from the mouth of a Sociology or Media Communications professor.
To further bolster your point, in cases of conflict of interest, it is not simply about whether there is actual corruption, but also whether there is the appearance of or the potential for corruption...the reason being that even if there is no actual malice going on, any potential conflict of interest will allow people to assume there *is* malfeasance happening, which will erode trust in the institution in question. Thus "never ascribe to malice..." is quite beside the point in such cases...if there's any question that there could be malice, you already have a problem.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
"When Samsung packaged a solar-powered classroom for Africa’s remote communities, it shipped a GNU/Linux solution but M$ intervened"
"Working together with Reza Bardien, our Education Lead, we managed to turn this into an end to end Windows solution by the end of the week"
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Solar Powered Schools – Linux Win
In the week of 16 January, Samsung Africa launched its first Solar Powered Internet Schools. These 40 ft solar powered containers are designed for use in remote rural education communities with limited, or no access to electricity. This is a world first and shows great innovation from our partners.
However, this solution with little education relevance (all 20 student laptops as well as the teacher one) was a complete Linex solution at the time of launch. Working together with Reza Bardien, our Education Lead, we managed to turn this into an end to end Windows solution by the end of the week, including the PIL Learning Suite and the Windows-based NETOP Classroom Management solution.
By Friday morning, when Samsung demonstrated its solution to press and stakeholders, the solution was based on a Microsoft platform. This container (and the next 10 containers going into Africa and South Africa) will include devices running on a Microsoft platform only, so the students learning on these devices will be running and learning on Windows.
Some great cross group collaboration between the Windows BG, the Education Public Sector, NETOP and Jacques from OEM who assisted.
Thank you all!
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