Re: [Fsfe-uk] Another positive development

[Richard Smedley]

On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 15:44 +0000, Graham Seaman wrote:

> If school users want to follow up Ruth Kelly's suggestion is it actually 
> easy for them to do? 

If they already know something about it, if not... :(

One of the problems is that schools run a wider range of
legacy apps than any other type of organisation.
However it's happening in other countries, where there
is the political will.
btw Four years ago I found a primary school in mid-Wales
running entirely Free Software on the desktop. They were
having no problems, and didn't feel themselves to be
particularly unusual :)

>  Or is there a huge market/marketing opportunity 
> for free software being missed?

Yes, but not by us. We've been banging on to government
and schools about this for years. However others have
louder voices, so it seems to take us some time to
start to get through :-/

Ian (Lynch) seems quite optimistic that things are changing
- let's hope he's right :)

Feel free to join AFFS' campaign to get Free Software into
schools =o)

 - Richard

--
Four years ago:
https://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/05/Linux_For_Schools.pdf

HM government last year:
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/pdf/cg/8/CG8%201704%20R%20Smedley%20ATL%
20Amen.pdf

Recent educational moves:
see Linux Pro, 9/04 (with LXF 57) -
http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/June-October_2004#We.27re_in_the_Press.21

AFFS and education
http://www.affs.org.uk/education/index.html

Grants for Free Software development in the UK
(write some software for schools):
http://www.affs.org.uk/grants/