Government: Open source could halve school IT bills
Published: 09 May 2005 10:40 BST
The open source community will receive a major boost this week from the UK government's ICT agency, which has investigated the potential benefits of using free and non-proprietary software in education.
The research, carried out by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association (BECTA), concluded that primary schools could cut computer costs by nearly half if they stopped buying, operating and supporting products from software vendors such as Microsoft, according to the Times Educational Supplement.
Becta's report won't be officially released until 13 May, but as ZDNet UK reported last month, its initial findings were presented to a workshop on 14 April. The panel of educational IT specialists heard that open source software offered lower support, hardware and software costs, and also discussed perceived barriers to open source take-up.
At present, Microsoft has an agreement with the Department of Education and Skills under which schools can receive sponsorship of up to £15,000. This has sparked claims that schools are cancelling open source projects to avoid upsetting Microsoft.
ZDNet UK's Ingrid Marson contributed to this report.
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25 comments
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This is an excellent opportunity for open source,... Anonymous -
How very amazing this result is ...
Look at the so... steffen
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Great. We'll have a generation of people taught to... Martin Scholes
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This would be a money saver but also a great... Mike -
To Martin Scholes: Please, stop spewing rubbi... Abe
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Abe, your inability to enter into a deba... Martin Scholes -
Martin,
Rather short-sighted. Have you even... Anonymous
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martin's comments:
this is a very narrow pers... george
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Fear of change? Or a lack of time to emb... Martin Scholes
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ajority of offices use MS Office pr... Andrew M.A. Cater -
Should our head of IT decides... Martin Scholes
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@ martin:
"We'll have a genera... Anonymous
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Thank you, annonymous.
Perhaps... Martin Scholes
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Martiin, I would agree that time co... Anonymous
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we run only linux (xandros) at... george
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@ George
George, you make some... Martin Scholes
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Learning a non-standard software? Sounds like... Steve Conners
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@ Steve Connors
Unless, of course, it is... Martin Scholes
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In Canada, the PEEL District shool board is or has... george
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I think everyone here is missing the point.
I hav... Marc
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*Please* can we have some balanced views and... Chris Nixon
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"Great. We'll have a generation of people taught t... Seb
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It has been suggested that schools could only use... Martin JD Green
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So little time and so much to do.
I often hear tha... Arthur B.
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Arthur, the environment in which I work is a... Martin Scholes
