Why Pay for IT? Nick Oliver English/Media Lyneham High School For AEU ACT Branch ACT Teacher magazine State education departments in Australia spent in excess of 33 million on Microsoft licences[1] alone last year. Schools in Canberra have recently made a new agreement for continued licensing of its Microsoft products used in schools. As we receive neither economy nor compatibility with our Microsoft products it is time to look at more suitable alternatives. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) promises a tantalising vision of computing that is both inexpensive and free to distribute. FOSS can be copied and distributed to the families and communities of schools for a trivial cost. Canberra is a FOSS centre of gravity in the world as the writers of the most important open source project Samba (www.samba.org) live and work here. Many schools in Canberra are already using Samba to run licence free Linux servers and share digital resources to students. FOSS is used by schools around the world as an alternative to proprietary operating systems. For most all proprietary software there will be a FOSS tool that will do the same thing albeit perhaps without the bells and whistles. Microsoft Windows RedHat, Debian, Mandrake and Slackware. Microsoft Office OpenOffice.org. MS Visio Dia. Dreamweaver Maya Adobe Photoshop GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Project 3d modeling Blender Adobe Acrobat All Linux programs save in .pdf. Server2000 RedHat, Debian, Mandrake and Slackware. What is driving FOSS in schools? Driving FOSS is primarily costs associated with MS licences and the high- powered equipment necessary to use the latest versions of its software. 12 months ago the Data Integrity Department told all school managers to remove student workstations from the teacher network (EduNet). It may have seemed as though workforce and management had asked that all teachers not actually be in the classroom with children in case they peek a look at the mark-book. But after all, the IT Support section couldn't very well type in login accounts for 30 000 kids. In the corporate world Microsoft is seeking to establish its server operating system in the market place. IBM is defending its position using Linux and Samba to fight off the threat from Microsoft. A great number of Canberra schools are using Linux servers on their student networks. The department employed the Copeland College's IT support officer, Damien Clarke to assist write the software and then roll out some 96 web cache and internet proxy servers to each and every school. This will allow the BELTS (Basic e-Learning Tool Set) service to run in every school. BELTS is the cornerstone of the Learning Federation's strategy to deploy "Learning Objects" to schools and was written on and for the Linux platform. Interestingly BELTS was written for the Linux platform to ensure that it could be freely distributed and used on any kind of system. Damien's packaged Linux servers are also used to share files on student networks. 30 of the state's 96 schools use Linux to allow each student to have a login on any kind of computer be it an MS Windows workstation (98,NT, 2000, XP), Apple Macintosh or indeed any computers the school already has. An installer that creates an identical file server and digital learning space is developed out of the Lyneham High School from where schools can get the package in an easy to use CD (www.linux.act.edu.au). Support is provided through email lists and an active community of users sharing their ideas and experiences. Concerns about FOSS support are swept away when after a little research schools realise that the Department does not support student networks. School then have to support themselves and each other. The size of the FOSS community on the web and in person in Canberra means that problems are quickly solved. FOSS will have a major impact on the way in which we use and share software as well as reducing the cost of teaching with computers. FOSS may allow funding higher computer student ratios and reduce our reliance on proprietary closed systems. As Tod the handyman from SBS TV's Life Support said when giving advice on saving money, "that's right folks, not the most expensive one, buy the cheaper one." Links for further reading http://www.educationau.edu.au/papers/index.html Lists recent papers from this peak body on open source software in schools. www.linux.act.edu.au A site maintained by Lyneham High School for the distribution of a free server operating system solution for schools. http://www.seul.org/edu/ SEUL/edu is dedicated to furthering the use of Linux and other open resources in education. www.samba.org A program that shares files with MS Windows client computers. http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/linux/ This site is hosted by the IBM Linux Technology Centre whose mission is to work directly with the Linux www.gimp.org www.openoffice.org http://belts.sourceforge.net/ Learning objects are stored in the Learning Exchange (LEX), managed by The Le@rning Federation (TLF). http://www.canb.auug.org.au/ The Canberra Chapter of the Australian Unix Users Group. Very informative source of information on FOSS. 1. K. Moyle, The hegemony of Microsoftš, Prometheus, Vol.21, No.2, June 2003b, pp213-230