On 27-Jun-03 BenE wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Tarquin Mills wrote:

...

Derek wrote:

...

Hi Tarquin [snip] On another issue:

Can you give me a *very short* explaination as to why City College should switch to open source IT? We have a funding crisis at work and need to save money, so I've suggested we do this to the principle, but I really don't know much about it.

If you could point me at something not too tecky, I'd appreciate it. [snip] Someone sent the above to me could you supply me something to give them. Thanks in advance. --

'funding crisis'

If it's as bad as that, then I would say open source may not be the answer. I see any switch to open source as providing long term benefits, not short term, as the phrase 'funding crisis' implies would be needed. The potential hardware upgrades (due to incompatibilities), training for the existing sysadmins (assuming no non-windows experience currently) or the hiring of new sysops (plus redundancy for the old ones) would very likely be higher than the cost savings in the short term.

That's not what you asked for, but the chip Bill Gates installed in my head last night whilst asleep is doing it's job *very* well ;)

My guess is it's probably even worse. One thing it might be useful to know, if we're to say anything sensible, is: What is the background to the email from "Derek" to Tarquin which was forwarded to the list? CCN relies heavily on providing vocational courses. In so far as these have an IT aspect, there's no significant market for CCN in basing them on Open Source software. They will have to teach people how to use MS products, and if they don't offer that then they won't get students and their funding crisis will get worse. Like many such colleges, their most profitable students will be recruited from outside the EC. Just take a look at the list of their courses which are computing related: http://www.ccn.ac.uk/site/cloud.asp?page=4&extra=3 How many of these can sensibly, in the context of typical student demand, be based on anything except MS software? There may be scope at CCN for very marginal savings on servers and IT infrastructure by migrating to Open Source (Linux servers and the like), but the bulk of their needs for computing resources will have to remain on MS. Even staff intranet resources (emails, e-conferences, "Exchange" stuff, document exchange, on-line diaries, you name it ... ) will have to stay as they are unless there is a global staff re-education program and my (I fear very realistic) judgement is that this is a complete non-starter in an institution like CCN. Meaningful savings would not be achieved by migrating to Open Source and, as BenE wrote, the costs of any actual transition would be greater than the short term savings and indeed might never be recouped. Sorry to be pessimistic! However, as I say, if we could know a bit more about what led up to the email from "Derek" then it might be possible to offer more positive realistic advice. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 27-Jun-03 Time: 10:25:10 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

On Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 10:50:14AM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:

http://www.ccn.ac.uk/site/cis/index.htm

So it seems that it's there if needed. But I doubt that detracts from my earlier point that the overwhelming requirement is for software that mainly runs on Windows.

During my time at city college.. I do recall that there were around 12 PCs to be used for students to install anything (Novell/*nix) on. That's it. -- (o_ - Craig Butcher //\ - IT Technician / Unix Support MTH/ENV @ UEA V_/_ - http://www.wizball.co.uk

On 27-Jun-03 MJ Ray wrote:

Contrast that with current computing and IT education. Some of it is actually independent of particular software, and necessarily so for markets where MS Office et al are not available in the language of instruction, but not yet in England.

If student or employer demand dictates -- rather than informs -- course provision, I think that is a disaster that will set us back years.

I couldn't agree more with the principle of this, and regrettably feel convinced that we are already seriously set back. Once upon a time, all you had available on the computer was some general-purpose language (even BASIC!), and getting a job done on the machine involved understanding the task, learning the capabilities of the language, and creating a program which performed the task. People who came out of that stable could get things done! It was amazing what very many people -- in categories which nowadays would fall firmly into "computer-illiterate" -- could achieve under their own steam. Nowadays, all you learn is that for Task A you use Software X (because you can, though you're led to believe that you have to), and by the way you're awfully confused about all these icons so this is what you have to click on. Nevertheless, as a result of the whole history of educational "progress" over the last decade or so, colleges are now obsessed with filling their student places; and this is driven by the less savoury aspects of "Quality Control" and "Assessment Exercises". If they don't get students, they don't get money, and they're in trouble. This snake eats its own tail, as you can imagine. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 27-Jun-03 Time: 15:43:10 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------