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Re: [school-discuss] Dear Sandra Pupatello (an open letter about and Ontario education decision)



Doug Loss wrote:
http://p2pnet.net/story/9207

Another good read, thanks Doug. Schoolforgers, make sure to follow the threads of comments to this letter, the first is a typical "Windows is what the real world uses" type response, and that there are not many job opportunities for FLOSS users. I'm not through all of them yet, but the following response to the aforementioned response was particularly apt, especially the part about how FLOSS users are forced to have good social skills :-)


"One of the roles I have is as a curriculum advisor to Algonquin College in Ottawa. One of the complaints the advisory board has heard from employers (including very large government and private sector employers) is that people with FLOSS skills (Linux/BSD Mozilla/OpenOffice.org, knowledge with business models/licensing, experience with collaborative development processes and multi-sectoral development teams) are few and in high demand. Because of supply and demand these skills cost far more than the "dime a dozen" Microsoft certified people. They have been demanding more Linux certified people to try to bring these costs down. Lack of adequately trained and certified people has also been a barrier for many companies to migrating to FLOSS, something which many understand the long-term benefits of doing.


The flip side of this is that there is a very large financial benefit to those students who learn FLOSS skills early as this puts them into a market where they can make far more money than they can with Microsoft skills. There is a larger expectation, as you are no longer just clicking-buttons on a specific version of a GUI interface, but expected to understand much higher-level skills such as the inter-personal relationship skills required to get a patch into an active project. "