Re: [school-discuss] Approaching administration: ammunition needed

[Damiano Verzulli <damiano@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan E. Davis ha scritto:
> [...]
> Any responses and links I will use to print materials out, to present
> to our adminstration. 
> [...]

On 2003 the University of Buffalo approved this resolution:

http://orange.math.buffalo.edu/csc/resolution2_april2003_approved.html

I don't know how much it was "effective" and if, during last three
years, it produced concrete results but... regardless of this such
resolution contains _lots_ of interesting points that should be
seriously taken into account by any school manager.

> [...]
> I need armament---information to present to tech people and to the
> administration that can convince them that it's not worth it to spend
> 15K, when a system exists that is being used, and is good enough for
> our needs
> [...]

I think that the choice is not only between the "proprietary" way or the
"ready made FLOSS" way.

Your school manager could also decide to invest such money _not_ to buy
proprietary software, but to asks some local software house to improve
one of the existing FLOSS solution (SchoolAdmin, Web2School or whatever).

In doing so:
- he can bet to get in return a system suitable for his needs;
- he can bet to get in return a system that could be easily expanded for
any kind of further needs;
- he will fund the local economy [1];
- he will avoid any kind of vendor-lock-in dynamics;
- he will hugely increase the visibility of his school within the FLOSS
world;
and, last but not least:
- he will contribute to increase the overall quality of FLOSS.
- if he will be smart enough with local government, there are chances
that he can be succesfull in asking for further funding from local
government (...that has lots of reason to "fund" local economy).

HTH.

Bye,
Damiano

P.S.: I bet that Saipan is plenty of people being able to collaborate in
the development of FLOSS software, expecially on a paid basis but...
should you have any problems in finding them... just write here: I'm a
bit far (Italy) but...for much less than 15K, I'm absolutely able to
move there and give you a couple of months of consultancy/development ;-)
BTW: I could do it even for free, for smaller period, having in return
something like a couple of weeks of "free" vacation ;-)


[1] take a look to what happened (also in terms of "social" effects) in
Extremadura - Spain -, with Gnu/Linex program. You can start from here:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7908


-- 
Damiano Verzulli
e-mail: damiano@xxxxxxxxxxx
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