Re: [school-discuss] Help!

[Harry McGregor <micros@azstarnet.com>]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, ptietjens wrote:

> Anyone out there using commercial open source (free as in free speech)
> software in their administrative functions?
>
> Specifically, I've just been told that after a year of deciding to ditch M$,
> our district will be purchasing two (two!)  major pieces of software running
> with M$ SQL backends;  financial and student management programs.

Well, I would suggest pointing out the latest MS SQL worm, that cost Banc
of America quite a bit of $, amongst others.

Could you name some of the products the district was looking at so that I
have an idea of the sale you are looking for.  Also how many students are
we looking at for the student management database?

> I'd take DB2, Oracle, whatever!  At this point, I'm not even concerned about
> open source (though that would solve some of the headaches we've had with our
> existing apps for these purpsoses) as long as it isn't Microsoft!

The only "large" scale system I have dealt with at all is SCT Banner, that
uses an Oracle backend.  This is what the local community college here in
Tucson Arizona is using, to manage all financial, financial aid, student
records, etc, with over 80,000 students.

Any additional information you can provide will help in finding the right
software for the situation.

			Harry

--
Harry McGregor, CEO, Co-Founder
Hmcgregor@osef.org, (520) 661-7875 (CELL)
Open Source Education Foundation, http://www.osef.org
A non-profit tax exempt charitable organization