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

[Daniel Howard <dhhoward@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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. "