Re: [school-discuss] SIF versus other initiatives

[Tom Adelstein <adelste@netscape.net>]

matt@bluelinux.org wrote:

I agree that we should ignore SIF  and work on open source
applications. As Les said:
    

This just gives me a bad taste. Microsoft is pushing their software with
SIF aware applications etc. Now schools if you want to believe it or not
happen to listen to microsoft even when they should not. This means
schools even those looking at open source will look for this technology
in the open source community and wont find it. This means they will say
ohh well we can go with MS they provide what we *NEED* (That need is a
what we think we need provided by the MS Educational Marketing group.
Mind you they have a much bigger advertising budget then open source
groups) 

Matt. just to get a realistic grip on this do we have anyone who can provide a survey of what MS is actually doing and if they're being effective? My tendency is to doubt Microsoft's effectiveness outside of pre-bundled PC's, Office and Windows.  If they are a factor rather than a potential threat, that makes a difference.

I think its time to stop thinking as a individual developer and look at
what can help the schools in the long run. Quit being a developer of one
application and allow us to be developers of the future education.
School Infrastructure is important if you want to believe it or not. SIF
while originally backed by SIIA (which scares me too) is a good step in
the right direction.

Interesting comment.

I will take my comments from this forum now because apparently I see
things in a different light then others do.

I would ask you not to do that. These forums tend to seem harsh because people express themsleves differently than in  conversations. I've had some painful times on forums, thinking I was getting battered. Later, I'd meet the people and find that they were nothing like their posts made them appear.

Since you devote yourself to the common good, you might wish to stick around and keep plugging away.

I would feel saddened if you stopped the conversation. These are difficult situations to ferret out and you add value.