[ILUG] AGM 2004

[Ronan Cunniffe]

On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 P at draigBrady.com wrote:

> Ronan Cunniffe wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, Lee Hosty wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Noirin Plunkett wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Asterisk, and Brian Scanlan, who talked about the opportunities for
> >>>developing (and supporting) Open Source solutions for schools.
> >>
> >>And the promised surprise project was?
> >
> >
> > There is money sloshing towards providing broadband for schools.  HEAnet
> > is heavily involved in connecting all the bits, but their responsibility
> > ends at the router, but Brian's observation is that there is an
> > opportunity here to present what I think he termed "a standard Open
> > Source desktop" - he suggested a translation of Skolelinux as already
> > mostly set up for this.
> >
> > There were various points raised:
>
> By who, where?

$people at the AGM.

> Who are the decision makers regarding the desktop software/hardware?

Nobody.  We're predicting that this will have to happen, because the
time-to-0wn3rship of a school's network is not very long, and the volume
of complaints will get very loud if nothing is seen to be done.

In other words, we predict that the Dept. of Ed. will be under pressure
to do phase 2 - "Also The Desktop", and unless there is an alternative
proposed, there's going to be a big grand public programme with the
Minister and various Microsoft bods as they roll out a Great New
Experience (tm) to greatly enhance the future skills of the ... (sorry,
I'll stop).

> We could at least present appropriate opensource apps to use
> on a windows desktop if that was mandated.

I don't think this will work.  "You only really want to use Supported
Software on your Great New Desktop, otherwise Bad Things Might Happen
Again, And Anyway We're Giving You Microsoft Office For FREE, Plus It's
The Industry Standard."

The Linux solution will probably have to be presented as an Irish
solution to an Irish problem - re-use of existing hardware, simplicity,
ability to do remote administration.  I suspect that security and
stability will just be meaningless buzzwords at the level at which the
decisions will be taken.

The best idea (basically Brian's original point) was to develop *and*
*roll* *out* pilot projects, that can be pointed to when the debate starts
(thus ensuring that the debate actually happens).


Ronan