Open Source in education

I’m an open source advocate.  I think there is a place for open source in education, and I regularly look for open-source solutions to common server tasks at my school.

I’m an Ubuntu user at home (as a long time OS X guy, I’m loving ubuntu!).

Yesterday, I asked my supervisor about changing our webserver from a windows/IIS environment, to a Linux/apache setup.

She was shaking her head no before I was done with my sentence….the reason? 

Support.

And you know what? I totally understand.

I’m very comfortable using and administrating Linux, but in an organization like a school, there has to be layers of support. After all, if I’m sick, or leave, I don’t want to leave the school in a lurch. Still, though, I admit to being a little dissapointed. 

My long-term career goal is to be a district technology coordinator. I will make sure to hire people who are conversant in multiple operating systems, and multiple network configurations. 

After all, as someone Way Smarter Than Me ©, said, “It’s not what you know now that counts, it’s what you are capable of learning as systems change”.  I think that’s a good philosophy.

Update: Looks like we will be putting Open Office on all the computers in our labs! Yahoo!

On 12 September 2006, Tom Hoffman inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

I suppose if you already have people who know IIS, the support argument holds up, but I can’t imagine that it is easier to find people in 2006 who know IIS than who know Apache.

On 12 September 2006, Bill inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

I agree, hence my frustration…“You mean there is NO ONE who understands Linux here?!”

I’m still a bit incredulous…