Debate on "The house believes that the future of Web in UK Higher and Further Education communities lies in the adoption of open source software" at IWMW 2002.

1. The house believes that the
future of Web in UK Higher and
Further Education
communities lies in the
adoption of open source
software".
The Case Against p2…….

2. What’s wrong with IT in
education?
 In theory…THE place to be
– Complex infrastructures
– Maximum variety
– Hostile environment
– Maximum flexibility
– Leading national initiatives

3. What’s wrong with IT in
education?
 In practice…”career backwater”
 Why? – Image
– Not exactly business like
– 5 different systems doing same job
– Re-invent the wheel
– Don’t like commerce

4. Why don’t we like the
Commercial World?
 We’re in the public sector!
 Jealousy?
 Inferiority Complex?
 R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P-S
 S-A-L-E-S species

5. Commerce v
Community
 How do we select solutions?
 Just think rationally about things for a
minute….
– “FE & HE Communities”….but would you
let me amend your Student Servers….?
– what are you entrusting a £10M, £20M,
£50M, £100M public money business to?

6. Open source
community
 …development of the Linux operating system by a
loose confederation of thousands of
programmers--without central project
management or control….
 ….a movement that has come to be called open
source, because it depends on the ability of
programmers to freely share their program source
code so that others can improve it….

7. What about our
customers ( ‘users’)?
 They want
– Choice
– Reliability
– Ease of use
– IT as White Goods
– Image

8. And what about image?
The image of
open source….?
Ask Joe Average
about Penguins….

9. Open Source
 No control
 No quality control
 No guarantees
 No accountability
 Not objective
 Not free

10. Commercial Software
 Accountability
 Choice
 Support
 Image

11. Wake up but don’t
smell the Java
 Open source has it’s benefits
– Within academia
– Interoperability & customisation
 Would you let your business be
dependent on a community?
– No safety nets
– No rigour
– Serious credibility gap