Tarquin Mills speccyverse@ntlworld.com wrote: [...]
Can you give me a *very short* explaination as to why City College should switch to open source IT? We have a funding crisis at work and need to save money, so I've suggested we do this to the principle, but I really don't know much about it.
How many do you want for free software?
Cost -- It's claimed that free software has a lower total cost of ownership. http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html This might be explained by the possibility of a free market in support, which does not happen with most single-provider proprietary software.
Control -- Students can take copies of free software to use on their own systems, without the college having to do expensive licence activities or make extra payments.
Study -- Free software licences allow students to study how it works, not just learn to use the software. Even on using the software, the ability for others to study the software leads to a healthy collaboration on manuals and similar works, as well as a more open market for published books.
Consistency -- the freedom to study and try modifications is often more consistent with common ideals of education.
Repair -- If a piece of free software doesn't work the way that the college wants it to, it can be changed by college staff or an independent support company.
Community -- there are active free software communities in the college's local area. They can be a sounding-board, expert demonstrators, possible source of support (both zero-cost and paid).
Opportunities -- the college could become a training provider for the Linux Professional Institute qualifications, or run their own independent courses, similar to those run at Bromley, for example.
Longevity -- Because it is possible to avoid vendor lock-in, it is possible to defer forced major upgrades during peak times. Also, as long as the software is sufficiently important, it can be used because free software never has termination clauses.
I was saying some of these rather a lot at Birmingham this week... more on that later.