Monday, October 06, 2008

OpenOffice.org and Open Source Usage Increasing

OpenOffice.orgA short story in ComputerWorldUK discusses the increased usage of the Open Source office suite OpenOffice.org, including a report that 25% of the entire office suite market in Brazil is filled by OpenOffice.org, or 12 million users (in Portuguese at http://abretesw.blogspot.com/2008/10/openofficeorg-tem-25-de-quota-de.html).  That's not as big a surprise as it might sound, since Brazil is very Open-Source oriented.  But in my work with CoSN.org I'm frequently speaking to chief technology officers in K-12 schools and districts, and I'm hearing more and more about large-scale transitions to OpenOffice.org that are saving tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees. 

It's important to remember that a free (as in cost) license doesn't mean that implementation and support are free, but when an Open Source program is good enough to replace a program with a hefty licensing fee, I can see more and more education institutions making the change.  And when you look at an example like the State of Parana, Brazil, where they have 12 people running 44,000 school computers (over 2,000 schools) because of Linux and Open Source Software, the possibilities for more ubiquitous computing become pretty darn compelling.

Just as interesting to me is the Open-Source-AS-education angle, as opposed to the Open-Source-IN-education examples.  Teaching technical computer classes with Open Source software has a strong pedagogical basis, but even more than that, would have significant practical benefits to students--and yet, we rarely--if ever--do it.  Somewhere in the range of 70% of the world's webservers run on the Open Source program Apache, and yet it's just not taught anywhere.  Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Python/Pearl are serious business tools that can be obtained for free, have open code (great for learning), and will run on old computers.  So why is it that we aren't teaching them to students who could actually use those skills to get a job out of high school?  Maybe it has something to do with the lack of advertising dollars being spent to promote them to educators... :)

4 comments:

  1. This is WHY I am teaching my students to use an AMP server (Apache, MySQL, PHP) along with http://JOOMLA.org to build digital web portfolios. YOu need to add JOOMLA to your list. PS. My students carry this AMP server and Joomla on their FLASH drives and all we use on the school's network is the USB port for power, the screen, keyboard and mouse. No school software needed and no cost!
    Hayden

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  2. Hayden! You are the man! I really want to hear more. Have you posted a more detailed description of what you are doing anywhere? If not, are you willing to send some more information so we can share it?

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  3. Steve: I will be posting a new web site about this model and framework soon. For now, I am busy teaching 6 periods a day with 4 different preps, one of with is AMP/Joomla! One of the best AMP server is http://UniformServer.com Start there, then try to install Joomla on that server running on your flash drive. After that, go to Joolma.org and start adding any of the 3,800 EXTENSIONS and you have an endless challenge.

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  4. Hayden: can't wait to hear more. If you remember, let me know when you've posted so I can help to publicize.

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