On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 00:43 -0500, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote: > On 2008-11-09, at 18:40 , Alexandro Colorado wrote: > > > Beside the RedFlag people, how strong is the independent community of > > Chineese project? > > That's a fair question, and one whose answer will change as the new > year begins. Basically, it's like in India: all over the place and not > particularly focused. There are university elements, in Beijing and > elsewhere, including HK, and outside of the China area (eg, Taiwan, > the US), but focus and developmental efforts are lagging. That, as a > result of OOoCon, I hope and will work as hard as I can to change. The > Chinese and generally Asian market, including Malaysia,
I have just come back from Malaysia Government Open Source Conference. I was invited by UPSI the leading university for teacher training in Malaysia and they paid my expenses so that shows a level of commitment. The government has a mandatory policy for all public sector departments to migrate to Open Source including OpenOffice.org and there are policies for certification, development etc supported by the Open Source Competence Center. I'm working with UPSI to develop a research project to demonstrate how a training strategy starting with users in schools can in the long term provide the basis for sustainable migration. > * producer not consumer is key > * making producers is hard and entails both informing the user and > also going half-way, with information, tools, outreach Which is why a long term and sustainable education strategy is needed to convert users into producers. It won't just happen by magic. If it was going to it would have happened already. > If we do not have more producers, then OOo--and every Foss project-- > ceases being sustained and Foss becomes just freeware. Which is why I have spent the last 4 years making sure we have a means to support education that is progressive and accredited through government recognised qualifications and targets 3 key issues: 1. Progression in basic IT skills that is independent of proprietary software and will fit the existing school curriculum for IT in most parts of the world and does not block participation of those currently locked into it proprietary apps. 2. Raises awareness and understanding of Open Systems and associated licensing issues etc. 3. Enables IT users to learn about community participation. Also the design is low cost and scalable in ways that should save governments money when compared to traditional qualifications like ICDL which is unsustainably expensive in the target markets where FOSS has the best chance to thrive. While this is taking time (We have had no investment resource) these are the building blocks to provide a pipeline for new developers and active community participants. If we managed to certificate a billion people worldwide and achieved a revenue of $1 for each we could fund on-line free resources for the entire K12 curriculum free in all subjects so there would be no dependency in schools on any particular operating system. Furthermore, if 0.1% of those going through became active in FOSS communities, that is another million potential developers. Of course it would help a lot if all FOSS projects were modular and simple to contribute to but that is another issue. > Impressing this > fact upon the governments adopting OOo, whether in Europe or Vietnam > or Cambodia or Malaysia or Indonesia or Latin America or South Africa > is paramount, as is providing the path for production. So give the government something that solves their problems. All governments have a duty to provide education and qualifications. So reducing their costs in doing this while at the same time providing what the community needs is a win-win strategy. There is in my mind too much wishful thinking about what governments might or might not do and not enough real strategy to enable them to do it from their current starting points. Malaysia is very much a forward thinking FOSS government - possibly as advanced as any in the world - yet the focus on certification there is on technical rather than community and users. Training administrators of Linux is necessary but it isn't going to generate either the know how in the user population entrenched in proprietary software to make the change willingly or to support users in making the transition to developer. There is concern about how to persuade users to migrate but no real clear idea about what to do. We can provide them with a solution to that problem but it is not a quick fix, it has to be a sustainable long term strategy and it has to be integrated in the compulsory school curriculum to have maximum effect. > OOo has a brilliant future, all the more so given the dark economic > times closing around us. But its brilliance depends on the concerted > efforts on those users who become producers. Go back a stage and I'd agree. You need strategies to enable users to become producers and education is the key. -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
