The MoE needs to do more to supply schools with OOo CD-ROMs and support the uptake of open-source software. Perhaps they could negotiate a deal to get star office + support and provide it free to schools along with the "free" apple software and "free" Microsoft Software, It would also allow the teachers to hand out OOo CD-ROMs to students so they can have the same software (and same version of that software) at home.
--Warren. On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:42:17 +1300, Ian Laurenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, 2005-02-22 at 12:24, Christopher Sawtell wrote: > > On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:56, Carl Cerecke wrote: > > > Ian Laurenson wrote: > > > > I would really like to hear: > > > > * What barriers you see that are preventing a greater uptake of OOo. > > > > > > The Ministry of Education spending millions of *our* money to give > > > schools MS Word for free. If schools had to pay for MS Word, they would > > > be fleeing to OOo in droves. > > > > > > * Anything else you think I should know or do. > > > > Ask the Minister of Education why he blew that $30 million of our money on > > m/s > > licences, and make sure the rest of NZ hears you ask the question. I suspect > > you will get some evasive answer to the effect that T. Mallard Esq. (sic) is > > no longer in charge of schools. > > > > For school use Solaris and OOo would be a far better and cheaper option. I > > suspect that Sun might equip a small country's schools for free, The > > publicity would be worth umpteen million to them. > > > I am working on getting such questions asked in the house. At the moment > I am pursuing this through my contacts with the Green Party. Does anyone > have other contacts, other suggestions (letters to the editor perhaps?), > to get this question being asked more pervasively? > > Thanks, Ian > >
