On 9/1/07, Christian Einfeldt wrote: > school to FOSS unless we are able to convince the principal that OOo can > handle this mission-critical document.
Given the file format that is used, there is no valid reason to consider that document to be mission critical. Anybody who claims that it is mission critical will have no problem in both explaining and justifying the use of a tool that is unable to normalize the data it allegedly contains. They will also be able to justify the use of a tool that is unable to exploit ACID rules. If they can't answer/explain those two things, then thank them for demonstrating that they don't mind losing their data, and as such, demonstrating that the data is functionally useless, and not mission critical. > unless OOo can open this file as seamlessly as Microsoft Office. We are Open that spreadsheet on a system that uses: * MSO97; * MSO98 * MSO 2000; * MSO 2003 * MSO 2007; * Gnumeric; > for simple word processing and simple email and simple Internet browsing. Look at Dansguardian for the internet filtering. There is a script that enables it to be easily installed on EduBuntu, if it isn't already included in that distro. (I'm assuming that the students don't know the password for the sysadmin on Edubuntu boxes.) I've forgotten how to do it, but Dansguardian can be set up on the systems in the DMZ, so that all traffic is filtered. That way it doesn't have to be updated on the individual machines. (You'll need to setup a system wide DNS Server, to filter out "objectionable sites" that are selected by means of IP address, rather than URL.) > principal is extremely skeptical about FOSS. Is it FOSS, or simply skeptical of all solutions, unless the school has been mortgaged to the vendor for the next decade or more? > She is highly resistant to any change in any teacher-facing device. Most educators are, because they never got an education worth the name. (IOW, most educators never learnt how to learn, much less how to teach others how to learn.) > Her resistance is somewhat understandable: she is forced to fundraise 40% of > her budget every year!!! Get a breakdown on how much is spent each year on software licensing. Run a monthly software license audit. Preferably one that is at least as tough as that run by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) when they send their storm troopers in. Report the results of the audit to the principle each month., Then point out the fiscal penalties because they are out of compliance with their licenses. (It doesn't matter what size the organization is. Statistically, if it isn't exclusively FLOSS, it will be out of compliance, and fail a BSA software audit.) > 110 seconds to load the "paychecks" .xls file on this box. I am thinking > that the teachers will consider OOo to be broken. This is when they need to be told that there is no functional difference between using Vinča for their tax accounting (to submit to the IRS) and their alleged "mission critical document". (If somebody points out that Vinča was designed for accounting , then ask them to explain why nobody uses it for IRS submissions.) > remaining defenses for Microsoft at this school is this spreadsheet. That is akin to relying on Hadrian's wall to protect England from invasion by the Vikings. > to assess kids' behavior. The big pay-off for us as FOSS advocates is that That won't be a payoff. Rather, that will be a loss, as it does not provide that alleged educators in what they are in critical need of --- getting an education in the use of appropriate tools. > solve this problem, we might be able to make them an all-FOSS shop > eventually. Migrate that mission critical data to a LAMP solution. Migrate the servers to FLOSS, and let the desktops follow at a later point in time. > But the teachers will probably not accept a box that takes even 110 seconds > to load this spreadsheet, and they will get a negative impression of FOSS, Ask them if they would rather use a tool that provides incorrect answers, or one that provides correct answers? >Okay, but that is a systemic change that I am not going to be able to implement in the next 72 hours, which is when the teacher needs the solution. Since I don't know when that clock started running, I don't know when you need the solution by. >Or is it possible to make that change? A basic LAMP setup could be up and running within 12 hours. I'm not a database expert, so I don't know how long it would take to implement a database that incorporates all of the tupples that the spreadsheet includes. Once the data has been migrated, the LAMP solution will offer far more functionality that the spreadsheet. (ACID rules pretty much guarantee that.) >The problem is that the school has standardized on a spreadsheet. Getting the whole school to move to a database would take some work. So the school has no qualms about using a tool that is known to: * handle time incorrectly; * handle arithmetic incorrectly; * unreliable for data storage; * unable to handle large data sets; James wrote: >Also, since that principal is so short of cash, you'd think she'd jump at the change to save some. Not really. School budgets tend to be apportioned on the basis of what is requested. By having to pay $x per year in software licenses, the school ensures that they will be granted at least half of that amount. By shaving IT costs to zero, they lose 1.5 of however much IT was allocated. xan jonathon -- OOo can not correct for incompetence in creating documents from MSO. Furthermore,OOo can not compensate for the defective and flawed security measures used by Microsoft. As such, before using this product for exams that require faulty and defective software, ensure that you will not be unjustly penalized for the incompetence of the organization that requires the use of software that is known to be flawed, defective, bug-ridden, and fails to meet ISO file format standards.
