Sección: Software y Conocimiento LibreTítulo: Entrevista a Paul Brown - Microsoft está comprando su introducción en las escuelas - Microsoft Is Buying Their Way Into Spanish Schools- Enlace 1 Texto del artículo:
Paul Brown - Microsoft Is Buying Their Way Into Spanish Schools
Tomado de ENLACE 1
Welcome Paul and thank you for joining me for this chat. To kick things off, please tell us a little more about yourself and your role at HispaLinux
Thanks Schalk. I am the editor-in-chief of the Spanish edition of Linux Magazine and I have been tied to open source and Linux in particular since 1996, when I tried my first Debian. Of course, one thing led to another and I became active in the Spanish Free Software quite early. I am currently a board member of HispaLinux (http://hispalinux.es/), along with José María Lancho (President), Julián Coccia (Vicepresident), Isabel Sanuy (Secretary), Luis Español (Treasurer), and the other board members Rolf Theodor Schuster, Justo Sotelo Navalpotro, Carlos Álvarez, Miguel Gea, Alberto Barrionuevo and René Merou.
Before we get to the big elephant in the room regarding the protest action by HispaLinux, what is the current state of open source in Spain with regards to Government support as well as business use?
Well, according to the latest study from Red Hat (which you can see at http://www.redhat.com/about/where-is-open-source/activity/), Spain is the second country in the world when it comes to open source activity (the first being France). Several regional governments, such as Extremadura, Andalucía, Castilla - La Mancha and Valencia have migrated enormous chunks of their IT infrastructure to open source solutions. This has also had a domino effect in the private sector and the number of providers and companies which have adopted free software technologies has grown exponentially.
Unfortunately, the central Government doesn't always seem to be in sync with this shift and sometimes pushes forward policies that hinder more than help a widespread adoption of open source technologies.
Over here in South Africa the Government has adopted a strong stance on the use of open source in Government and I was surprised to learn that when it comes to the education department, there is a program currently under way that is exactly the opposite. Now the big elephant I referred to earlier is of course that a similar situation is now happening in Spain regarding schools. Please tell us more about this.
The announcement from the government caught us off guard. The pilot project that sparked the whole thing was carried out without any publicity whatsoever at a handful of schools in Aragón. The first thing we learned was that the project had been a success according to Eva Almunia, the Counsellor for Education in the region. She gushed about Microsoft and Bill Gates and then was immediately bumped up to Secretary of State for Education in the central Government. A few days later the government announced the plan "Escuela 2.0", ("School 2.0"), based on the experience in Aragón.
Of course,we found this chain of events highly suspicious.
You must bear in mind that the experiment in Aragón was paid by Microsoft in its entirety. This won't happen if the experiment is extended to the rest of Spain. The plan just won't scale. Redmond expects to be paid for all and every license that go onto the laptops. It would literally cost the taxpayer millions.
Regarding what is happening in South Africa, we also found that surprising, especially since one of the most popular Linux distributions, namely Ubuntu, that is taking the Open Source world by storm, is originally from there. I actually emailed Mark Shuttleworth to see what he thought and I found his answer rather vague and unsatisfying:
"Microsoft has been investing an enormous amount of time and money in winning grass-roots support in countries that have shown an interest in open source. Where governments don't have the ability to drive open source to success by themselves, and where the local industry is not firmly in favour of open source, Microsoft will likely succeed in that."
That is pretty non-committal and I really don't know what to make of it.
What is HispaLinux and it's members planning to do about the announcement?
We are already doing stuff: we are lobbying heavily against the plan and we have been joined by teachers, consumer watch-dog organizations and others who see the whole thing as terribly misguided at best. We are also considering legal action against the plan since it would very probably be against the law here in Spain -- and the president of HispaLinux is a lawyer after all.
We are also trying to get the word out internationally and have been posting news items on several news sites in Europe.
This has worked to some extent and the government and high ranking officials in both leading parties have expressed their commitment to having open source on the machines. Wether they will carry through with their promises or not remains to be seen.
Thank you for joining me for this chat Paul. In closing, why do you see open source as the better option for use in institutions such as these and what are your hopes for the future adoptions, use and support for open source not just in Spain but globally?
Remember that free software is a tried and tested thing within the educational system here. We have mammoth projects that have been running for years in Andalucía, Valencia and Extremadura. All public schools in these regions run free software only. The pilot project conducted by Microsoft was restricted to a few schools in small area during a few weeks. With so little data, it is impossible to say if the plan will work for the whole of Spain.
Furthermore, there is a lot going for open source in education, and not only due to the fact that licensing is cheaper and more flexible (a great advantage, no doubt), but also to the fact that FLOSS educational software tends to be more open ended and customizable for the students, teachers and schools and more collaboration-oriented. This is an enormous asset.
Free Software tends to be safer too. If you have literally thousands of children's machines connected to the Internet and to each other, keeping them safe from malware is paramount. Windows' track record in this area is far from perfect.
Open source release cycles are also shorter than that of proprietary software, so it is easier to keep up to date with the latest trends in teaching, which are shifting all the time.Artículo de www.profesionalespcm.org insertado por: El administrador web - Fecha: 09/06/2009 - Modificar
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