Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> ____/ 7 on Saturday 20 October 2007 17:40 : \____
>
>> Mark Kent wrote:
>>
>>> 7 <website_has_email@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>> Mark Kent wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>>> ____/ [H]omer on Friday 19 October 2007 18:24 : \____
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Verily I say unto thee, that 7 spake thusly:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> BECTA$ reports Micoshaft to Office of Fair Trading
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Good.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It takes two to tango. *Both* parties (BECTA and Microsoft) should have
>>>>>> some sackings, investigation...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jail time would be nice, but not a must. ;-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It does look like they've been found out. I presume that Becta decided
>>>>> to act first, in the hope that it would stop their own incompetence from
>>>>> being put under the spotlight.
>>>>>
>>>>> I wonder if some of the major culprits have recently left Becta, or are
>>>>> just about to?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I reckon Ubuntu people should send in a couple of liveCDs to
>>>> every school and college free and warn them to stop purchasing
>>>> any more Micoshaft products pending the outcome of the
>>>> Office of Fair Trading investigation. In the mean time, try out
>>>> Ubuntu and Kubuntu disks free of charge and write to their
>>>> IT heads to insist that free software be distributed to children,
>>>> parents and teachers alike.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The problem actually runs rather deeper than you'd think. Quite a lot
>>> of fairly essential software for schools (grading/testing, as well as
>>> financial management) is very much Microsoft-only, which means moving
>>> off an all-MS environment is tougher than you'd think. It's not
>>> impossible, though, and we're looking at it at my school.
>>
>>
>> All it requires is one person(s) to unlock the key and the
>> procedure can be replicated across EU.
>> Norway has already done it.
>> UK could go there on a fact finding mission and copy the
>> model exactly.
>
> Norways is used as an example by the OSC. The same goes for the EU's think
> tanks paper on 'naked PCs'. Give it time. BECTA crooks will run away.
>
The biggest problem we have is the corruption. We have far too many
career "managers" and "civil servants" and other non-technical types
put into technical roles. Frankly, they don't have a clue about what
they're doing, so they follow trends instead. This makes them total
victims for senior-level sales pitches with lots of colourful slides
and animations, with meaningless "functional" diagrams, data-flows,
user interactions and tosh about "value" and "value add" and so on.
It would be better to put technical people into technical roles, and
actually trust their judgement.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
|
