Re: [Sheflug] DFEY-NW :: October 19th :: Marbella Cafe :: Digital Freedom in Education and Youth - North West

[Tim Dobson <lists@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Mottram wrote:
> 2008/9/29 Tim Dobson <lists@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> (Please forward this to anybody or any lists you think might be interested)
>>
>> DFEY-NW (Digital Freedom in Education & Youth - North West) is a group
>> focusing on young people and issues of freedom in the digital world,
>> based in the Northwest of England at the moment.
> 
> 
> With the economic downturn and the conservatives recently saying they
> want to freeze council taxes for two years now might be an especially
> good time to launch a campaign for greater use of free software in
> schools, and government funded organisations generally.  This might
> turn out to be an opportunity to push proprietors out, promote greater
> software freedom and really reduce the costs of education for
> everyone.

You aren't the first person to suggest that free software could do well 
out of an economic downtime though I'm not 100% sure that it will make 
all that much difference. Either it will work favourably as you 
suggested by new startups(and existing organisations) seeing the 
financial benefits of using free software or we will see people avoiding 
what they perceive to be a "risky technology" at times when things are 
hard.
Personally, I suggest that both points of view will be taken and so we 
will see very little noticeable difference as a direct result of the 
economic downturn, nevertheless, it will be very interesting to see what 
happens.

Some of the well cited examples of schools moving to free software are 
those of schools with no money and a catastrophically ill suited IT 
estate who are confronted by a man in a suit offering to save them money 
and give them better IT facilities.

Tim


-- 
www.tdobson.net
----
If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us
still has one object.
If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now
has two ideas.   -  George Bernard Shaw

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