The software freedom dedicated day started with an introduction to Free and Open Source Software by showing its advantages to potential users from the voluntary sector. This was followed by a presentation by the Project Leader, Dave Nichols, oriented to explaining the MOST initiative. The West Midlands project aims to improve the IT infrastructure of the VCS in the region and is one of two FOSS-based projects funded by the UK government as part of its ChangeUp programme.

Adapting to Linux is easy

The next presentation was particularly interesting: it was about “removing the fear of change” for FOSS users, made by Richard Coubry, a IT training specialist. “The most common fears are related to the fact that the users are not sure that the new software will carry out the functions the old one was doing, or that the system will be more technical than they expect”, the participants mentioned.

Richard presented his experience with Microsoft Office users who migrated to OpenOffice. “You need a maximum of two weeks of normal usage in order to adapt to the new office programs”, he says, adding that “while in the transition, users continue working at 90% of their usual productivity.“ He recommended users planning to switch to OpenOffice to create a list of the most commonly used features and to document how to do them in the new application. After all, we all use only a limited capacity of the programs on our desktops!

The demo

MOST demo period

Demonstration of the PayThyme payroll system.

The demo of the Linux-installed computers was impressive, since this put the above mentioned statements into practice. The participants, many of which were seeing the Linux system for the first time, were soon convinced that the interface is not much different from the Windows environment, and in some areas, exceeds it in ease of use. The accessibility software included in the system, such as the screen magnifier, screen readers and “Dasher”, impressed everyone by their functionality and diversity.

The main programs installed were shown to the audience, and even a FOSS accountancy application (PayThyme) for GNU/Linux, was demonstrated, as well as virtualisation software which allows the running of Windows applications under Linux.

Right after the demo, at 13:00h, the MOST Project was officially launched with prizes, lunch and drinks.

Using Linux in schools? Why not?

Richard Rothwell, a teacher in the Handsworth Grammar School presented an exceptional case study from his experience. The school has had Windows laptops before, but they found out this was impractical for use by the pupils. The laptops broke easily, the system crashed too often and long-term replacement of the equipment was too expensive for the school’s budget.

He asked the audience to investigate who, in their organisation, is in charge of IT decisions. Is there a plan? Is there a philosophy? Who is responsible? Too often, technical decisions are neglected, but their consequences affect most of the organisations activities.

When faced with a budget crisis, Richard Rothwell consulted his colleagues and older students and they decided to buy one powerful machine, and 250 “thin clients”, each of them at the price of £85. They installed a GNU/Linux operating system on the machines and made a network inside the school. The powerful computer was physically inaccessible for the pupils, and it was the one that contained all the important information and necessary programs.

The kids would use the desktops as terminals to access the programs and files. Not only were the computers more reliable, but if one broke, any staff member could replace it immediately with another one. “It would take no more than 5 minutes to replace a computer, just unplug the box and install a new one, so the kid would not waste time if a machine breaks”, Richard described.

Why isn’t everyone using Linux? Inertia, lack of skills, or simply the fear of risk. “Maybe they are already using Linux, only that your management team doesn’t know it,” he joked. Technicians often prefer to enjoy their free time in the weekends rather than working on emergency crash recovery. “We noticed in many schools that many technicians prefered to continue purchasing Microsoft licenses that they would not use because it avoided them debate with management.”

"Linux and Free Software alternatives are not the only solution for schools, but it is the best one with respect to their budget,” Richard concluded. Use of proprietary software encourages software piracy — Free Software encourage sharing and collaboration, values that are very important to schools.

...and lots of discussion

The afternoon passed very fast. The audience wanted to know much more about Free and Open Source — there were questions from theory to practice. Many people wanted to know how to start from scratch on their computer OS, by simply installing Linux on it. Others were asking for more information related to security and the migration process. One woman wanted to know how to make the Linux community more accessible to women, “the large majority of the participants in the room, as well as all the speakers are men, but the majority of volunteers — and therefore users — in UK organisations are women.”

At the end of the day, it became clear Linux is neither too technical, nor too inaccessible for anyone who is ready to actively learn and to change the environment in their office, to break the dependency from one vendor, and to investigate the areas of freedom of software and decisions that FOSS offers. We left the meeting with a feeling it was not the end of the discussion, but just the beginning...