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tomkan

Listed below are comments made by tomkan between Friday, 16th May 2008 and Thursday, 10th July 2008.

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Selling public services 2:08pm on 10 Jul 2008 It is totally naive to think the expertise gained is in any way exportable, when a lot of other countries approach is one on growing, nurturing and protecting local talent.
Other European countries are picking up Open Source to run with. Why? There are no lockins with US software companies, and services and expertise to implement stay in the region. It's a win-win, they spend less, invest local and the results are truly public spirited.
Despite this, the UK usage of Open Source is low in comparison, because of the dominance of the consultancies who will always advise on proprietary software for which they can get "busloads of consultants" on projects. That, and the insistence by UK public sector that their needs are unique to everyone else and require a bespoke solution.
One Laptop - hello Windows, goodbye Linux 12:25pm on 16 May 2008 Totally agree with Negraponte. This is an initiative for low cost educational computing for third world kids, not a evangelising exercise for Open Source, even though it has that as a side effect. Open source was a tool for Negraponte to achieve his aims, not the raison d'etre.
I am a big fan of Open Source, but let's not lose sight of the big picture of this initiative.

The whole point of education is about exposure to and learning about as many things as possible. Kids need to be faimiliar with both Open source as well as Windows.

As for low cost: this initiative has already done its job of lowering prices of proprietary MS software: Windows is virtually being given away now- that wouldn't have happened without Linux as competition.

As in the west, people will compare the 2, and decide which is the better to use. Remember you don't just have Windows: you need virus protection, regular patches, bloated and resource hungry software. There were reasons why Linux is gaining ground, and those reasons still stand.

And idealogies will only survive when it has substance: if Open Source really is better it will come out top.

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