[odf-discuss] BECTA

[Lars Noodén]

One of the earlier list messages stated that BECTA published a report
warning against uptake of either MS Vista or MS Office 2007 in British
schools.
	http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=28199

After the BECTA report was published, MS threw a serious obstacle into
the way of institutions still on MS Office:
	http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/01/137257

the way forward there with the legacy formats is, as Chris pointed out,
is that if the vendor no longer supports the old formats then to put the
legacy formats into the public domain:
	http://nlnet.nl/press/20080114-formats.html

The warning could well be taken to heart by other countries.  Item 5.17
is probably the most significant action.  However, the report seems to
otherwise soft-pedal the problems.

Anyway here are comments:

1.5, point 2 - WTF?  did whoever wrote this point read the rest of the
report, esp 2.2?

1.5, point 3 - see http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/01/137257

1.7 - no benefits

1.8, #1 - 'perceived' - one could probably find data to show that the
lack of benefits is more that perceived

1.8, #2 - an how many are Kubuntu-ready, Flubuntu-ready, or
Kubuntu-capable or Flubuntu-capable.  How about K12LTSP-capable?

2.2 - fit-for-purpose - seems to fail here, so WTF with 1.5,#2 ?

2.6, #2 - 'early' seems a weasle-word

2.6, #3 - interoperability is not forthcoming in the forseeable future,
so why not just flat out say 'not recommended', see 3.7 and 5.6

3.7 - why not just say flat out, 'do not deploy' ?  see 5.6

3.7, #3 - factual error - formats do not define interoperability,
applications' support of formats define it

4.3  how is "stable" defined?  Personally, I have found that people
literally use a separate measure when assessing system stability of MS
products
	http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=2275

4.4 so, no changes in functionality, vastly increased system
requirements, and radically changed user interface, and lack of support
for older formats

4.6 one could question the benefits of use in a business environment as well

4.7 complexity, cost and maintenance headaches

4.8, #1, #2 - compatibility failure 10% - 20%, maybe WINE is better?
	http://www.winehq.org/

4.10 - lack of XPS is an asset

4.25  should be more prominent, the executive summary seems to override
this recommendation see 4.29, what is the reason for such indirectness,
often with 3-4 steps?

4.30  actually there are technical reasons that make a XP-Vista
environment ill-advised.  see 4.31

4.31, #1 retraining for Aqua, KDE or K12LTSP might well be less

4.31  it would be beneficial to promote more information about upgrading
to XP

4.32 no business case for deployment, should be in the exec summary

4.36 recommendation - what? suddenly interoperability is the school's
responsibility?  This is changed from 5.6.  How about say move to
Koffice  or OOo or StarOffice, etc.

4.37 other products, at least that there exist other products, *has* to
be mentioned here.  the implications of following 4.37 would be that the
schools lock out *all* other options, vendors and software -see 5.3

5.3 good observation, single supplier can impede competition and choice,
however, this is not a theoretical threat as implied, but an actual
ongoing practice

5.4 active antagonism from MS in regards to interoperability

5.5 so, in short, MSO 2007 will exacerbate the digital divide, and this
is tied in part to MS Vista, so why is the policy not a clear "NO" ?

5.6 no movement towards interoperability, so schools should move away
from the products,delay  only makes the problem worse, this is
soft-pedaled in 3.7, and 5.27 shows that what movement there is from the
vendor is towards *breaking* interoperability

5.9 talk is cheap. intention, or more correctly stated intention, is not
the same as result. there is a history here of a combination of inaction
and hinderance of interoperability, it is foolish to ignore this
established pattern

5.12 imposes unreasonable barriers, see 5.16

5.14 harms competition, so why continue to do business with them

5.16 here is one of the few places a way out / forward is mentioned

5.17 this is probably the most significant item in the whole report
other nations should follow this example and file complaints with their
regional trade boards, the EC as well

5.19 so, there is not even interoperability between versions of MSO,
thus if interoperability is a concern, then MSO and perhaps all other MS
products must be proscribed

5.22 MSO not compatible with itself, resulting in data loss

5.27, #1, #3 new format breaks interoperability, furthermore suite lacks
ODF support

5.28 here, open standards are mentioned, but based on the above, the
prerequisite is leaving MS products, do they have the integrity and
strength of will to stand up to MS' politicians working from without and
fifth columnists working from within?

5.32 here, BECTA says no MOOX, that necessarily means also no to MSO 2007

5.33 contradicts 5.32 above

5.34 bassackwards, it is the MS products that have the interoperability
problems if one is to accept all the earlier points in the report, so
why is it that the advisory is against the competition in favor of the
recidivist?

5.36 PEGSCO recommendation is under-promoted

5.38 again, MOOX == bad AND two 'standards' would add complexity, cost
and confustion, so adoption and promotion of ODF is necessary as
mentioned in 5.39

5.39 it will be a lot to put these into actions (see comments from 5.26)

6.3 moving schools to FOSS is a clear way out of the mess described
above, However, note here that the name 'Linux' appears to be used to
described ABM (regular) computing.  Personally, I observe this
increasingly in Finland as well.

6.10, #1,#2 should the *implement* these decisions and avoid vendors
that exploit bundling, esp those which do so illegally

6.10, #3 many express concern that visibility will result in harassment
from vendor representatives

6.11, #1 see comments from 5.26

6.11, #3 low-cost paper brochures at tradeshows and conferences needed

6.14 even in the 1980's concepts were taught rather than button-pushing,
it seems that a legacy of the dot-bomb is that training even at
so-called University level is simply vendor-oriented (and in some cases
provided) product-specific, rote memorization

6.17 too much repetition of the phrase "free to use", it should be made
more clear that the savings are in daily operations as well as in the
real benefits which are increased flexibility and increased
interoperability.  otherwise, there is the risk that this is mistaken
for licensing costs.  if it turns into a debate of licensing cost, then
a grant from a so-called charitable organization is enough to derail
schools' technological future

appendix 1 - needs to mention the barriers Vista imposes on
interoperability by monkey wrenching the industry standard OpenGL.
AlsoBEC, technically DirectX is a steaming POS.

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-Lars