Paid vs Open Source software

[Garacesh]

I do find myself searching for FOSS software a lot when departments come to me asking for X, Y or Z.. But admittedly that's mostly a budgeting cost.

 

I've said it before.. Technically speaking you could probably operate the bulk of the classroom-based end-user part of a school on FOSS software and save a lot of money.

• Pick your Linux-based operating system of choice and stop worrying about Microsoft licensing
  
• Swap to LibreOffice for document creation
  
• Download any browser you feel like
  
• Lean heavily on cloud environments like G Suite or Office 365
  
• Utilise whatever FOSS software wherever you can find it for other lessons.. GIMP/Paint.Net, VLC, Audacity, Irfanview, MuseScore, Scratch, etc
  

This would cover a lot of your bases. Certainly most of the T&L side.

 

The only think I'm not sure about would be your MIS but that's just because I don't know much about them, and also the admin stuff, like finance.

 

The thing is, what you save in money, you probably spend in time. We've got staff here who still only know the very basics of MSOffice. Throw a different office package at them and they'd panic. The same applies for operating systems. They know Windows. Even if you put them on Linux Mint, they'd still be a deer in the headlights for quite some time.

 

It's a fun little thought experiment, but the mass user re-education (pupils included) would grind this place to a halt.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Garacesh

[supportman]

The only think I'm not sure about would be your MIS but that's just because I don't know much about them, and also the admin stuff, like finance.

 

Still no good open-source MIS sadly.

 

If I ever give up this job and have some time off, I will write one myself

[mavhc]

Weird, because people seemed to have managed to train to move to cloud based services without problems. Everything is just click Chrome and go from there anyway, no more difference between Windows 7 and some Linux GUI that copies Windows anyway, and Mac, or Windows 10. Obviously no point if you have to switch MIS, but loads of people are switching to web based MIS anyway. Apparently that was fine for training.

 

Did everyone go on a course to use iOS or Android?

 

"Sorry boss, I've wrote a post online that may/may not be answered" -- so the whole of edugeek. Why are your systems going offline all the time anyway? They're mostly VMs, just store a snapshot.

 

"Open Source or Free sometimes means relying on the appetite of one individual to tinker and spend time on getting it up and running and maintained. Whilst I personally might relish that task, systems ought to remain workable by the people appointed to fill our seats in the future." -- Same with closed source, but you don't know in that case. Also you can't do anything about it if it's closed source. "Sorry boss, they stopped making that software/it wasn't updated for Windows 10, or it was, and you have to pay again". Now you have to extract all your data, convert it (but it's in some format you can't read because there's no source), find a new program, and import it.

 

"One of my techies is really good at programming and can quite easily knock up some software that suits a school need in a day or two, but I often hold them back as it's not a good position long term to build a bespoke application that ends up becoming essential - It's too much of a risk to the school if they leave and no one else can support it." -- They should have made it open source, then other people can use it, and support it too.

 

"Until they change the syntax, the way things work, or the language, or add a new 'feature' which causes issues with no warning." -- You're thinking of Microsoft Windows. No one forces you to upgrade an open source product. You can pay anyone to support an older version.

 

So all the people you hired had training on how to administer Windows Server, Active Directory etc? Didn't just pick it up as they went along?

 

Half the devices in your school probably run Linux or BSD anyway, your switch, router, APs, firewall, tablets, phones, mobile phones, interactive/smart TVs, and chromebooks

[StevieM]

We've got staff here who still only know the very basics of MSOffice. Throw a different office package version of MSOffice at them and they'd panic.

 

FTFY

 

In the past, I've had staff come to me asking, 'What happened to the dog in a box? I can only see a rainbow.'

Translation: The text-wrapping icon has changed. What do I need to do, now, so I that can move a picture to where I would like it in a Word document?

[jthompson]

"Open Source or Free sometimes means relying on the appetite of one individual to tinker and spend time on getting it up and running and maintained. Whilst I personally might relish that task, systems ought to remain workable by the people appointed to fill our seats in the future." -- Same with closed source, but you don't know in that case. Also you can't do anything about it if it's closed source. "Sorry boss, they stopped making that software/it wasn't updated for Windows 10, or it was, and you have to pay again". Now you have to extract all your data, convert it (but it's in some format you can't read because there's no source), find a new program, and import it.

 

I kind of agree with you here. My point was about making good choices for the school by considering how realistic it is for other people to do your job after you move on. Any system, proprietary or open, needs to be a reasonably healthy product before you start committing the school to its use. That could mean just a good quality commercial product with a good track record, or an open product with a well-established community that can cater for a relative newbie.

[localzuk]

With a larger school/multiple sites you can save more money with open source.

 

You are painting a wide brush with this statement. It may be possible, but it will require up front investment that many simply do not have. Many are in rural areas where the skills needed to implement open source tech are not freely available.

Only have to learn something once, then it scales massively.

 

Until that person leaves, and then you have to hire a replacement.

You can either give money to someone else, or improve your own team.

 

Yup, whilst also taking into account current workload and ability to find the time to implement a significant change in how things work.

For £1000 either spend 50 hours learning something to be used forever, or pay for 1 year's worth of something, and then pay £1000 every year in the future.

 

Not quite. For £1000 you spend that time learning something. You then need to spend more time implementing it, and maintaining it. Or, you pay each year and someone else looks after it for you.

Also you can buy support for every open source program if you need it. And pay for a hosted version for most things too.

 

Great, so now you are paying similar amounts to commercial software for software that, in my experience, is usually less polished and has poorer documentation.

The main problem with FreePBX is it's not open source enough of course.

 

Well, no. I'd say the confusing interface is a problem first off. "Endpoint Manager" vs "Phones" in 3CX.

Use the money you save to hire more people if you want.

 

So what would be the point of moving to open source software if your staffing costs just go up instead? Not really sure I get the point there.

 

All in all, this post of yours is the thing I'm talking about. It is a very wide-sweeping set of statements that effectively say that open source can do everything and save everyone money, it is simply untrue. There have been projects all over the world where municipal areas, schools, governments have tried to move wholesale and I have consistently seen them shift back a few years later because of the troubles they have. Making a decision on what to use should be based on needs, not based on "its free" or open source. If that tool does the job best, with the resources you have, then great, choose it, but you have to take into account the TCO for all solutions - regardless of if they are free at the point of install.

 

Replacing all our systems we use here, with their open source alternatives would cost us a significant amount of money - both in training for my team, and training of our staff. Lesson plans would need updating across the board. The cost would be huge to us, and the turmoil it would produce would be even larger. And, I suspect we'd also see an increase in problems to deal with too.

[localzuk]

Holier-than-thou attitudes are the perfect way to discourage someone from your point of view, if you want to provide a counter-argument improve your attitudes...

Indeed. I saw someone post a question on the FreePBX forums asking if anyone had tried running it in Azure as they had hit some issues and they were treated with the same attitude I always see in open source forums - that Microsoft are "Micro$oft" and that people there wouldn't do such a thing etc... Helps no-one.

 

They should have made it open source, then other people can use it, and support it too.

Except, that isn't really the case is it? There are tens of thousands of dead open source projects out there, and then more on top which are "maintained" by 1 person who looks at things 2 times a year. Making something "open source" (which, technically, software written in-house is anyway, just not using a public license generally), doesn't mean it will attract anyone to maintain it.

Edited October 17, 2019 by localzuk

[Garacesh]

Except, that isn't really the case is it? There are tens of thousands of dead open source projects out there, and then more on top which are "maintained" by 1 person who looks at things 2 times a year.

Or, on the flip side, it dies and then there's four different forks all doing the same thing in different ways.

[HPlum78]

PoweShell is open source and MS are now one of the largest open source software houses around now.

 

If your IT department is only there to support the IT systems that are put in place and in turn that is underpinned by paid for software/ support contracts in my mind that is very close to being outsourced IT.

 

How is IT approached by those around here?

 

Are you very much IT departments that make the decisions from cradle to grave?

or do you have a partner approach? (one where if the FD wants to solve an issue they are the project sponsor and as an IT department they engage you for a solution)

 

The reason I ask is that depending on how you work means that you either consume IT as an IT department or you develop as an IT department the latter in essence give you more options in your architecture approach and opens the door for OS/ Paid or in house development of solutions. I have been around long enough to know that most will fall into the former, but as you become bigger in size the worry of skills walking out the door has to be accepted, by not offering a route for your IT staff to develop solutions and skills will mean that they will walk anyhow. Do not get me wrong there will always be a need for the click next admin but I fear that those days and posts are going to become sparse in the coming years.

[DGardiner]

We might not be open source...not sure if chromeOS counts? since its googles flavour of the project, but we have started cutting microsoft out of our networks entirely and letting the smoothwalls deliver DHCP/DNS.

 

Computers for the most part turn on and open chrome so we've just been removing the middle man!

 

Our only sticking point has been the school offices who demand excel because macros... even though most cant write an if statement.

[localzuk]

PoweShell is open source and MS are now one of the largest open source software houses around now.

If your IT department is only there to support the IT systems that are put in place and in turn that is underpinned by paid for software/ support contracts in my mind that is very close to being outsourced IT.

How is IT approached by those around here?

Are you very much IT departments that make the decisions from cradle to grave?

or do you have a partner approach? (one where if the FD wants to solve an issue they are the project sponsor and as an IT department they engage you for a solution)

The reason I ask is that depending on how you work means that you either consume IT as an IT department or you develop as an IT department the latter in essence give you more options in your architecture approach and opens the door for OS/ Paid or in house development of solutions. I have been around long enough to know that most will fall into the former, but as you become bigger in size the worry of skills walking out the door has to be accepted, by not offering a route for your IT staff to develop solutions and skills will mean that they will walk anyhow. Do not get me wrong there will always be a need for the click next admin but I fear that those days and posts are going to become sparse in the coming years.

I suspect you are slightly missing what is being said. No-one is saying open source software should never be used, that'd be absurd. We are saying that each tool should be looked at on its own merits, based on needs of the school/Trust, and based on the capabilities of the IT support. It is criticising the "Open Source can do everything, you're wrong if you pay for stuff" attitude that has been exhibited by some users recently, as that simply doesn't take into account larger issues.

 

Here, IT is provided according to needs, budget, and staffing. We have some open source software in use, because it doesn't require lots of work to implement or deploy (Xibo, Inkscape, VLC for a few off the top of my head). However, we moved away from Asterisk and FreePBX a number of years ago due to the high admin costs of keeping it running in our circumstances, the lack of people with the skills to manage it should I have left, and the need to expand to other schools. That was a decision based on the TCO of such a system - and it would be higher than simply running 3CX in a normal VM on our servers etc...

 

Take staffing as a key issue. We advertised for a senior technician recently. The first time we advertised, we had 4 people apply. None of them had experience of working in IT support in an organisation of any size like a Trust, and none of them had any experience of the normal Windows systems we run. We re-advertised and got 2 people apply. Luckily, 1 of them had some great experience and we hired them.

 

Now, that is based on our standard Windows network. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Imagine what our applicants would have been like for technicians with experience of Linux, FreePBX and the like. We'd've had no applicants at all. It is just unfeasible here.

[TechMonkey]

Weird, because people seemed to have managed to train to move to cloud based services without problems. Everything is just click Chrome and go from there anyway, no more difference between Windows 7 and some Linux GUI that copies Windows anyway, and Mac, or Windows 10. Obviously no point if you have to switch MIS, but loads of people are switching to web based MIS anyway. Apparently that was fine for training.

Bit of an oversimplification. Office hasn't changed since becoming cloud based. Hopefully some training has been given to staff about new cloud based systems and they haven't just been told to "click Chrome", the major changes would have been backend and IT will have self taught or had a company train them. Remembering the uproar of users of W7 to 10 I'm not sure I want to count that as an example of an easy transition.

 

Did everyone go on a course to use iOS or Android?

Teachers will have done if they were becoming major resources. Otherwise I'm hoping iOS or Android aren't running critical systems without any training.

 

 

"Sorry boss, I've wrote a post online that may/may not be answered" -- so the whole of edugeek. Why are your systems going offline all the time anyway? They're mostly VMs, just store a snapshot.

Again, I'm hoping people aren't relying on EduGeek for critical system support. As much as I love this place and hold the support and advice in high regard I wouldn't expect instant 24/7 support from it. There is a massive difference between "Hi guys, this system is acting oddly anyone seen this" and "OMG phone system has gone down, no service anyone know how to fix it?"

 

"Open Source or Free sometimes means relying on the appetite of one individual to tinker and spend time on getting it up and running and maintained. Whilst I personally might relish that task, systems ought to remain workable by the people appointed to fill our seats in the future." -- Same with closed source, but you don't know in that case. Also you can't do anything about it if it's closed source. "Sorry boss, they stopped making that software/it wasn't updated for Windows 10, or it was, and you have to pay again". Now you have to extract all your data, convert it (but it's in some format you can't read because there's no source), find a new program, and import it.

You are mixing up issues. There is a difference between a system going EOL, which should be monitored and managed by the IT dept, and a person moving to a different organisation and leaving a system that no one knows about or has a clue how to deal with it. Putting "must have experience of X system" especially if that is a critical system as part of a job ad is going to restrict your candidates, where as "experience of x system preferable" with the knowledge that a support company will be able to either take up the slack or train up the new person is a very different prospect. Especially if the candidate that does have experience of that system turns around and says that they can get x amount more going to another company due to having this knowledge, what does the school do then?

 

"One of my techies is really good at programming and can quite easily knock up some software that suits a school need in a day or two, but I often hold them back as it's not a good position long term to build a bespoke application that ends up becoming essential - It's too much of a risk to the school if they leave and no one else can support it." -- They should have made it open source, then other people can use it, and support it too.

Not a great or helpful response. Generally you will have a clause in your contract that says anything created on school time is the property of the school, then using school time to support that for other schools, especially if the department is flat out anyway is not a great plan.

 

"Until they change the syntax, the way things work, or the language, or add a new 'feature' which causes issues with no warning." -- You're thinking of Microsoft Windows. No one forces you to upgrade an open source product. You can pay anyone to support an older version.

No but often upgrades are associated with security and bug fixes, so unless you are happy leaving an application vulnerable or with bugs your users want fixed then you need to upgrade. Can't say I have ever been forced by Microsoft to upgrade, except for the same reasons.

 

So all the people you hired had training on how to administer Windows Server, Active Directory etc? Didn't just pick it up as they went along?

Often yes, or they had experience with Windows so knew the terminology used or how the UI worked. No one has said people wouldn't pick it up but as part of a proper tender process a competent IT person will add in time and costs to train IT staff, users and future staff.

 

Half the devices in your school probably run Linux or BSD anyway, your switch, router, APs, firewall, tablets, phones, mobile phones, interactive/smart TVs, and chromebooks

No one is saying Linux isn't used, but how many of those devices that you have do you interact directly with the Linux interface or had no training on? You seem to be ignoring the point lots of people have made that a proper training programme should be costed and planned whether it is a new version of Office or a new switch. In IT we generally just accept that we will read the manual, look online or do a webinar. That really isn't an acceptable route for users so needs to be properly considered.

[mavhc]

"You are painting a wide brush with this statement. It may be possible, but it will require up front investment that many simply do not have. Many are in rural areas where the skills needed to implement open source tech are not freely available." -- random person off the street is more likely to have used an open source project than one that costs £1000.

 

 

"Until that person leaves, and then you have to hire a replacement. " -- You should probably get that one person to communicate his findings to the rest of the team. Same would be true if only one person learned any piece of software.

 

"Not quite. For £1000 you spend that time learning something. You then need to spend more time implementing it, and maintaining it. Or, you pay each year and someone else looks after it for you." -- I just implement as I learn it. I never touch FreePBX unless someone wants a config change.

 

"Great, so now you are paying similar amounts to commercial software for software that, in my experience, is usually less polished and has poorer documentation." -- but you only pay if you need to, not as standard.

 

'Well, no. I'd say the confusing interface is a problem first off. "Endpoint Manager" vs "Phones" in 3CX.' -- Is there another section for intercoms, door controllers etc?

 

"So what would be the point of moving to open source software if your staffing costs just go up instead? Not really sure I get the point there." -- because they don't go up by as much.

 

"There have been projects all over the world where municipal areas, schools, governments have tried to move wholesale and I have consistently seen them shift back a few years later because of the troubles they have." -- except you don't hear of the ones that don't switch back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption_of_free_and_open-source_software_by_public_institutions

 

Replacing all our systems we use here, with their open source alternatives would cost us a significant amount of money - both in training for my team, and training of our staff. Lesson plans would need updating across the board. The cost would be huge to us, and the turmoil it would produce would be even larger. And, I suspect we'd also see an increase in problems to deal with too.

 

Except people have switched to GSuite and Chromebooks and got rid of their Windows servers already.

[StevieM]

You should probably get that one person to communicate his findings to the rest of the team. Same would be true if only one person learned any piece of software.

 

That's our school stuffed when I leave, then. I am the team!

[bald_pig]

That's our school stuffed when I leave, then. I am the team!

 

Yeah, but it's fine if you talk to yourself!

[StevieM]

Yeah, but it's fine if you talk to yourself!

 

I might as well, most of the time!

[HPlum78]

@localzuk I understand the points you have made and indeed in my initial post note the limitations that you yourself outlined, Just trying to make people think of things in a different way. I know that school IT is a strained environment when it comes to budgets and staffing and being able to afford to have out and out development roles in the IT departs of schools is almost unheard of. I also have noted on this forum more than once that most in IT departments in schools will go above and beyond the call to deliver IT services. Do not get my wrong I am opposed to the "Open Source can do everything, you're wrong if you pay for stuff" mantra there is a place for all at the table in my mind as well as in house development.

 

The issues with IT in schools is a problematic one for me (I have a unique view of this as an IT Network Manager of years gone by and having my partners view of budgets and feelings from an FD of a MAT perspective) I know that a number of schools and MATS are outsourcing as much of the support infrastructure as possible from cleaning to IT Services. The drivers for this are more than just a monetary concern by the way, there is an overarching feeling in the sector that the staff in schools (SLT) need to concentrate on educating and having all the support infrastructure/ staff to manage takes them away from doing just that (not a sentiment I share by the way). I also know that no one has said not to use open source but because of the position IT departments are put in open source is discounted.

 

All these things are part of the same machine (staff, skills, budgets, time, flavour of paid/ open source or in house dev.......) and by the very nature of how IT is viewed in schools is clearly having an impact on the decisions being made when designing solutions. That is clear from the comments on here, that said some of the issues are self-inflicted.

[BKGarry]

That's our school stuffed when I leave, then. I am the team!

 

Does that also mean that you are "THE LAW"

 

Sorry couldn't resit.

 

Can we all agree that different scenarios lead for different implementations. All our establishments run differently, this means that we have people who would switch without any issues, but we still have those people that we have to switch the plug on for, which is just going to drive them further away from using something that will truly help them.

 

This is going to be the same argument as completely serverless schools, and what is better G Suite or Office 365. You cannot compare everything like for like.

 

Each point here is perfectly fine and valid but please let's not become 60s-80s USA v USSR over this

[Garacesh]

Does that also mean that you are "THE LAW"

Or more importantly

?

 

I think this gives rise to an interesting question though... Knowing what you know now, how would you build a school from scratch?

 

One of the massive issues is user re-education. Not only do you need to re-train current staff, you're forfeiting staff being able to ask each other about issues too, which I feel is often overlooked. I'd bet my boots there's a tonne of 'How do I...?' that goes in regarding, e.g. PowerPoint that I don't have to field because they ask each other.

 

But if that weren't the case. If you were building from scratch? How would you do it?

 

I have to admit I'd go heavily into Cloud if I were doing it from scratch. I'd probably still have on-site servers (AD, MIS, etc) but I'd lean incredibly heavily on things like G Suite and EduLink.

Would I ditch Windows altogether? Not so sure about that one. I could, operationally-speaking, but Windows is what the majority of people know.

[Boredguy]

"Until that person leaves, and then you have to hire a replacement. " -- You should probably get that one person to communicate his findings to the rest of the team. Same would be true if only one person learned any piece of software.

 

This would assume that the person with the knowledge has not met our big red bus that we should all have DR planning in place for.

Certainly it's easier to document processes for commercial applications than open source ones.

 

We used to run several Linux boxes and I had pages of instructions on how to replicate the configuration files for all the services, and every time we updated the server hardware, I had to spend hours going though and updating it all as the OS build had changed, the application repository had moved. That is the sort of things you have to factor as part of the TCO of an application.

[mavhc]

This would assume that the person with the knowledge has not met our big red bus that we should all have DR planning in place for.

Certainly it's easier to document processes for commercial applications than open source ones.

 

We used to run several Linux boxes and I had pages of instructions on how to replicate the configuration files for all the services, and every time we updated the server hardware, I had to spend hours going though and updating it all as the OS build had changed, the application repository had moved. That is the sort of things you have to factor as part of the TCO of an application.

 

Every time you updated a Windows server you had to build that from scratch too. And there was no application repository.

 

Which is why containers became a thing, config file sets up the entire system. Download base os, install these 4 things, add this config file using these variables, etc etc. Doesn't work well with close source of course.

 

With about 10 keypresses I can have a linux server installed and running, and ready to PXEboot clients to install automatically.

[DJ-1701]

Every time you updated a Windows server you had to build that from scratch too.

 

What? :/

[bald_pig]

Every time you updated a Windows server you had to build that from scratch too.

 

One of us has been updating servers wrong...

[mavhc]

What? :/

 

The previous poster said they updated the server hardware, and had to reinstall the OS, wouldn't matter what OS it was in that case. Of course these days everything's a VM, so easy.

[Boredguy]

Good to see you pay attention to what people write. VM's were not a thing when we installed Linux