Paid vs Open Source software

[Rob_D]

School: What do you think of this system, it's £600/year. -- Me: I'll do it for free -- School: ok.

After roll out: School: showed this to other schools who use that other software, they want to switch to our system.

Also me: now I know more about wordpress, skillLevel++ (note: that's a terrible variable name, don't use that)

 

So you now have to setup/support this system across all these others schools. How does your school feel about you spending your time doing this? Or do they charge the other schools for your time?

Edited October 18, 2019 by Rob_D

[TechMonkey]

It's Paid vs Free

 

No such thing as Free in IT. There is always someone's time to take into account, if not the IT department then the people having to learn how to use it. And if you don't value your time, why would the school?

 

It goes back to what people said early on, there is nothing wrong with Open Source software but you have to carefully look at all the aspects, of which time, support and training are major factors. Anyone that says the only way to go are paid solutions or the only way to go is open source worries me as they are not looking at the whole picture and taking all aspects in to consideration. It shows an olde worlde view of IT, back from the bad old days when the IT guy protected his domain with an iron fist, shot anyone down that questioned his decisions and used condescension and snarky as his two main weapons. Condescension, snark and memes, his three main weapons...

 

Never mind I'll come back in.

[mavhc]

So you now have to setup/support this system across all these others schools. How does your school feel about you spending your time doing this? Or do they charge the other schools for your time?

 

Charging for support for open source? Is that even possible?

Edited October 18, 2019 by mavhc

[bald_pig]

Charging for support for open source? Is that even possible?

According to your earlier post it is, might want to keep track of your own "arguments".

And you can pay for support for open source software, no difference there.

 

I think it's safe to say we've jumped the shark at this point.

[mavhc]

An important consideration when deciding whether to get paid support for a system (even if it's Open Source) is security. I don't expect I'll be alone in feeling better off having someone else taking on responsibility for keeping a web or email server secure. Yes, I could probably self-host the school website and email systems, or do all the management of them on some remote hosting, with no software cost but am I going to be able to do a solid enough job of keeping it sufficiently secure? We get Gmail at no cost, but I'd happily pay for it because Google will always be able to do a far better job than me at implementing 2FA, spam filtering, DMARC, etc. They'll even be busy implementing important security measures that'll I'll never even have heard of before (e.g. MTA-STS).

 

For example, every time I've tried to determine 'best practice' for securing Apache, PHP and MySQL on Ubuntu server, the advice I've found online has varied and seems to also change with different versions. 'Doing it right' is not a simple case of devoting more time to it. It's more complex than that. Just pay someone else to be across all of that and sleep better. I've never played around with PBX stuff, which I think is what's sparked off this thread, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a similar picture.

 

Some headaches (but not necessarily all) are worth outsourcing.

 

In fact Gamma have 0 security at all, there's no login, no password. It's entirely IP based, you connect them on a specific IP, that's your authentication. You only allow connections to your PBX from their IP. Simplifies security somewhat I guess. Sadly the complexity of SIP means no one ever bothers to enable SIP to SIP calling. Your phone number is basically a firewall for your PBX. If we could call by sip we could use the same email address and phone "number"

 

So that's FreePBX covered. The WordPress server is internal only.

 

Only problem when you pay someone is you have no clue if they're doing it well. When you pay someone and you get hacked anyway, do you get a refund?

 

Which is why it's worth learning a bit of pen testing, scan all the ports, run a vulnerability checker etc. Now I get paid to pentest orgs as well.

 

Email, yeah, just leave that to Google. Also don't build your own computers from sand. The question is what's worth doing in the middle section.

 

One the VoIP side it's more hosted vs on prem. When on prem is so cheap, and so flexible, whether 3cx or freepbx, it seems crazy to use hosted voip. £5/month (* number of sim calls) total vs £5/phone. Hosted makes sense for a company with 3 phones, no IT person, and phones in use a lot of the time.

 

Meanwhile hosted web server makes more sense, it's mostly accessed from outside the building, and setting up isolation of that server from the LAN is a bit of a pain. And web hosting is cheap. Then again if you already have a cluster of servers set up in house that already have isolation set up, it's just a click or 2 away.

[elsiegee40]

 

Please stop trading insults and get back on topic

 

Posts have been removed

[localzuk]

Weird that the schools I've talked to who bought that kind of software now want me to show them my free system.

Pretty easy really, import a hierarchical category list, import a list of pupils as tags, install a plugin to allow search by cat and tag. Install wordpress app on some tablets, done. I've not done any custom coding, just installed some plugins. LDAP of course because no one wants yet another login. All runs on site so no problem with PII being hacked on the internet.

School: What do you think of this system, it's £600/year. -- Me: I'll do it for free -- School: ok.

After roll out: School: showed this to other schools who use that other software, they want to switch to our system.

Also me: now I know more about wordpress, skillLevel++ (note: that's a terrible variable name, don't use that)

 

Hang on? So its gone from needing to code something or hire someone to code it to being free? I'm confused then. Are you saying the time you spend coding the custom plugins is free? Or that someone you've hired to make those customisations worked for free? Or, what happens in reality - you spend weeks coding the plugins to do what you want, you work back and forth developing what the school want, having to change bits when the school suddenly change their mind, and because it was "free" and you did it yourself, you have to make those changes too. But first, you need someone with programming experience and knowledge, and with our GDPR/security focused organisations these days, someone with programming skills who can create these plugins securely.

 

So, your "I'll do it for free" has a price tag attached. Looking at the 11 schools in our rural area, I can safely say that my team is the only 1 with someone with programming experience on it. That's because they are mostly first schools, a couple of middle schools and 1 secondary. They don't generally hire programmers.

 

We have circled back to my main point, again. Time is not free. Training is not free. Doing things in house is not free. Every school is different. Every IT support team has different demands, and different levels of skill. Using blanket statements saying you can do it in house, you can do it with open source, its easy, its simple, just spend money on training, etc... aren't possible everywhere. Something easy and free for you, will not be for everyone.

[HPlum78]

So if we are saying anything at all its this:-

 

Paid for software is NOT FREE

Free software is NOT FREE

Closed source software is NOT FREE

Open source software is NOT FREE

In house dev is NOT FREE

 

The thing is about in house dev is that staff are a sunk cost! :-P

[localzuk]

True, in house dev is, on paper, a sunk cost. However, that time you're using developing that in house stuff is time that you could be doing other things. So, it is diverting funds from one thing to another. Never know when that time debt is gonna catch up with you because you spent so much time on development and not enough doing the real job.

[DrBeaker]

...We have circled back to my main point, again. Time is not free. Training is not free. Doing things in house is not free. Every school is different. Every IT support team has different demands, and different levels of skill. Using blanket statements saying you can do it in house, you can do it with open source, its easy, its simple, just spend money on training, etc... aren't possible everywhere. Something easy and free for you, will not be for everyone.

 

I think that pretty much sums it up. I've found myself (YMMV) some techs have no idea on customer service, but great tech skills. Some the other way around. Each to their own. To do the job, we need a balance of every skill.

[HPlum78]

I am certain that my job is a real job! well at least I get paid for it... (I am a third line support analyst and a developer) but development is defiantly a real job. Edited October 18, 2019 by HPlum78

[localzuk]

I am certain that my job is a real job! well at least I get paid for it... (I am a third line support annalist and a developer) but development is defiantly a real job.

And you work in a school/MAT? In 13 years, I can honestly say that I don't think I have come across anyone paid to do developer work in schools. I've seen lots of technicians and network managers dabble on the side, and then years later when they've left, seen schools have to abandon software due to not having anyone to make changes etc though...

Edited October 18, 2019 by localzuk

[HPlum78]

And as I have said that is why MATS and Schools are thinking about what there core functionality is, they are not best placed to run an IT department as most are in the business of educating so again as already noted if you are the click next admin and that is all you do then your time may well be limited.

 

I will tell it another way, BMW are no longer known as an engineering house they are a software house (their code is worth more than their metal) in fact now most of the top companies in the world are not doing the same as they did 10 years ago, you will find most are now in the business of software.

 

Education is going to be no different IT departments have to be able to develop and carve out a uniqueness that will help deliver education better or close the gap between students (to name but two places that IT departments should be looking at). So when I talk about development I not talking about a phone system or what mail service you use or if you are using office over G suite, your SLT dont care either when smartly dressed men/ women come in and say that x firm can deliver the day to day operations of IT and take away the management overhead that comes with running in house IT. The simple fact is if you offer bespoke solutions and have an in-depth knowledge of education and can demonstrate you and your departments value thats what separates you from the faceless company that's going to come in and take over.

Edited October 18, 2019 by HPlum78

[localzuk]

I would suggest that this will not be the case other than in very large MATs possibly @HPlum78. Like that MAT that developed Assembly, ARK. But then, when that software started to gain traction - they sold it to GroupCall.

 

So, your argument seems to be that schools and MATs should stop running their own IT dept and outsource it, but should instead develop their own software, instead of outsourcing it. Are we not just playing musical chairs at this point?

 

What is different about using outsourced IT support vs buying in software developed by companies?

 

A large number of members of this site have had experience of outsourced support. I would hazard that there aren't many who would talk about those experiences positively. Indeed, my last jobs was bringing IT support back in house for a group of 4 schools under the banner of a foundation school, as the outsourced BSF support had been expensive and not the best. Even in my current job, we took over support for the other schools that joined us - because they were paying a lot for, in my view, inadequate support. One school was paying more for external IT support than having a full-time IT Manager and a part time technician - but they only had a tier 1 support for 3 of the days, and tier 2/3 on the other 2. So I'm not sure your argument really holds up on that part.

[elsiegee40]

I am not going to disagree with you @HPlum78; I started life as a programmer and it’s a useful skill in my toolbox.

 

But, those that can code aren’t necessarily technicians and vice versa. And just like with the change in the IT curriculum, changing the skillset of the staff you have requires investment in real money. Schools have limited budgets and even less awareness of “what IT departments do”... in most cases the IT department is one person who only has time to do the technical side.

 

In order for school devs to become reality/normality it becomes necessary for a major shift in thinking in school management... and the budget to do anything more than the absolute basics.

 

Maybe, with a new government, schools will be funded properly and IT can do more than just keep the network alive and up to date. At the moment, doing anything more is a price too high for the budget setters.

[HPlum78]

I am not saying that IT in schools should be out sourced I am dead against that, i am mearly saying that from a high level management perspective it looks appealing. I also don't think you get the best support if you do outsource you certainly don't get any bespoke development. I hear you in what you say around Schools and MATs do not have the resources to have permanent devs as noted in my previous posts.

 

This is an education issue not down to the individual IT departments in Schools I honestly believe from working in and with School IT departments that there is a lot of scope and knowledge that is under utilised and given some support that could be tapped into and unlock a whole host of development to aid in educating our students.

 

Sometimes we have to push the rock uphill to make a differance.!

[elsiegee40]

And I am not saying that we are talking about outsourcing. Just that to get to the development ideal needs training and that costs money that schools don’t have and won’t have until school leaders start to think of support functions being as important as the teachers. Edited October 18, 2019 by elsiegee40

[mavhc]

"Hang on? So its gone from needing to code something or hire someone to code it to being free? I'm confused then."

 

'I'll do it for free' implies the only cost will be time. They've paid for my £x/year anyway, might as well use it to save money. The computers run themselves pretty much. I automated the time consuming boring parts of my job long ago. Selenium FTW. FreePBX just updates itself.

 

"Are you saying the time you spend coding the custom plugins is free? Or that someone you've hired to make those customisations worked for free? Or, what happens in reality - you spend weeks coding the plugins to do what you want, you work back and forth developing what the school want, having to change bits when the school suddenly change their mind, and because it was "free" and you did it yourself, you have to make those changes too. But first, you need someone with programming experience and knowledge, and with our GDPR/security focused organisations these days, someone with programming skills who can create these plugins securely."

 

Which custom plugins were those? I just used standard plugins, same way anyone would make their school website in Wordpress.

 

"So, your "I'll do it for free" has a price tag attached. Looking at the 11 schools in our rural area, I can safely say that my team is the only 1 with someone with programming experience on it. That's because they are mostly first schools, a couple of middle schools and 1 secondary. They don't generally hire programmers."

 

That's why there's a renewed emphasis on kids learning to program. So they'll be programmers around again. They've just realised their efforts in the 80s were messed up in the 90s-10s. But now it's even cheaper to learn to program, all popular languages are free, there's free training available, online compilers etc. Main problem is kids don't own PCs any more, they all have a phone, tablet, and console, but nothing useful.

 

"We have circled back to my main point, again. Time is not free. Training is not free. Doing things in house is not free. Every school is different. Every IT support team has different demands, and different levels of skill. Using blanket statements saying you can do it in house, you can do it with open source, it's easy, it's simple, just spend money on training, etc... aren't possible everywhere. Something easy and free for you, will not be for everyone."

 

Wonder who was arguing everything was free. The point is to save money.

[localzuk]

Which custom plugins were those? I just used standard plugins, same way anyone would make their school website in Wordpress.

 

Then I would doubt that you made a product that is comparable with something like Tapestry or Build-A-Profile IMO. Can a member of staff choose a child, press the camera button and take a photo directly into that child's progress profile, and then immediately be able to write comments about the child's progress? Can parents log in to the system and see only their child's progress? You said "Don't buy a system for logging your pupils progress with photos etc, that's just a cms, use Wordpress." I'd say you are wrong, without custom work.

"So, your "I'll do it for free" has a price tag attached. Looking at the 11 schools in our rural area, I can safely say that my team is the only 1 with someone with programming experience on it. That's because they are mostly first schools, a couple of middle schools and 1 secondary. They don't generally hire programmers."

That's why there's a renewed emphasis on kids learning to program. So they'll be programmers around again. They've just realised their efforts in the 80s were messed up in the 90s-10s. But now it's even cheaper to learn to program, all popular languages are free, there's free training available, online compilers etc. Main problem is kids don't own PCs any more, they all have a phone, tablet, and console, but nothing useful.

 

So we have to wait 10 years now?! That works even better with management. "We can do it for free, we'll just hire people with the necessary skills. Though, in the meantime we can't use anything because those people are still in year 5." Sorry but your answers are idealist at best.

 

Not to mention, why would these newly trained programmers decide to come work for schools when they can go work in industry for considerably more money? There have been dozens of discussions on here about how bad IT staff get paid across the country, so why do you believe they'd suddenly be able to hire programmers across schools? Just wouldn't happen.

 

Wonder who was arguing everything was free. The point is to save money.

You we. That's the point. You said you can create stuff for free. You can download stuff for free. Open source can do it all. Eg. Your FreePBX system only costs £5pm or something like that. Its false accounting.

 

Only later did you alter your comments and start adding costs in, which you brushed off as "oh, but you already pay for those in commercial software" - so what's the point of changing if you have to pay to train staff, pay to develop your own stuff or pay to get support for the stuff you implemented for "free", and go through all that upheaval of migrating to a new system, when you could have continued using what you already were using, and carried on paying the same as always?

 

And through all of that, you still managed to miss the point of all this. You persist with a "one size fits all" open source can do everything, you simply have to pay to train your staff, you simply have to hire staff with those skills, you simply have to wait for children to learn programming in school, idealist way of thinking. Throughout this entire discussion, and on other posts where you've brought up open source solutions, you have consistently ignored the real costs of moving to open source products, and waved them off as inconsequential or "one off" costs that management would accept. You appear unable to accept that Open Source software is not the panacea for all education IT's ills.

 

Remember, change costs money, regardless of what that change is usually. Up front. Many schools and Trusts don't have the funds for an upfront cost, even if it reduces costs long terms. Example - how many schools buy their photocopiers outright, then just pay for the cost per copy and repairs. Would be cheaper than leasing over the long run. Very few do. Because very few can justify that up front cost, and the possibility of the machines not living up to expectations down the road. Same concept applies to software.

 

Especially when needs seem to change so rapidly in education, as different governments come and go and change what schools must do. You could spend all that upfront money setting up an open source solution to something, with the associated time and training etc... only for the govt to scrap the need for it. Whereas with a yearly licensed product, you simply stop paying.

[mavhc]

Then I would doubt that you made a product that is comparable with something like Tapestry or Build-A-Profile IMO. Can a member of staff choose a child, press the camera button and take a photo directly into that child's progress profile, and then immediately be able to write comments about the child's progress? Can parents log in to the system and see only their child's progress? You said "Don't buy a system for logging your pupils progress with photos etc, that's just a cms, use Wordpress." I'd say you are wrong, without custom work.

Sure, wordpress app, take photo, write comments, tag with pupil name. I guess parents could login and only see posts with the tags they're allowed to, but it wasn't a requirement, half the point was to not be online. They get to see them at parents' evening, or a pdf can be created. Just do a search for only that tag.

 

So we have to wait 10 years now?! That works even better with management. "We can do it for free, we'll just hire people with the necessary skills. Though, in the meantime we can't use anything because those people are still in year 5." Sorry but your answers are idealist at best.

 

Not to mention, why would these newly trained programmers decide to come work for schools when they can go work in industry for considerably more money? There have been dozens of discussions on here about how bad IT staff get paid across the country, so why do you believe they'd suddenly be able to hire programmers across schools? Just wouldn't happen.

That's why we can't hire anyone who can do maths, everyone who learned maths is a mathematician now. You're saying I won't be able to hire anyone who can install a wordpress plugin? Or knows how to ssh? Or how to set up a business class WiFi system, or configure a switch, or knows how to set up 100 chromebooks, or deploy Windows 10 to 100 computers, or create an MSI? Or did they learn all that after they showed a basic skill with computers and an ability to read?

 

Everyone's a programmer, who's not written a script, or changed an html file? Who's not automated a task, written a .bat file?

 

You we. That's the point. You said you can create stuff for free. You can download stuff for free. Open source can do it all. Eg. Your FreePBX system only costs £5pm or something like that. Its false accounting.

No, the VoIP "lines" cost £5/month, FreePBX costs nothing, it's in the name.

 

Only later did you alter your comments and start adding costs in, which you brushed off as "oh, but you already pay for those in commercial software" - so what's the point of changing if you have to pay to train staff, pay to develop your own stuff or pay to get support for the stuff you implemented for "free", and go through all that upheaval of migrating to a new system, when you could have continued using what you already were using, and carried on paying the same as always?

Didn't take much time to train people to use an open source phone system. "You pick up this bit of plastic, press numbers that are an approximate 1 to 1 mapping to the human you wish to contact, and talk into the transducer at this end. And once you've finished just write some C# to end the call"

 

The best way to avoid costs in changing is to use a better system in the first place, saves exporting the data too, that's always a pain with closed source.

 

And through all of that, you still managed to miss the point of all this. You persist with a "one size fits all" open source can do everything, you simply have to pay to train your staff, you simply have to hire staff with those skills, you simply have to wait for children to learn programming in school, idealist way of thinking. Throughout this entire discussion, and on other posts where you've brought up open source solutions, you have consistently ignored the real costs of moving to open source products, and waved them off as inconsequential or "one off" costs that management would accept. You appear unable to accept that Open Source software is not the panacea for all education IT's ills.

 

Which software do people hate most, and feel they can't get out of using? Open Source or Closed Source? Which software do people say they've been waiting months/years for fixes/features?

 

Let's pick an example, moving to VoIP. Someone has to evaluate various systems, test them out, see if they work. So you download FreePBX, and get a free 3CX licence/trial, let's say. And then it turns out both are missing that 1 feature you want. What do you do?

 

Remember, change costs money, regardless of what that change is usually. Up front. Many schools and Trusts don't have the funds for an upfront cost, even if it reduces costs long terms. Example - how many schools buy their photocopiers outright, then just pay for the cost per copy and repairs. Would be cheaper than leasing over the long run. Very few do. Because very few can justify that up front cost, and the possibility of the machines not living up to expectations down the road. Same concept applies to software.

 

Mostly they're paying for photocopier support. Photocopiers aren't that expensive. They do have moving parts, consumables, and cost more than £0 to obtain infinite numbers of them, which makes them different from software.

 

It's true, if the software you're using doesn't live up to expectations what do you do? Continue paying for it and plead with them? Or use the same money to get the feature you want added?

 

What do you do when they decide to double the price?

 

Especially when needs seem to change so rapidly in education, as different governments come and go and change what schools must do. You could spend all that upfront money setting up an open source solution to something, with the associated time and training etc... only for the govt to scrap the need for it. Whereas with a yearly licensed product, you simply stop paying.

 

And then retrain everyone, export your data somehow, evaluate all the new things, work out if any of them can import your data, repeat forever.

 

Or you could just keep using the same thing and alter it to the new needs.