Moving Forward with Open Source, a Network Manager's Perspective

[dhicks]

Hello All,

 

I'm attending a "think tank" session run by the Open Source School's project at the end of term. Assorted people with different persepctives of using open source in schools will be attending, so I guess I'm one of the people representing the network manager's point of view. I'm aiming to write a one or two sides of A4 summary on "Moving Forward with Open Source, a Network Manager's Perspective" to be circulated to the other attendees beforehand, just so we have the meeting time to actually discuss interesting things instead of spending it getting up to speed with everyone else.

 

Please feel free to post any thoughts or comments that you feel it might be a good idea to get accross to a wider audience as regards to using open source in school, from the perspective of the people who's job it is to install, configure and support it. I'll post any drafts I have as I go along (or should I set up an Etherpad document or something?).

 

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David Hicks

[pete]

You should probably differentiate between open source that the end-user interacts with (OpenOffice, Gimp, Linux desktops) and infrastructure open source (servers, cacti, nagios, snort, etc) that the end-user is unaware of.

 

The latter is much more straightforward to implement.

[cookie_monster]

You should probably differentiate between open source that the end-user interacts with (OpenOffice, Gimp, Linux desktops) and infrastructure open source (servers, cacti, nagios, snort, etc) that the end-user is unaware of.

 

The latter is much more straightforward to implement.

 

 

 

Agreed we've been using open source for infrastructure for a while now but we're still finding it hard to move to Open Office etc.

[penfold]

Agreed. Maybe split into a teaching & learning use and management & administration use to allow non tech's to understand what you are talking about. Explaining who you see using the different applications and the reluctance some schools have had in taking up Open source and how some schools have overcome this. Highlighting that each will require training on their use and support.

[tmcd35]

Aye, I find there is something of a fear factor amongst users if the software doesn't have 'Microsoft' in the title. It's actually been the case that some staff have said to me (staight faced) that they are happy to learn the new ribbon bar of Office 2007+ but not happy to learn the differences in menu positions for options between Office 2003 and OpenOffice 3.2, wtf!?!

[webman]

It might be good to touch lightly on the difference between "open source" and just "free".

[mpe]

It might be good to touch lightly on the difference between "open source" and just "free".

Proprietary software which is "free" causes a lot of confusion. Especially amongst the kind of people who tend to do things like buy single user licenced stuff "for the network".

[powdarrmonkey]

It might be good to touch lightly on the difference between "open source" and just "free".

 

And between freedom and financially free. Many projects publish their source but don't grant truly free licenses. The Free Software Definition - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

[dhicks]

You should probably differentiate between open source that the end-user interacts with (OpenOffice, Gimp, Linux desktops) and infrastructure open source (servers, cacti, nagios, snort, etc) that the end-user is unaware of. The latter is much more straightforward to implement.

 

Excellent point, thanks. Leads me to think of a couple of further server-related points:

 

Choice of courses affects choice of software (teachers choose exam courses, which require certain packages because that's what the example exercises are in or because equivilent software simply isn't available as open source (video editing, for example), or because the teacher wants to train pupils on "industry standard" software), which affects choice of servers (for Windows machines you need Windows servers, which means you need Active Directory, which means that if you want to authenticate Linux machines against AD/LDAP you still have to pay for Windows CALs for each machine).

 

In a future shift away from desktop applications to web-based ones there's lots of scope for increased use of open source - why bother having fiddly-to-configure-and-maintain desktop machines when all you really need is something that can run a web browser?

 

--

David Hicks

[mpe]

Choice of courses affects choice of software (teachers choose exam courses, which require certain packages because that's what the example exercises are in or because equivilent software simply isn't available as open source (video editing, for example), or because the teacher wants to train pupils on "industry standard" software),

Including in quite a few cases where there is no such thing as "industry standard" or where "industry standard" is nothing like what these teachers think it is.

This is a complete non sequitur in most cases anyway, since nobody has any idea what may be "industry standard" in 10-15 years.

which affects choice of servers (for Windows machines you need Windows servers,

no you don't.

which means you need Active Directory,

Not true either

which means that if you want to authenticate Linux machines against AD/LDAP you still have to pay for Windows CALs for each machine).

If you use servers with a CAL approach then you need CALs. If you use servers which don't then you don't.

In a future shift away from desktop applications to web-based ones there's lots of scope for increased use of open source - why bother having fiddly-to-configure-and-maintain desktop machines when all you really need is something that can run a web browser?

Some things work well "web based", others don't work so well, still others wind up incredibly clunky and finally there are some where you'd have to be insane to even attempt to shoehorn into "the web".

[dhicks]

If you use servers with a CAL approach then you need CALs. If you use servers which don't then you don't.

 

How do you mean? I thought if you had a machine or application that authenticated against Active Directory then you needed appropriate CALs for each machine or user on your network?

 

--

David Hicks

[somabc]

I think he means you could use another kind of directory rather than Active Directory.

 

eg. SAMBA with OPEN DIRECTORY

 

http://www.openldap.org/

[GrumbleDook]

Yeah ... at the last meeting at Bletchley Park I annoyed a few people about talking about 'free' from the schools' perspective ... ie there are no maintenance, support or licence costs associated with it, rather than the technical / legal term of free.

 

Most schools are not bothered about the sophistry used when talking about Open Source ... they just want to know that when it is 'free' what are the hidden costs (if any).

[dhicks]

I think he means you could use another kind of directory rather than Active Directory.

 

Okay, but how do you then set up the Windows workstations so that all software works, teachers and pupils can't install pirated software, My Documents is redirected to a network drive and the machines can't be generally tinkered or fiddled with?

 

--

David Hicks

[powdarrmonkey]

Most schools are not bothered about the sophistry used when talking about Open Source ... they just want to know that when it is 'free' what are the hidden costs (if any).

 

This is true, however I think it's important for people to realise that there is a difference, even though it may not be their primary consideration. Decision makers may not realise that in spite of it being free (as in beer), you may or may not be able to change its behaviour later down the line.

[somabc]

Okay, but how do you then set up the Windows workstations so that all software works, teachers and pupils can't install pirated software, My Documents is redirected to a network drive and the machines can't be generally tinkered or fiddled with?

 

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David Hicks

 

There are competing products that try to solve these problems but I can't say how successful they are as I have never used them.

 

eg. SAMBA 4 is in development

http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4

Edited March 3, 2010 by somabc

[Ric_]

@dhicks: Above you touched on the fact courses recommend certain proprietry software and train using it. Something you don't mention is schools being forced to use a particular platform or piece of software - SIMS requiring Windows and MS Office anyone?

[pete]

There are competing products that try to solve these problems but I can't say how successful they are as I have never used them.

 

I've had to integrate osx, linux and windows before using openldap. Suffice to say it's a good job no openldap devs were within impaling range.

 

If you want to herd lots (hundreds) of windows boxes I haven't found a better* way than buying sufficient licences + cals for a couple of dcs.

 

*cost vs time, faff, and built-in extras like GP software deployment.

[Guest monkeyx]

Hi Dave I am also taking part in the discussion about OSS in schools. Some rnd thoughts on what I am thinking about.

 

I think that there is some confusion regarding free and open software.

 

There is not enough discussion about open standards in data ie a well defined SIF at a higher level. At the school level could the "Government" be doing more to ensure that educational packages are released in an open format and an open license?

 

Should legislation be used to encourage the public sector to prove that OSS is not not suitable. ie how many people could be using Open Office or similar instead of commercial office packages? How many commercial CMS have been implemented a a high costs, when the OSS are often much better!

 

We have implemented OSS but received little or no help and very little recognition from our LA or anyone else for that matter. Our students do get access to a much wider range of curriculum software and our Learning Platform stacks up against some of the higher end commercial alternatives out there

 

When looking for other schools that have used OSS it has tended to be independent schools, trust schools, faith schools, etc. Some schools have taken advantage of provision through their LA. I think the Lancashire schools have their moodle systems hosted via the LA. But they get limited access to the server to the change the default setup.

 

How could OSS be better supported in schools? By schools taking more responsibility and working with like minded schools? Via LA/Becta? Commercial support ?

 

Anyone else have any questions or even better maybe you have answers

 

Regards,

 

Tim

Edited March 3, 2010 by monkeyx

[dhicks]

There are competing products that try to solve these problems eg. SAMBA 4 is in development

 

Samba supports authentication but, unless I am mistaken, not Group Policy Objects, so doesn't provide a good way to stop Windows workstations having software installed on them, settings tinkered with, etc. You could use something like Faronics Deepfreeze instead, but that's an extra cost (and the cost per Windows CAL, at under £5 each for education, is pretty competitive).

 

Looking at the Samba 4 documentation, it mostly seems intended to join member servers to a domain. I'm guessing that the best use of it might be to have a Samba server set up as a DC, with a Windows DC authenticating off that, thus providing a way to have your Linux workstations authenticate against an LDAP directory without having to pay for Windows CALs.

 

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David Hicks

Edited March 3, 2010 by dhicks

[dhicks]

Something you don't mention is schools being forced to use a particular platform or piece of software - SIMS requiring Windows and MS Office anyone?

 

This - as are many things that we, as IT techincal staff, deal with - is an open standards issue rather than anything to do with the particular platform that SIMS runs on. It's a reasonable assumption these days that most places run servers as virtual machines, or are aiming to in the future, so worrying about what OS a package runs on is pointless - you just give it its own VM and leave it to get on with things. The cost of the OS and other associated software can simply be added to the total cost of the package itself (not forgetting MS SQL Server CALs and MS Office licenses for each user/machine the SIMS client runs on, of course).

 

The issues come when you wish to move from, say, SIMS to something else. Moving your data from SIMS is actually quite easy, the problem is getting your new MIS to interact with other applications in the same way as SIMS. If you're a state school obliged to send / receive data to and from your LEA, exam boards, etc, how do you do that?

 

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David Hicks

[dhicks]

Hi Dave I am also taking part in the discussion about OSS in schools.

 

Indeed - I understand you're the chap hosting it :-)

 

At the school level could the "Government" be doing more to ensure that educational packages are released in an open format and an open license?

 

I think it's the role of government to define open standards, but not necessarily to force the use of open source solutions - or to force the use of any kind of solution, really. As long as organisations can exchange data and move between software packages freely then those organisations should be free to choose the software they use - assume that people know how to do their jobs and leave them to pick to best way to get on with it.

 

How could OSS be better supported in schools? By schools taking more responsibility and working with like minded schools?

 

But why should an individual state school care? Its main purpose - and the one (you'd hope) it is judged on - is to teach children stuff, everything else is very much secondary. If the easiest solution for a school is simply to accept what software is handed to it then that it what it should do, it doesn't need to consider how much that software costs whoever is paying for it. The decision to use something else needs to occur at the point the money is spent, which might be at the LEA level or higher.

 

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David Hicks

[wesleyw]

You can always set up local policies and copy them from machine to machine (or if you image then it's really quite simple) however if you need to make changes then you'll have to roll it out to all individuals. This would still be much cheaper than paying for a DC or two and all the cals. As for Office Go Open Office (a fork or oOO 3.2) allows you to open and save office 2007 docs (oOO3.2 doesn't just opens them) strangely a small 13kb docx became 6kb after saving (no changes) and Office 2007 opened it up again and it looked identical

 

Wes

[dhicks]

You can always set up local policies and copy them from machine to machine

 

I'll have to look in to this a bit further. How do you copy local policies to a machine - copy a file of some kind to a folder on each workstation, or do you have to feed a file to some command-line application logged in as an administrator?

 

Are local policies available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well as Windows XP?

 

or if you image then it's really quite simple

 

But imaging machines with an identical disk image requires a volume licensed copy of Windows.

 

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David Hicks

[CyberNerd]

Okay, but how do you then set up the Windows workstations so that all software works, teachers and pupils can't install pirated software, My Documents is redirected to a network drive and the machines can't be generally tinkered or fiddled with?

 

 

by dissecting the adm files and implementing them as scripts? they are generally reg keys..

 

Including in quite a few cases where there is no such thing as "industry standard" or where "industry standard" is nothing like what these teachers think it is.

 

you mean the education industry, right? because all the education industry file formats are listed by Becta and are open standards it's the file type - not the application that makes something a standard!