Petition for free software in schools

[lucy-2]

I saw this mentioned on the Ubuntu-UK list and thought people might be
interested:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nonMSschools

The petition was created by Vinothan Shankar and reads:

    'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make the
    primary operating system used in state schools free and open
    source.'

[Andrew Williams-3]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 01:27:35PM +0000, Lucy wrote:
>     'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make the
>     primary operating system used in state schools free and open
>     source.'

Great idea, but I don't think it'll fly with the way it's worded. That makes it sound like they
want only FOSS to be used, and therfore restricting the choice of schools. I think it'd be better
wording so to ask the Education department to recommend it for primary usage. If you understand
what I mean.


--
Andrew Williams
w: http://tensixtyone.com/
e: [hidden email]

[lucy-2]

2009/2/9 Andrew Williams <[hidden email]>:
> On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 01:27:35PM +0000, Lucy wrote:
>>     'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make the
>>     primary operating system used in state schools free and open
>>     source.'
>
> Great idea, but I don't think it'll fly with the way it's worded. That makes it sound like they
> want only FOSS to be used, and therfore restricting the choice of schools. I think it'd be better
> wording so to ask the Education department to recommend it for primary usage. If you understand
> what I mean.

I agree that it could be worded better (I've rarely found well-worded
petitions on that site sadly), however I believe it's intentions are
fairly obvious and will hopefully make those in charge take some
notice if enough people sign!

[Tim Dobson-2]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Petition to pass around
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:18:50 +0000
From: MJ Ray <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
References: <1234210057.18685.326.camel@Zaphod>

Ian Lynch <[hidden email]> wrote:
> http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nonMSschools/

Various LUGs are criticising the wording of this, but I think it's
broadly a good idea.  There's also
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/gcserealcomp
which is more general but could still support FOSS in a big way:

   "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Expand the GCSE
   curriculum to include a "real" computing skills course."

Regards,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:[phone]


_______________________________________________
Fsfe-uk mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk

--
www.tdobson.net
----
If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us
still has one object.
If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now
has two ideas.   -  George Bernard Shaw

[Paul Sutton]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Tim Dobson wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Petition to pass around
> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:18:50 +0000
> From: MJ Ray <[hidden email]>
> To: [hidden email]
> References: <1234210057.18685.326.camel@Zaphod>
>
> Ian Lynch <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/nonMSschools/
>
> Various LUGs are criticising the wording of this, but I think it's
> broadly a good idea.  There's also
> http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/gcserealcomp
> which is more general but could still support FOSS in a big way:
>
>   "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Expand the GCSE
>   curriculum to include a "real" computing skills course."
>
> Regards,

Signed,

Perhaps a campaign to get theingots in to schools would be a good follow up

http://theingots.org/

these are complemented by the pilots, which are hardware centric,  the
nice thing about theingots seems to be to get the higher tier you need
to have contributed x hours to a OSS project,  which to me gives a "real
 world" relevance to your qualification.

I will forward original message and link to the dclug see if we can drum
up more support there too.


Paul (devon)



- --
Paul Sutton
www.zleap.net
Support Open and ISO standard file formats ISO 26300 odf
http://www.odfalliance.org
Next Linux User Group meet : March 7th : 3pm,  Shoreline Cafe Paignton
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAkmalgQACgkQaggq1k2FJq161QCePSWN4vwSJwab1fq0HZ/CdLxp
fCwAniIrGCdiNPB50VINPzbEx/3hsMTo
=8IL1
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----