Gates and Others Offer $150k For Open Source School Software 151
WebMink writes "With an impending deadline for America's schools to satisfy new federal reporting requirements on academic achievement, a new alliance of state educators is creating a system of open source software to help schools gather and submit the data that the rules require. To get the whole thing started, the Gates Foundation and Carnegie are funding two $75,000 awards for the open source developers who create the in-school software. The winners could also become the linchpins of a new industry in academic software."
Re:What software ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where did you find it on the website where they said it had to run on Windows? All I found was that it had to use the SLC API, which uses the Java SDK. In theory it should run on any platform.
I could be wrong though. I am current browsing on my iPhone, and it a pain to navigate the site in on the mobile.
Re:What software ?? (Score:2, Interesting)
1) whats the point in developing Open Source software for use in education if the framework/operating system on which it runs is not also open source.
Because one precludes the other. The schools already have a suite of closed source programs that run on windows. If you replace windows with linux or bsd, then you have to replace every other application that they currently depend on as well.
Whats the point of developing OSS for use in education if the OS requirement precludes any chance of its adoption?
2) taxpayers money - open source seems like a great way to save money and avoid costly licence / subscriptions
4) Is it appropriate for a charity to tie students or schools into a specific environment that could benefit a non-charity organisation in the future
Yes,