South African Education Department Bans Free and Open Source Software 185
An anonymous reader writes "The South African Education Department has effectively banned the use of FOSS software in state-run schools by forcing all candidates writing the Computer Applications Technology examination to use Microsoft's Office 2010 or 2013 as the only supported options. In the same circular, the state has mandated that all schools use Delphi, instead of Java, as the programming language for the country's Information Technology practical paper. South Africa, notorious for its poor performance in Maths and Science and for having vastly over-crowded and underfunded schools, are now locked into costly Microsoft licensing because of this decision."
(sniffs cautiously) (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I don't smell any hint of corruption here, no sirree!
</sarcasm>
How many people where bribed to make this deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many people where bribed to make this deal?
Holy Hype-fest Batman! (Score:3, Insightful)
"The South African Education Department has effectively banned the use of FOSS software in state-run schools by forcing all candidates writing the Computer Applications Technology examination to use Microsoft's Office 2010 or 2013 as the only supported options."
Fascinating, apparently MS-South Africa has sophisticated technology that seeks out and destroys all open source software simply because Microsoft Office is used for some tasks. This new learning is amazing! Tell me again how sheep-bladders can be used to prevent earthquakes!
Calling Ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
Mark Shuttleworth, please speak up!
Thank you Bill and Belinda Gates (Score:3, Insightful)
Side effect of the Gates foundation aid to Africa?
Re:Holy Hype-fest Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh one other thing: anybody who says that using "Delphi" is somehow not "open-source" while using Java is "open source" doesn't understand the difference between a programming language in the abstract and a particular piece of software that compiles or interprets code written in the language in the concrete needs a head exam.
Something tells me these guys: http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/ [freepascal.org] would get offended if you tell them that they hate open source because they have an open source implementation of Delphi. Since Delphi is a descendant of Pascal, which has a long history in software education, it's not some evil conspiracy to use Delphi in a classroom setting.
Re:(sniffs cautiously) (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't need to be corruption.
It could merely be incompetence and stupidity.
Re:Holy Hype-fest Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
"The South African Education Department has effectively banned the use of FOSS software in state-run schools by forcing all candidates writing the Computer Applications Technology examination to use Microsoft's Office 2010 or 2013 as the only supported options."
Fascinating, apparently MS-South Africa has sophisticated technology that seeks out and destroys all open source software simply because Microsoft Office is used for some tasks. This new learning is amazing! Tell me again how sheep-bladders can be used to prevent earthquakes!
That technology is called "convenience" and "money", and is what was meant by "effectively banned" rather than saying "completely banned".
Once you've spent the money to purchase the non-FOSS tools that the school requires you to use, you're not going to seek out free/open source replacements for those tools.
A few FOSS zealots may be willing to use LibreOffice, FreePascal, Linux, etc for most things, and only use the paid tools when he absolutely has to, but the average user isn't going to pay for one environment to use for special tasks, and then set up a completely different FOSS environment where he'll do most of his work.
(I'm one of those few, I use Linux for 99% of my work, but rdp into a Windows server to run Outlook, Visio, MS-Office, etc when I need to)
Re:(sniffs cautiously) (Score:5, Insightful)
Never ascribe to incompetence what can be adequately explained by greed.
incompetence is passive malice (Score:3, Insightful)
maybe not for every situation, but it certainly applies here...
this is often a false distinction...true 'incompetence' without malice requires a staggering level of pure ignorance...
Why bother bringing this up?
b/c there is **NO DEFENSE** for what South Africa and M$ are doing here....it is PURE EVIL
I see these discussions on /. whenever a company or government does this horseshit and we all call it out as horseshit...
The idea that this decision was an "honest" mistake is surely *theoretically* possible...but to make an "honest" mistake at this level would require so much ignorance of how daily society works that the person probably wouldn't be able to support themselves...
Re:(sniffs cautiously) (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree. Also, Delphi is quite likely the better language for teaching. Pascal sure beats Java (or C++ - *shudder*) in that area.
And another thing: for some reason the fact "stuff costs money" is no problem when it comes to US schools (iPad schools, anyone?) but when it's about South Africa it suddenly has to be free of cost? Why? So the corrupt officials can actually drain off even MORE money whilst sticking it to the students?
Having expensive teaching materials as a mandatory requirement may do a lot to force parents into action against corrupt officials. It's one of the reasons that sending money to developing countries can kill off the economic prospects of that country just as effectively as an economic blockade: there is no incentive for anyone to actually stop the corruption, so it runs rampant until it's out of control.
Re:(sniffs cautiously) (Score:2, Insightful)
However if you need to pick and choose, then Open Source may not always be the best option.
Closed-source garbage has no place in an educational environment.