Linux-related job postings - Hopkinton NH School District

[Dan Jenkins]

Randy Edwards wrote:
>    I know a couple of the DOE's tech consultants and I'll be amazed if someone 
> could make any headway on this.  They're aware of what Linux is and have an 
> idea of what it can do, but there's no real moves to be compatible.

As I pointed out, this is not a DOE testing issue. It is a private 
testing service. But, I agree with the comments regarding the DOE in 
general.

>    They acknowledge IE's and Windows' security problems, but the general 
> attitude is that everyone uses Windows and so there's nothing you can do 
> about it.  The state shops based on price first and foremost, and given the 
> decentralized nature of the local schools they're leery of interfering with 
> them.

>    I'm not sure of the specifics of this case, but in the various edtech 
> positions I've had, protocol sanity/purity is one of the first issues I 
> tackle.  It's far easier than fighting the battles needed to change apps, and 
> once biases toward generic protocols are implemented in policy, it lays the 
> groundwork to make future battles both (a) more sane and (b) more likely to 
> win.

You are right. We've been moving in this direction for awhile already. 
Step by step we do progress. As much as my starting diatribe might have 
indicated otherwise.

I've also considered K12LTSP, VMWare (pricey and resource intensive for 
their purposes), among others. The staffer is amenable to most 
suggestions, but, getting buy in by enough folk to be viable, is the 
harder task. That's why I want to do a pilot program with stations in 
all the classrooms to show them what can be done with F/OSS (and 
commercial products too). And to determine what problems still need to 
be resolved.

We've always run heterogenous environments. I have no problem with 
Windows when it is running well (no snide comments, please ;-). It is 
just the flood of spyware and more sophisticated malware has made things 
much harder in the last few years. Trying to get a handle on that, under 
their budgetary and managerial constraints is the issue.

>    As far as security and schools go, please, don't get me started!  You'd be 
> amazed at how many schools are outsourcing private student/class data to both 
> insecure and marketing-driven commercial companies.  Every time I've 
> approached this issue in NH public schools, I always got the response of 
> something like, "yes, it'd be nice to follow those student privacy laws, but 
> we live in the real world and some compromises have to be made..."

Been there, done that. The horse has been beaten to hamburger.

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century