Thursday, September 18, 2008

State of US K-12 Open Source Software

In preparation for the FOSS summit at the K-12 Open Minds Conference next week, I threw up a State of US K-12 Open Source page with a few brainstormy thoughts. For example:

Open source software funding of and adoption by US K-12 education lags behind virtually every conceivable peer:

  • US schools lag behind other countries.
  • Large open source vendors do not target K-12 education.
  • Is it fair to say adoption lags behind universities, business and other government entities? Hard to say. Probably mixed.
  • Educational vendors lag behind industry trends in implementing open source strategies, particularly for infrastructure.
  • Philanthropic funding for K-12 open source lags behind funding for open source in post-secondary education.
  • Academic research in US K-12 ed-tech lags behind other types of academic research in use of open source licensing.
  • Philanthropic funding of open source software in the US lags behind philanthropic funding of other types of "open" projects.

Feel free to contribute.

2 comments:

matthewboh said...

It's quietly going on here and there - but only a few school districts are embracing it.

But even the British schools - after their Technology Council showed they could save up to 75% on the total cost of ownership - are slow to move to open source. Why? Because schools are full of pragmatics. Their latest study found that only the schools with an open minded technology leader (which they found few and far between) are making the move.

I'm still out there, still publishing my newsletter, still pushing. Perhaps someday...

Tom Hoffman said...

Yes, I'm not saying it is dead -- just underperforming relative reasonable comparisons.