Dear          ,

I'm writing to ask that you sign John Pugh's Early Day Motion EDM 179
on Software in Schools. In a nutshell the issue is that BECTA's
recommendations to schools for buying software are adversely affecting
both schools and businesses by unfairly barring Open Source software
and the companies wishing to supply it. This will mean grossly
inefficient use of public money and suboptimal provision (something  I
fear we have already seen in the NHS) and is at odds with Government
policy to consider Open Source during procurement.

I wish to to see a change in the BECTA guidelines and that government
ensure public money is invested in sustainable education and business
through the inclusion of, and investment in, Open Source solutions.

A clear explanation of the issues is available on the Open Schools
Alliance website www.openschoolsalliance.org . A summary of recent
news coverage is available on the Schoolforge-UK  community site,
http://schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/Schoolforge-UK:EDM.

You can find EDM 179 at
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=31752

Open source is being successfully used in many schools around the
world, often as part of innovative education. As the successful method
of creating and licensing software chosen by  SUN, IBM and HP and
others, Open Source offers many advantages to both business and users
compared with the older proprietary regime still followed by some
including Microsoft. In addition to large licence cost savings (60%
according to BECTA themselves) there are other benefits and I've
expanded on the key themes as I seem them. Many of these stem directly
from the model of communities operating around a software 'commons'
that is central to Open Source.

Economic
------------
Free access to the code encourages derived works, collaboration and
innovation, thus expanding the economy. Thus Open Source can represent
an investment in the economy and skills, not in cash. Sustainable
software if you like. Energy not spent on protecting propriety can be
invested in providing benefits to users and creates 3rd party business
opportunities. SMEs and large corporations alike can provide value-add
services such as supply, support and tailored solutions. Companion
products and services can be developed utilising  the Open Source
commodities. Open standards for data allow interoperability and avoid
'lock in' to one vendor. All this at a global scale. Savings can be
invested in developing skills and provision or providing new services.

Environment
----------------
Prolonged life of older hardware reduces landfill and toxic waste
(what happens when the next version of Windows requires large scale
hardware upgrades). Ability to use very low power workstations in
networks. Less packaging as software can be freely passed on from
person to person.

Social
--------
Reduces digital divide through low cost and freedom to pass on.
Children can take home and give to family and friends. Deprived,
elderly and third world can afford. Savings and ability to 'pass on'
allow community support programs to be developed. Ability to
contribute to projects at any level encourages global citizenship
skills. We're seeing a meteoric rise in on line Social Software (a
feature of the so called 'web 2.0') fuelled by Open Source software
and ideas. This is set to revolutionise how we engage in education,
media and other activities content.

Ethical
--------  
Ethical values are ingrained through sharing and mutual support, not
secrets and self protection.

In addition I'm convinced that these benefits combine with Assistive
Technology to have enormous potential for benefiting people with
disabilities and the elderly. So much so that I've just resigned my
job at Exeter College to concentrate on developing solutions, starting
with a grant from the Mozilla Foundation to improve switch access to
the Firefox web browser (http://elgg.net/stevelee/weblog/139997.html).

I'm very happy to discuss any of this in more detail.

By the way I've contacted you via writetothem.com which is itself an
example of how mySociety are using Open Source principles in areas
other than software to the great benefit of us all.
   
Kind regards