The Right Way To Do IT at Robert Pogson

Quite a few don’t see how FLOSS can be the right way to do IT but it is. FLOSS lowers the cost of IT and the barriers to entry for small businesses and start-ups. That’s good for everyone.

“The digital revolution, also called the third revolution, has changed the entire landscape of the business world. After the industrial revolution, no other revolution has changed the fabric of the society as the Internet revolution has changed it. It has given rise to organizations that thrive on volunteers, peer production, and collaboration. Wikipedia, the Mozilla Foundation, WordPress, Red Hat, and many more are competing today with some of the best financed and resourceful enterprises across the globe.”
see Open source boosts entrepreneurship and social good through collaboration | opensource.com.

In education, the business with which I am most familiar, there is no huge lock-in because ODF, PDF, HTML and such are all widely used standards for documentation and the ubiquitous projector brings everything to light in a classroom or small group project. LANs empower every school using FLOSS to share resources school-wide. Properly exploiting FLOSS is as easy as installing Debian GNU/Linux and searching the repositories for useful software and data.

apt-cache search database
finds such gems as

anymeal – A cookbook database for storing recipes
piwigo – photo gallery software for the web
wordnet – electronic lexical database of English language
tracker – metadata database, indexer and search tool
tora – graphical toolkit for database developers and administrators
redmine – flexible project management web application
postgresql-9.1 – object-relational SQL database, version 9.1 server
phppgadmin – web-based administration tool for PostgreSQL
phpmyadmin – MySQL web administration tool
mysql-server-5.5 – MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
mongodb-server – object/document-oriented database (server package)
libreoffice – office productivity suite
dictd – dictionary server
apache2 – Apache HTTP Server metapackage
…and many more

Only someone brain-dead could not see the possibilities. apt-cache search search finds over 1000 items. No need for budget planning or purchase-order requisition, just a little reading and installation in minutes to try stuff out. Using FLOSS cuts the time needed to set up a great IT system in a school from years to days.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.