Evans, The fundamental and greater question that you have asked: What, if any, is the official FOSS policy? Dr. Ndemo, my failed attempts to have a conversation with KIPPRA on FOSS was on knowledge of below linked documents. We need leadership that hand holds Kenyans to the abundance world of FOSS benefits. And this should interest media stakeholders .... --excerpt--- Russia case: the Government has revealed to Microsoft that the private press was using pirated software. As a result of this action, the press did sign an agreement and is now paying penalties to the proprietary software company. Such situation is likely to be happening in Africa where Governments always try to control the press. This is an incentive for the press to be engaged in the FOSS movement, migrate to avoid any further pressure and keep its freedom; --excerpt--- Alex --- forwarded message ---- Dear all The report of the Third African Conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons - Idlelo 3 has been published. It is free and available for download on this link http://www.fossfa.net/index.php?q=node/13 You may choose any of the following formats: .odt, .doc, .pdf Special thanks to Edward Yeboah of AITI-KACE ++++++++++++ Bonjour La version française du rapport de la 3e conférence régionale africaine sur les Libres est maintenant disponible pour être télécharger. Il se trouve sur ce lien http://www.fossfa.net/index.php?q=node/13 Les formats suivants sont disponibles: .odt, .doc, .pdf Nos remerciements vont à Edward Yeboah de AITI-KACE ======================== Nnenna --- Evans Ikua <ikua@lpakenya.org> wrote:
Patrick, By default, ICDL here in our market is normally delivered in the MS platform. Its good that you are referring to FOSS implementations of the same in a country like Italy, where inspite of the fact they have a large economy, they still do not see why they should buy software that they do not need to. same goes for countries like Britain, France and Germany who have pro-FOSS policies. Makes me wonder why us poor countries are in the forefront of this yet we don not have money to waste.
To answer Odhiambo, its important to note that with the earlier example that I gave of Cybers migrating, they did not migrate because they liked Linux and Open source, or because they hate MS, or because Linux was easy, but because they simply could not afford the licenses. It was out of necessity. The training that they had to undergo or the installation charges were simply not comparable to the high license costs.
Its also important to note that the capacity for training on FOSS applications is there in the market. The LPA has enough members who can support this. Some of us had actually applied to do the training on OpenICDL but turns out that we had applied to the wrong people because of the confusion that was there in the board.
Since the board also has ICT for development and bridging the Technology divide as some of its objectives, its imperative that they should first consider Open source before going for proprietary software.
what governments in SA, Europe and elsewhere have is an official policy that says that they will only go for proprietary software if they cannot find an open source alternative that can do the work at hand. The board should spearhead this as they are closer to the powers that be.
-- Evans Ikua Chairman Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: 20-250381, Cell: 0722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
Quoting Patrick Mburu <patrick.mburu@gmail.com>:
Good afternoon,
a quick note on the ICDL; Actually ICDL is a standard certification of competencies an individual has in the use of IT; It is broken down into the different modules such as word processor's and databases...etc The curriculum is a non vendor based certification however the mode of delivery is dependent on the implementing organization; I'm leading the implementation of this standard, we are scheduling the implementation of this certification and have had to base this on Microsoft Office for licensing and other matters; I do know that other sister agencies have done this with various implementations indeed including IT Training curricula on open source systems as well, i.e: ILO of the UN un Turin,Italy;
It would be a shame to certify this programme on specific vendors where there are other options available. The Computing Society of Kenya or the highest training board in relation to IT should be involved in this aspect as adherence to the accredation. anyone on the list from either?
Regards,
Patrick
On Apr 29, 2008, at 4:49 PM, Evans Ikua wrote:
After a close look at the ICT Board program for training their "Pasha" operators especially on the technology to use, I noticed that they are planning to train them on the ICDL curriculum, which is based on Microsoft.
What this means is that they are expected to get their Ksh 100,000 loan and then decide whether to buy software or to buy computers, not to mention pay rent and all other startup costs.
As you can expect, MS will wait in the wings for them to use unlicensed copies of their software and then pounce on them, confiscating their computers till they pay up.
Then as happened with the cyber cafes, they will start looking for Linux installers to migrate them. This will take them back to square 1 to start learning how to use Linux.
My suggestion therefore to the ICT Board is to seriously consider starting off these guys on Linux and the OpenICDL curriculum, which will mean that they don't have to buy software they can hardly afford, or use illegal copies and keep looking behind their backs.
Not to do this will be to encourage use of illegal software and vendor lock-in. It will also mean that they are setting the stage for mass failure of the whole project.
That is my humble opinion.
-- Evans Ikua Chairman Linux Professional Association of Kenya Tel: 20-250381, Cell: 0722 955 831 Eagle House, 2nd Floor Kimathi Street, Opp. Corner House www.lpakenya.org
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