In a previous 2005 report the Government quango Becta showed that schools could effect considerable savings by making use of Free Open Source software such as Open Office. In their study they simply looked at 'like for like' software replacement using existing networks and computers.

Since this study we have seen the emergence of the new breed of ultra-portable Linux-based computers aimed squarely at the education sector and the inexorable build of Web 2 services such as Google Apps.

This week the Elonex One, a Linux-based laptop costing less than £100, was launched at the Education Show in Birmingham causing much excitement amongst the visitors and a very serious discussion about how best to support this new breed of Linux laptops in schools.

So much has changed so quickly that a model of Open Source school computing is emerging which could save the UK taxpayer billions of pounds and provide enormous opportunities for the home-grown technology sector based around Open Source software.

The problem

The Government does not produce figures for the total cost of ICT in schools. Our research shows however that when staffing and power use are included a typical secondary school will spend between £100,000 - £200,000 per year on ICT.

Scale this figure for the whole UK and it approximates to over £½ billion per year.

Contrary to common perception, however, only a small fraction of the cost of ICT in schools is spent on computers and software - 60% of the cost is on technical support and 20% on electricity.

Quite simply, school networks have become too complex for the purpose they serve.

The answer is to simplify the school ICT infrastructure and lower services by outsourcing more services.

Outsourcing

Outsourced services based on free Open Source software such as e-mail, content filtering and remote backup are entirely appropriate to an education sector:

• Content filtering using Dan's Guardian is very powerful and scalable.
• E-mail using Open Source software is sophisticated, highly available and secure. Easy management of webmail and accounts using GOsa.
• Rsync for secure, remote back-ups.

Examples of where such services already exist are a bi-lingual webmail system accessible to all schools in Carmarthenshire County and the fully managed web content filtering infrastructure available to all schools within the Yorkshire and Humberside region.

In both cases the use of free, Open Source technologies has driven exceptional value compared to similar systems deployed using proprietary software.

Simplifying On-Site Infrastructure

Much of the complexity and management burden to schools comes the sheer number of computers needing maintenance - typically 100-500 desktop PCs and approximately eight network servers (file-authentication server, MIS database server, e-mail server, Intranet server, VLE server, thin-client server, web content filtering servers and a firewall).

But what ICT services do students really require from their school?

• Access to suitable software for teaching and learning
• E-mail
• Safe access to the Internet
• A home folder for personal file storage
• Access to shared resources (e.g. Intranet, VLEs, Public Folders, Databases)

How does the emerging model for Open Source in ICT meet these essential needs?

• The new low-cost Linux sub-notebooks have a very large range of Free Open Source applications already installed and many more available for free download, certainly enough for 95% of all educational needs. Many more applications are available on line through Web 2.0 technologies.
• E-mail and safe Internet access will be outsourced.
• Home folders and shared resources can be provided by one computer. By using Internet protocols and abandoning the venerable Windows SMP/CIFS protocols all of these services can be provided by one Open Source database/web server.

If schools moved their ICT to this model the spiral of ever increasing cost and complexity would be broken.

Becta, having twice warned schools against upgrading to Vista or Office 2007, has effectively signalled a halt to what has been an unbroken series of expensive and increasingly ineffective upgrades. It seems 2008 is the year when schools should take stock and rethink their strategic approach to ICT.

The rewards for change are very substantial. Schools would reduce their costs by 4/5ths producing not only an enormous saving to the taxpayer but making it possible to adapt to new developments in ICT and focus more resources on teaching. New opportunities would be created for the domestic technology industry and there would be far less dependence on dominant multinational suppliers.

Implementing 100% SEF URLs in Joomla! can be a little tricky so we've written a step-by-step guide that includes how to correctly configure your LAMP server.

There are some differences in implementing SEF URLs in Joomla! 1.0.* and 1.5, principally the requirement for third-party plugins.

We'll deal with the generic LAMP server configuration issues first and then deal with the different versions of Joomla! in turn.

Assumptions

In this howto we've made some assumptions about your web server set-up, your permissions level and your familiarity with the command line. If you only have FTP access then your might have a few difficulties.

• Operating system - Debian Linux with root access (there will be differences if you use a non-Debian derived Linux distribution)
• Text Editor - VIM
• Web server - Apache2 (correctly configured for use with MySQL and PHP)
• Database - MySQL

Generic LAMP server configuration

SSH to your web server. In the website's root (e.g. /var/www/) do:

Edit your .htaccess and it should like this:

Change the RewriteBase variable to the root of your Joomla! install. For example if you've put it in /var/www/joomla this variable should read:

Otherwise leave it as it is.

Now in your terminal:

In this file change references to:

to:

Save and exit.

Now you need to install the mod_rewrite plugin into Apache. In your terminal run the following command:

Reload your Apache webserver with the following command:

With Joomla! 1.0.*

Download and install the component ARTIO JoomSEF from the Joomla! extensions website.

There are other SEF extensions available in Joomla! but ARTIO JoomSEF uses an Open Source license and seems to work very well.

Make sure that you turn on ARTIO JoomSEF in the Configuration section of the Component.

In the Joomla! Admin Panel goto Global Configuration and click the SEO tab. Select Yes to both 'Search Engine Friendly URLs' and 'Dynamic Page Titles'.

With Joomla! 1.5

Joomla! 1.5.1 was recently released and is now officially stable. If Joomla 1.5 supports all the plugins you want then it's probably worth upgrading to it. If not, then stick with Joomla 1.0.*.

One of the great advantages of using Joomla! 1.5 is that it includes SEF URLs out-of-the-box. This makes plugins like ARTIO JoomSEF unnecessary.

So, once your LAMP server is correctly configured, goto the Admin Panel select  Global Configuration. Select Yes to 'Search Engine Friendly URLs', 'Use Apache mod_rewrite' and 'Add suffix to URLs' (optional) and save.

The 20th February 2008 was one of those 'Microsoft moments', when suddenly, the world changed. Just like when they 'got' the network (and we got NT), or they 'got' the Internet (and we got 'Internet Explorer'). This time they 'got' Open Source and Open Standards and the company is about to make another of their legendary radical transformations... or so they would like you to believe.

The pattern of these 'Microsoft moments' is revealing. Each previous one has come long after most of the rest of the technology world has seen the latest change as inevitable - a situation that with Open Source and Open Standards has been staring us in the face for a long time now.

So does Microsoft's conversion signal the final phase of the ascendancy of Open Source, Open Standards?

Let's look a little closer.

The Microsoft model, as they are explaining it, is becoming asymptotic to the Open Source one. Interoperability, access to the code, free tools for developers and students, open international standards validated by standards bodies. It certainly looks like it, but an asymptotic curve never quite reaches the line.

The good news is that it is an implicit acknowledgement that the way technology is done has irrevocably changed. Their track record shows unequivocally that they will sooner or later adapt to the inevitable. But the real Open Source business model is so alien, so diametrically opposed to the fundamental business model Microsoft has pursued for decades, we must ask if there are alternative explanations, and what the real game-plan is?

Let's put to one side the obvious observation that Microsoft's legal woes in the EU and around the world provide a powerful incentive to make it appear they have changed their ways. And let's do the same with the observation that the critical ISO vote on the fate of their rival office document standard, the cornerstone of the desktop monopoly, is imminent - too obvious, too superficial. Microsoft is far too subtle a tactician to leave it at that.

Open Source and Open Standards have created a potent, compelling, ever-expanding commons of powerful software. A complete, freely- available 'stack' that can be implemented at low cost by companies from one-man bands to Global giants. A commons owned by none and owned by all. It is the secret ingredient of a whole new generation of businesses, and canny adopters from the previous generation. Google is not the only 'poster child' to have realised the supply- side benefits of running their operation on Free Software. And the economic and financial benefits, some would the least of the many benefits, accrue mainly to the users of Open Source software.

Historically, the economic benefits of a commons has primarily benefited the users. Of course the physical commons has always been subject to the so-called 'tragedy of the commons'*. The laws of physics, fortunately, do not apply to the world of ideas (and by extension, software). If I share a good idea, we both benefit, and the idea itself remains undiminished and inexhaustible.

Also historically, the exploitation of the commons to make a few fantastically rich and the rest of us merely 'consumers and customers' has been accomplished by enclosure.

The last significant 'enclosure of the commons' began in England, and enabled the Industrial Revolution. Whilst critics have called it 'the revolution of the rich against the poor', many would concede it also provided many benefits, and many that 'trickled down' to all. This may well be correct, but it is beside the point. Physical commons are finite and exhaustible. Ideas and software are not. The marginal cost of duplicating software is, well, negligible, a phenomenon visibly vexing the considerable talents of the record labels and lawyers of the music industry.

Without enclosure, the inevitable consequence of Open Source and Open Standards will be to drive the cost of software right down close to the marginal cost of replicating it. In economic terms, this is a good thing. A functioning free market is meant to drive down costs and benefit the consumers of a good or service. Open Source, Open Standards is quintessentially free market by nature, and extremely good for competition. Incidentally, it also turns IT into a services business.

So how would one 'enclose the software commons'?

1. Software Patents.
2. Own the standards.
3. Define the terms of the 'game'.

Open Source draws a distinction between 'proprietary' and 'non- proprietary'.

Microsoft attempts to draw a distinction between 'commercial' and 'non-commercial' and seeks to confuse the proprietary/non-proprietary distinction by ignoring it. Ingenuous as well as faintly patronising.

Run the latest announcements through the Open Source filters and the game becomes transparent.

Microsoft has accepted that the rise of 'Open Source' and 'Open Standards' is inevitable. If the authentic version is accepted, monopoly rents will no longer accrue to a single provider, and financial benefits will accrue, heaven forbid!, to the customer. This is simply unacceptable to their long-established business model. The only solution will be to define the game in terms that allows the monopoly to survive. The monopoly is not in the software, it is in the rent from the usage of the software. By enclosing the commons (think of the patent deals with Novell, Xandros and others), by owning the standards, and by defining which 'Open Source' products you are allowed to buy and which you aren't, Microsoft can suddenly make the transition to the new world. Patent Encumbrance. Faux 'standards'. Control the terminology and hence the 'game'.

The enclosure of the commons will proceed by creating a group 'inside the ring-fence' and leaving the rest 'outside'. Those inside will pay, how shall we say it, 'protection' money. If you buy from those 'outside'... well let's just say nasty things happen to people who don't pay.

So you can have your 'Open Source' software if you really insist... just so long as you pay a royalty to Microsoft for every copy that gets shipped. It's great if all those 'non-commercial' people want to develop software for Microsoft and their ring-fenced group of 'authorised' 'Open Source' partners. They generously promise that they wont even sue their unpaid workforce.

And what do you lose?

Just this. In the commons that exists right now, today, the economic and financial benefits accrue mainly to you. In the enclosed commons, they accrue mainly to the supplier that holds the patents and the standards. Business as usual. Checkmate. On the bright side, Microsoft get to keep their margins, and you didn't want to improve yours anyway, did you?

* Note: The 'Tragedy of the commons', in plain English, is simply this: If you and I are free to graze our cattle on a patch of common land, we will rush to make sure our cattle graze it first. The stampede will cause the land to degenerate into a sea of mud. Apologists for rich landowners used this argument to show how the enclosure of the physical commons was 'good for us'.