Recently I attended a presentation given to all the major UK suppliers of ICT goods and services to schools. It was hosted by the Becta, the government quango responsible for the use of ICT in schools, and was all very worthy with a lot of talk about value for money and exhortations to encourage diversity, simplify supply lines and so on, but just one slide of the presentation did jerk me into life.

On it was a differentiation between proprietary software; free software and open source software. Naturally I asked the presenter for clarification of the terms as I was a little confused. He was unable to clarify beyond saying 'well, you know, for example Google Earth is free software and we would like to encourage schools to take advantage of this kind of (good) thing'.

Fair enough. Google Earth is a fine free application and never mind that it is proprietary software in the sense that all proprietary software is proprietary in as much as it is owned by someone and you dont know how they did it. Never mind either that open source software does not have to be supplied free (though much is of course) and that no one owns it and you can see how it was done from the code supplied with it.

These niceties are a little advanced yet for our Government friends.

No, what got me thinking was the whole thing about what is generically called 'freeware' (proprietary free software) and its use in schools.

I admit to using loads of the stuff and installing it on lots of friend's computers. Probably my most popular are the Google suite of goodies and AVG's free anti virus package. There are of course loads more, Opera, WinAmp, SpyBot, iTunes, Picasa spring to mind.

Little mini alarm bells however started ringing in my head quite recently (tinnitus?). We all know that in the freeware sector of the market 'revenue models' are oft discussed along the lines of 'how the hell do you make money from this stuff?'. With something like iTunes it is patently (no pun intended) obvious, less so say with Picasa.

An interesting 'journey-to-revenue' is provided by the story (ongoing) of Grisoft's AVG anti virus software for Windows. Being a long term AVG fan I have installed the free virus checker on (friends) Window boxes for many years. AVG now at version 8 still has a free version and very fine it is too; ok it's a little tricky for the non technical to now find the free alternative when automatically upgrading from 7.5, but it can be done, and if you wish to avail yourself of the extra features of the paid-for versions the prices are very reasonble.

However, when upgrading a tranche of older laptops I have run into problems. Upgrading them to Windows Service Pack 2 and installing more RAM onto 4 year old XP Home setups being a most time consuming activity. It comes as no surprise that a few owners simply decided to go to PC World and buy a new laptop thereby ensuring one more sale of increasingly stalled Vista!

Now of course AVG have every right to move to a paid for version of their excellent product and it makes sense to 'encourage' its userbase to upgrade their machines to a (more) secure operating system but the point is obvious; what is free today may well not be free tomorrow and if it is proprietary software and you are dependent on it you will have to stump up the cash.

If we now return to freeware in schools. Imagine that School A has saved itself a load of money and now only uses Netbooks rather than traditional PCs. They use free online applications for all their word processing, spreqdsheets, presentations, pictures, email and so on. They don't need expensive technicians, storage, applications or software licences and they can remodel their ICT paradigm accordingly.

Then one day, just when they have got used to this situation and integrated it into every conceivable scheme of work it becomes time to pay their dues. How much no one knows.

I do not need to labour this point and I'm not suggesting that there is any evil plot going on by freeware suppliers, I just wonder whether it is wise for the Government to encourage schools into a situation which may turn around and bite them hard, where it hurts most, in the pocket.

The solution is obvious. Schools can be encouraged to safely embrace free open source software otherwise known as FLOSS which stands for Free Libre Open Source Software. No one owns FLOSS so no one supplier can determine on what conditions it is supplied to schools or in what direction it develops.

This is the only way schools can cut costs and share in the collective 'ownership' of its vital resources.

So in conclusion, definitions do matter after all; quite a lot more than our cost-conscious presenter appeared to be aware. Maybe when truly there are FLOSS suppliers into the education market more will come to appreciate the point of this particular blog.