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.

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'.

Yes, it does seem unlikely doesn't it? Windows has been the only reality for several generations of computer users. But is the tide finally beginning to turn?

At the Education Show held in February 2007, the talk was of 'sustainable' computing and how schools could use technology to reduce their 'carbon footprint'. Nobody had any idea of what was to come – a host of Linux-based, ultra-portable, incredibly cheap and very green personal laptops.

Asus's EeePC was the first to arrive in the UK and has been aggressively marketed by RM plc (traditionally a Microsoft supplier). The EeePC sold out within days of its launch. RM's projected sales for the EeePC are 250,000 units in 2008.

At the Education Show this year British supplier Elonex will launch their 'Elonex One' sub-notebook. A Linux-based device that will retail for less than £100.

Eighteen months ago it would be unthinkable to make the prediction that by 2013 Linux would supplant Windows as the operating system of choice for most school children. We're now beginning to think the unthinkable.

What the new notebooks have in common

• The sub-notebooks are small. Typically they have a 7" screen and weigh under a kilo.
• They use 2 watts to 6 watts of power, have no hard disk or CDROM.
• They have 2-8 GB of solid-state storage and all run Linux as their principle operating system.
• Costs ranges from sub-£100 to around £200.
• They are very robust products aimed squarely at the 'school bag' but most will also work with the keyboards, mice and monitors already at use in schools.

The leading contenders

The One Laptop per Child Project (laptop.org) has the wireless X0-1, is aimed at emerging markets, currently costs less than $200 and runs a version of Red Hat's Fedora Linux.

Intel's Classmate offers two versions of Linux operating systems both using the Red Hat package manager. They also have a Windows XP version.

Asus' EeePC supplied to schools by RM costs less than £170 to educational buyers and uses a Debian-based Linux operating system.

Britains' Elonex's 'Elonex-One' and Canada's InkMedia products have emerged very recently, having detachable keyboards, costing less than £100 and again using a Debian-derived Linux operating systems.

These products are popular because of their size, their cost and the range of software that they come with. The fact that they run Linux and come with free, open source applications is largely unnoticed by the users.

Why Linux and not Windows?

Windows XP Home can run on devices like the EeePc and the Classmate but it is not officially supported by Microsoft and thus obsolete.

Worse still, RM plc is selling their Windows XP Home version of the EeePC to schools for 50% more than the Linux version. A £269 notebook will do nothing for school children. Proprietary lock-in tactics so successful in monopolising the desktop, have less effect on a new generation plugged into Web 2.0 and SaaS technologies.

Windows Vista will never be able to run on this new breed of personal computer. Even Becta, the government's quango overseeing the use of ICT by schools, admits Vista is too hungry for power and resources for use by most schools. Microsoft, it appears, simply does not have an operating system ready to fit the new niche. Windows CE is dead and the Pocket PC won't scale up.

Convergence technologies based on Linux are now everywhere - smart phones, set-top boxes, PDAs, satellite navigators, digital photo frames. Any concerns that such devices would be unacceptable to users because they don't run Windows are unfounded. Quite the opposite.

Some go as far as argue that Microsoft has tacitly admitted defeat in as much as they have signed a patent protection agreement with the Linux distributions used by the Classmate (Novell) and the EeePC (Xandros).

Summary

Children need access to technology that is affordable, robust and able to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor. This new generation of computers offers just that. Open Source software has made it possible to provide every child with access to the Internet, high quality office software and to a wide range of graphics and music software. As schools adapt to a new reality - one laptop per child – the only viable, supportable, affordable option is low cost, highly portable laptops running Linux not Windows.