Open Source in Higher Ed - UnConf08

Owned by Jim Helwig
Last updated: Oct 10, 2008Version comment

Impediments to OS on Campus

  • Lack of Marketing
    Upper management has a tough time finding information
  • Lack of follow through in projects
  • Lack of exposure (presence and mindshare) at the forums that count
    E.g., Lack of organized presence at EDUCAUSE
  • Misconceptions still exist, especially at the executive level (complicated, difficult to support)
  • No understanding that successful OS implementations are actually OS (Redhat, Apache)
  • Need to counter the FUD
  • "It doesn't cost money" - but it really does cost
  • There is no good cost analysis published
  • Lack of published business cases
  • "There is no support"
  • "Implementation is more difficult"
  • Sharing of institution's contributions may be resisted by the institution
  • Need to convince people that collaborating and sharing is in their best interest
  • Share code may result in ability to share support and share in others code
  • "Why should we give this investment away for free? Can't we make lots-o-money selling it?"
    But you then would lose the opportunity to share effort; others might stop giving.
  • Enlightened self interest
  • We (i.e., technologists or OS community) need to stop saying "'They' are too ignorant to get it." Stop the brow-beating
  • procurement, marketing, road maps
  • we have too many license types - need to normalize
  • Need to clearly state risks (and lack of)
  • We need to compete on value and ROI
  • The current procurement process shifts response expense to the vendors ($30-50K); the licensing money covers sales and marketing; the OS Community lacks the capacity to respond.
  • We are likely to see resistance to special considerations of OS during the procurement process. We need to come up with an alternative process that can be generally applied. Openess, audit-ability, ...
  • The procurement process is not our problem to solve. The institution needs to solve it.
  • "What about support?"
  • "Who do I turn to?"

What can we do? What do we need to do?

  • Stanford set up "TASK"?? ; a place where management can go to get information regarding open source
  • The Executive Directors from a number of Community OS projects are putting together a panel at EDUCAUSE
  • Universities (e.g., Oregon State Universities, RPI, some UK/JISC group) have open source labs that get funding from some external sources (e.g., google); establishing these connections can be beneficial towards our shared goals
  • JASIG Web Presence Redesign is improving marketing
  • Can we pool resources to help create/fund/support entities that can help fill the gap in procurement/support?
  • Can we make a boiler plate RFP response? "Build your own RFP"; would need to be kept up to date.
  • http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/procurement08.xml