[discuss] Getting involved in Municipal and School Board elections

Sun Sep 24 15:58:58 EDT 2006

Hey Russell,

I would like to expand on this thread a bit. Maybe we can all post some
of our latest exploits in promoting FOSS in government and education. We
can all learn if we post about our exploits and what has worked and what
has not.

As Russell and I have talked about, I sent an email to the mayor of
Winnipeg and go a rather favorable response. As a result I have been
invited to talk in the future some of the Mayors advisor's on the topic
of OSS and the benefits it can bring to the city of Winnipeg. This will
be a future meeting, hopefully, as the elections are coming up.

I also got the ear of one of the trustee candidates in my area. He had no
knowledge of Foss at all but was very interested in hearing more. I sent
him some links to various places like my blog (www.rlhc.net/blog)
K12aopnsource.com and encouraged him to check out some of the various
interviews. I get an email back from him the other day and he has
requested a get together to go over some of the finner points of FOSS.

Last year I was invited by one of the Arts and Technical schools in
Winnipeg to talk to the two teachers about FOSS in in particular Linux.
We spent three days in total going over Linux and LTSP and other stuff.
At the end we had setup LTSP, a firewall for there network, openvpn
server and 2 distro. Ubuntu and Centos 4.

I got a call the other day from the for mentioned school, after the new
school year started, on a technical question. I  went down to the school
and found that one lab was using LTSP for the 20 workstations and the
other lab had installed Kubuntu on all the workstations. I was very
impressed. They have also moved on to install Edubuntu and will be moving
to that for LTSP services. I also found out the they had asked the kids
if they wanted to learn Win2k3 server or Linux and the student voted
unanimously to learn Linux. The up shot here is that the students this
year will get exposure to FOSS. Maybe a few will go on to become active
members in the FOSS community. More recruits for the cause. ;)

Anyways, those are my latest exploits. Hope some other are willing to
post there's as well.

Thanks!!

+------------------------------------+
Best regards,
-Richard Houston
-R.L.H.  Consulting
-E-Mail  rhouston at rlhc.net
-WWW     http://www.rlhc.net
-Blog    http://www.rlhc.net/blog/

>

> With all the past talk of School Board issues, I hope people will be
> getting involved in elections.
>
> I wrote two letters this morning, one as a followup to the
> Ottawa-Carleton District School Board Superintendent of Instruction,
> which I then forwarded to a candidate for trustee in my zone.
>
> For people in Ottawa, the candidates are at:
> http://ottawa.ca/elections/nominated_en.html
>
>
> This is for Mayor, Councilors and School Board trustees.
>
>
> I expect a similar list exists for all the other municipalities that
> are having November elections.  Please write letters to the candidates,
> and ask permission to publish their replies so that other people in the
> community can benefit from the discussions.
>
> Even if the Candidate doesn't win, being introduced to the topic will
> be helpful.  Even if the winning person didn't know much about FLOSS, your
> letter will make it easier to followup with them after the election.
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: School Board elections..
> Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 12:00:44 -0400
> From: Russell McOrmond
> To: Rob Campbell
>
>
>
> Dear Rob Campbell,
>
>
> I live in Ottawa-Carleton District School Board - Zone 9, and notice
> that you have put your name forward for trustee.
>
> My wife is a highschool science teacher in the region, and I am a
> Free/Libre and Open Source Software consultant.  How school boards spend
> and/or invest money in software is important to me, so I will be very
> interested to know your thoughts in this area.
>
> Are you familiar with Free/Libre and Open Source Software, or the
> economic concepts of Peer Production and/or Peer Distribution that is
> behind it? (Links to definitions/etc at http://flora.ca/floss ) Are you
> familiar with how the educational sector worldwide are switching to these
> techniques for the creation and sharing of educational material, over the
> incumbent publisher-dominated models?
>
>
>
>
> I am forwarding you a letter I sent to the past trustee and Laura
> McAlister, Superintendent of Instruction, a few moments ago.  This is a
> followup to a conversation I had earlier in the year.  You can read her
> past reply to one of my letters at
> http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/2531
>
>
>
>
>
> Thank you!
>
>
> When you reply, can you also let me know if I have permission to
> publish your response, or if your response should be kept confidential.
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: OCDSB software
> Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:47:18 -0400
> From: Russell McOrmond
> To: Laura McAlister
> CC: Lynn Graham
>
>
>
> Dear Laura McAlister, Superintendent of Instruction, OCDSB
> (Copy to my current trustee, Lynn Graham)
>
>
>
> I was the person who wrote to you in the past about software being
> used in the board, in the context of a question about whether the board or
> the province were mandating brands.
>
> I have a few followup questions and comments.
>
>
> At that time the door seemed to be open to more conversations on the
> question of software, and how I could help connect members of the
> Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) community with the board.  I
>  am interested to know your thoughts on how to proceed with this.
>
> There are two pieces of software that you are currently using that I
> would like to comment on.   One is the Novell server and the other is
> BlackBoard.
>
>
> Novell as a company has been ideal to provide that bridge between the
> FLOSS and non-FLOSS marketplaces.  They will allow you to make use of
> FLOSS or FLOSS derived software in a manner that is fully supported.
>
>
> I note that you not only use their services for single sign-on and
> for file and print services within schools, but have also enabled remote
> access via https://myfiles.ocdsb.ca/ (Linked from teacher resources on
> the main website).   My wife has been using this quite a bit this year,
> and has made her job considerably easier.   She is able to download
> documents she started at work,  edit at home (On her Linux desktop, using
> the OpenOffice.org suite), and continue later at work.  In the past she
> was emailing file attachments to herself, which was quite a bit harder.
>
> While school boards already have support for an OpenOffice.org office
> suite derivative from Sun Microsystems with StarOffice, it may be useful
> for you to know that Novell also offers a fully supported version of
> OpenOffice.org.  I am not only speaking of the Linux version which is
> obviously included in their SuSE product line, but a fully supported
> version for Microsoft Windows as well.  You should ask the sales
> representative about your options here.
>
>
>
> I also notice that you are using the BlackBoard software at
> http://elearning.ocdsb.edu.on.ca/ .  If you are not aware, there are
> many legal problems being caused by the company behind this software.  I
> have heard roomers that OCDSB is migrating away from this software. This
> will be helpful in that the board will no longer be helping to fund this
> company's legal attacks against the educational sector, but many of the
> legal problems caused by BlackBoard will remain.
>
> I have a few links to resources at:
> http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/2634
>
>
> You may want to read an article at
> http://www.campus-technology.com/news_article.asp?id=19213 which talks
> about some of the legal liability issues.  While written for a University
> environment, many of the problems will exist with elementary and
> secondary school boards as well.
>
>
> Thank you.  If you have any questions, or wish to talk more, please
> contact me.
>
> Russell McOrmond
> 305 Southcrest Private,
> Ottawa, ON
> K1V 2B7
> Phone: (613) 733-5836
> http://www.flora.ca/#contact
>
>
>
> Volunteer policy coordinator for CLUE: Canada's Association for
> Free/Libre and Open Source Software http://cluecan.ca
>
>
> Co-coordinator for Getting Open Source Logic INto Government
> http://goslingcommunity.org
>
>
> Host for Digital Copyright Canada forum http://digital-copyright.ca
>
>
> Self-employed FLOSS consultant
>
>
>