This is an edited for formatting followup letter to 2006 OCDSB Zone 9 Trustee Candidate Rob Campbell.
Thank you for your quick reply. I have posted all 3 letters to http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/2686
Different aspects of FLOSS excite different people. While it is true that with FLOSS there is no marginal costs for licensing, this doesn't mean it is free/gratis to use. Any use of software has costs associated with it, including administrative, training and support costs. Many of these costs are fixed costs, and do not rely on the number of computers using the software, which itself simplifies many problems.
When a board is already in a financial crisis, it isn't the right time to make a switch. Any migration has additional short-term costs. While these costs might be paid for with long-term savings, budget crunches often require short-term cost cutting.
What people seem to forget is that this cost of migration includes major upgrades within the same brand, and not just upgrades to competing brands. Microsoft operating systems prior to Windows 2000 and Windows XP are no longer sold or supported, with Microsoft Vista expected to be released next year. The switch from prior Microsoft operating systems to these newer versions of Microsoft Windows is not that much easier (or much more compatible with older software) than a switch to Linux, with the switch to Vista likely seeming much more foreign to users. When the incumbent vendor is no longer supporting current software, and a migration is needed anyway, becomes the ideal time to look at more effective alternatives.
Peer production and peer distribution are not concepts that should be thought of as related only to software. Recently a letter to the editor I wrote to the University of Calgary undergraduate student newsweekly was published. It suggested an alternative to the battles the educational sector is currently having with educational publishers, which is to switch to methods of production, distribution and funding of educational materials which did not charge a per-unit cost. There are a growing number of services that use these models, including the Public Library of Science, MIT OpenCourseWare, Wikipedia, and The Internet Archive. (See also: "Marginal cost = Marginal price = $0" )
The fact that this material has no marginal cost has benefits beyond financial. The educational environment has always been one that naturally shares information. Teachers want to be able to freely share information with students. Imagine an environment where all the materials in the textbooks, course notes, and all the software used in the school could be handed to a student as a free DVD in September. Textbooks would still need to be printed and bound, but this cost would be far lower than what schools currently pay, and this material would not be included in any fees the schools have to pay to Access Copyright. Students would not need to worry about whether what they learned at school, or wrote to their Thumb Drive at school, was compatible with what they did at home as they would be given (for free) all the software they need -- and encouraged to share this software.
Students who are learning computer science would have the option to read the blueprints of all the software used in the school. This allows them to learn computing the way that they learn English: by being able to study existing great works, and in the case of the computer able to quickly test out how their own modifications to these works would work.
You mentioned some practical issues around FLOSS. Some of the largest organizations and infrastructure depend on FLOSS, including the Internet itself. Some of the largest companies such as IBM and Novell, as well as the smallest self employed people, offer full commercial support for FLOSS in a competitive marketplace. In fact, it makes more sense to do so given the blueprints to the software are publicly available and thus you are not dependant on a single vendor (and their business path) to receive fixes and other support. While I believe it is appropriate to "bet the organization" on transparent and accountable software like FLOSS, I'm not so convinced it is appropriate to do so with non-FLOSS.
I hope that was not too much. Feel free to add any additional comments any time during the campaign, or after if you become my trustee.
Thank you.