Open source finally approved for UK schools

 

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Posted on 23 Sep 2008 at 10:02

Open-source software has reached an historic milestone by winning accreditation from Becta to be used by schools.

Twelve open-source companies have achieved accreditation under Becta's "Software for Educational Institutions Framework" agreement, which allows schools to fast-track their purchase of IT services without having to go through a convoluted procurement process which can stretch implementation from weeks to months.

Previously the list was a shutout for open source, with only proprietary companies represented. While this didn't stop schools from approaching unaccredited companies, there was often a reluctance to do so.

"Take Moodle [course management software], for example," says Mark Taylor, president of the Sirius Corporation, one of the newly accredited companies. "Moodle is already massively used in higher education, and loads of schools want to use it. But because no supplier was on the list, if a school wanted to use it there'd be quite a lot of pressure not to from local authorities. Hopefully that can change now."

While the accreditation does not necessarily mean open-source software will be adopted by schools immediately, it does finally put it on a level-playing field with proprietary companies such as Microsoft.

The Office of Government Commerce will release the full list of accredited companies later today, but Sirius has already been confirmed and says the future is bright.

"We are absolutely delighted, but this unknown territory for us as a company, and the industry," says Taylor. "We already have significant deployments in industry, but the assumption is that this should affect our business significantly."

Author: Stuart Turton