[OS:N:] Re: K12 and Red Hat

[David Tisdell <penguintiz yahoo com>]

Hi all,
I appreciate the input from everyone especially the
folks from Red Hat. Several Red Hat folks emailed me
off list and were very understanding of the problem.
Part of the problem is a communication issue.
Apparently the sales channel is unaware of initiatives
in education. For example, one of the Red Hat folks
who emailed me off list sent me this link:
https://rhn.redhat.com/info/education/ 
It has very helpful information related to Red Hat in
education yet none of the sales people pointed me in
this direction. Perhaps they should have a script of
what they should do when k12 calls. A lot of my
frustration would have been taken away by someone
making me aware of this link. On several occasions in
the last 18 months, Red Hat's CEO has made
announcements saying that Red Hat is going to do x, y
or z for education. After hearing about some of this
in the news, I have called Red Hat on some occasions
and no one seems to know what I am talking about. The
CEO should not make announcements that he is not going
to follow through on. Either the announcements are hot
air or people in the organization are not being
informed about where to direct inquiries and so can't
be helpful. Either way the company looks bad and makes
it harder for people like me (a big fan of Linux) to
convince the powers that be that it is a good idea to
travel down that road.
Some on the list have suggested that an OS shouldn't
be deployed unless you know what you are getting into.
I quite agree. I consider myself a very competent
system administrator with a good working knowledge of
a variety of OSes and don't deploy things willy nilly.
I am responsible for several Netware and Linux servers
and support over 200 desktop clients plus some WAN
resources and offer Professional Development training.
To suggest that keeping a few linux boxes up to date
manually is not a problem shows a lack of
understanding of how many hats I have to wear in
school network administration. While I feel like a
have a good broad understanding of networks and
desktop OSes and some real depth in some areas, I
can't know everything. That is why having a tool like
RHN at my disposal would be very helpful. My case is
not unique. Often a school administrator is
responsible for the firewall, mail system, file and
print servers, web server, database servers,
application servers, curriculum integration,
school/district professional development, technology
budgeting, telephone systems, desktop support, network
security, etc. In my school I am responsible for
almost all of those things and some of my collegues in
nearby schools are responsible for all of those
things. In my small state, we are a large school.
Compared to large schools in other states, we are not
(1000 students). If I didn't have tools to automate
things, I wouldn't keep up with anything. I will never
have the kind of help a company has that does the same
amount of IT work we do.
Schools could be a great place for Linux distributors
to place their product. If kids start to grow up using
Linux and Open Source apps, that is what they will be
looking for as they get older and become independent
consumers. I think it is in Red Hat's (and other linux
distros)interest to put a little more effort into
schools. The long term returns could be quite
beneficial.
Dave

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