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[amador]

Hi, I don't know if admin is the appropriate forum to ask, but just in case: do you know of any university or college that has made a full or nearly full switch to open source software?  If so, did this have a positive impact on the school's finances and efficiency?  Are there any reports or papers out there with hard data on this?

[larryc]

I will follow this thread with interest. I think the U of Washington faculty adopted a resolution supporting open source last year, but don't know what if anything has come of it.

[profxfiles]

We have talked about it here, but we are bound by a system-wide blood oath to Microsoft for at least three more years, sadly.

[larryc]

I googled about and can't find much. There is the occasional "open = good" statement of principal but precious little follow through from IT. 

[dr_strangelove]

It's not clear to me what sort of software this thread is supposed to be about. Is it content management systems like Moodle or Sakai? (BTW, I would be curious to hear from people who have experience with Sakai.) Open source software on the desktop or in the lab (e.g. open office)? A whole campus run on linux servers? Something else?

[mended_drum]

Our campus took a shot at using open source software for freshman writing and it was, I have to say, a disaster.  The reason was because of too little tech support for either students or faculty, either on or off campus.  Maybe if I.T. had gotten behind it, it would have gone better, but they didn't, and we've discontinued the program.