Breakthrough: Open Source Firm Official Supplier to British Schools
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta), the government body with the mission of "Leading next generation learning," has for the first time included Open Source enterprises on their list of official software and IT service suppliers for the nation's schools.
At the same time, the Becta agency collaborated with the British Office for Government Commerce (OGC) to create a Software for Educational Institutions Framework agreement. The framework will replace the current software licensing scheme with a new one starting in October. Becta selected 12 suppliers for the new framework agreement. Included on this list is Sirius Corporation, a British Open Source solutions provider. Becta will sign formal agreements with the suppliers and British schools are to orient themselves to the new list over the next four years. About £80 million worth of business is expected, "delivering significant savings over what could be achieved via ad-hoc procurement mechanisms."
"The Inquirer" newspaper considers the new Becta suppliers list an "historic UK breakthrough" for Open Source. Mark Taylor, president of Sirius, confirms this assessment. Educational bodies had been reluctant to adopt Open Source solutions while they were absent from the approved list. Now, Taylor says, there is a strong pressure on schools and regional bodies to make their purchasing budgets comply with the new agreement.
Becta had become increasingly skeptical of Microsoft. Beginning of the year, the agency discouraged schools from migrating to Windows Vista. They were also strongly against ISO approval of Microsoft's OOXML document format and recommended the existing Open Document Format (ODF) instead.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
![Learn More](https://www.linux-magazine.com/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/media/linux-magazine-eng-us/images/misc/learn-more/834592-1-eng-US/Learn-More_medium.png)
News
-
NVIDIA Released Driver for Upcoming NVIDIA 560 GPU for Linux
Not only has NVIDIA released the driver for its upcoming CPU series, it's the first release that defaults to using open-source GPU kernel modules.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 24.07 Released
If you’re into rolling release Linux distributions, OpenMandriva ROME has a new snapshot with a new kernel.
-
Kernel 6.10 Available for General Usage
Linus Torvalds has released the 6.10 kernel and it includes significant performance increases for Intel Core hybrid systems and more.
-
TUXEDO Computers Releases InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen9 Laptop
Sporting either AMD or Intel CPUs, the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 is an extremely compact, lightweight, sturdy powerhouse.
-
Google Extends Support for Linux Kernels Used for Android
Because the LTS Linux kernel releases are so important to Android, Google has decided to extend the support period beyond that offered by the kernel development team.
-
Linux Mint 22 Stable Delayed
If you're anxious about getting your hands on the stable release of Linux Mint 22, it looks as if you're going to have to wait a bit longer.
-
Nitrux 3.5.1 Available for Install
The latest version of the immutable, systemd-free distribution includes an updated kernel and NVIDIA driver.
-
Debian 12.6 Released with Plenty of Bug Fixes and Updates
The sixth update to Debian "Bookworm" is all about security mitigations and making adjustments for some "serious problems."
-
Canonical Offers 12-Year LTS for Open Source Docker Images
Canonical is expanding its LTS offering to reach beyond the DEB packages with a new distro-less Docker image.
-
Plasma Desktop 6.1 Released with Several Enhancements
If you're a fan of Plasma Desktop, you should be excited about this new point release.