<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">There is a great metaphor for the phenomenon of the cost of open source projects. While you often hear the "Free as in beer" vs. "Free as in speech" discussion, perhaps the best way to describe the way an educational institution employing a CMS like Wordpress is "Free as in Puppy". In other words, free to get, but a lot of time, energy and resources to keep going. I find it a good, quick way of describing it to people, since it seems to strike a chord. <br><br>Hope that's helpful,<br>Brian Moynihan<br><br>--- On <b>Thu, 11/6/08, wp-edu-request@lists.automattic.com <i><wp-edu-request@lists.automattic.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">From: wp-edu-request@lists.automattic.com <wp-edu-request@lists.automattic.com><br>Subject: wp-edu Digest, Vol 1, Issue 5<br>To:
wp-edu@lists.automattic.com<br>Date: Thursday, November 6, 2008, 7:00 AM<br><br><pre>Send wp-edu mailing list submissions to<br> wp-edu@lists.automattic.com<br><br>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit<br> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-edu<br>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to<br> wp-edu-request@lists.automattic.com<br><br>You can reach the person managing the list at<br> wp-edu-owner@lists.automattic.com<br><br>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific<br>than "Re: Contents of wp-edu digest..."<br><br><br>Today's Topics:<br><br> 1. Re: Advocacy (Chris Hajer)<br><br><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Message: 1<br>Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 02:28:55 -0600<br>From: "Chris Hajer" <chrishajer@gmail.com><br>Subject: Re: [wp-edu] Advocacy<br>To: wp-edu@lists.automattic.com<br>Message-ID:<br>
<fc88cff80811060028t31f8833dyca80432b738ec535@mail.gmail.com><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1<br><br>James,<br><br>I understand completely the point you're making. There is a cost to<br>getting anything up and running and keeping it there, proprietary,<br>closed, open, whatever (operating systems, CMS, desktop apps, etc.)<br>But the fact remains that WordPress IS free to start with, freely<br>available, and there is no ongoing licensing fee. That's a huge<br>departure from what a lot of municipalities and schools are used to.<br>It is normal for a consultant to come in with a proposal, and right<br>off the top is software licensing.. It's expected, it's normal,<br>it's<br>what the administrators are used to dealing with. None of that makes<br>it right, but it is one of the things you come up against, oddly<br>enough.<br><br>The other philosophical change for schools is changing from a desktop<br>app publishing mentality to a
web-based, modern CMS publishing<br>mentality. I mentioned previously iWeb from Apple, and I have seen<br>Dreamweaver, HomeSite, Microsoft Front Page and Publisher and probably<br>others, all in use on the desktop. That's another hurdle. Once the<br>foot is in the door with a modern CMS like WordPress, we need to<br>change behaviour again.<br><br>I think it's great that we are even having this discussion in the first<br>place.<br><br>Cheers,<br>Chris Hajer<br><br><br>On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 10:40 PM, James Groom <jimgroom@gmail.com> wrote:<br>> I think the point that WordPress is free isn't exactly true, all<br>> software (whether open source or proprietary) comes at a cost.<br><br><br>------------------------------<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>wp-edu mailing list<br>wp-edu@lists.automattic.com<br>http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-edu<br><br><br>End of wp-edu Digest, Vol 1, Issue
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