Re: certification [was: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Intro and a request for information]

[Philip Hunt]

On Sunday 14 November 2004  1:04 pm, Ian Lynch wrote:
> > But have also found looking round regional Italian sites that councils
> > are offering ECDLs with openoffice etc, and that a linux based ECDL has
> > been recognised by Italian ECDL adminstrators AICA (similar to UK BCS?)
> > - http://www.aicanet.it/ , although there are still complaints that the
> > MS material is not totally avoidable.
> > Does anyone know what's going on in other European countries - or even
> > better, anything going on here? The UK site - http://www.ecdl.co.uk/ -
> > says 'ECDL is not restricted to Microsoft applications an  testing and
> > training can be done on the Lotus suite of applications. A number of the
> > automated test providers allow tests to be done using Lotus as well as
> > Microsoft.' Which is not a lot of consolation.
>
> Ask them why they aren't supporting OpenOffice.org as its user base is
> the fastest growing of any Office suite in the world. Over 30 million
> downloads to date.

Good question.

Where does the ECDL come from? Is it to do with the EU? (I looked on the
UK website and it didn't say).

Is the ECDL in any way taxpayer funded? If it is, then it shouldn't be a 
form of advertising for private companies -- if Microsoft and Lotus want 
people trained in using their software, let them organise it and pay for 
it. Instead, it should concentrate on training people in open source 
software such as OOo.org, which is owned by everyone (in the sense that 
everyone has the permananet right to use and modify it).

-- 
Phil Hunt