FOSS in South Australian Public Schools CD

A very interesting and promising project is unfolding in South Australia. It is a grass roots innovation that has achieved a lot in the last week. A group of educators and technical support people in South Australian schools are collaborating to produce a FOSS CD specifically for use in South Australian public schools. Well it is not quite a true FOSS CD as there are programs being considered that are closed source but free.

The collaboration is happening via the technical talk list and wiki . CD iso's are starting to appear for sharing and various people are working on ways to make the customisation of a CD possible for schools that struggle with skilled technical support. Consideration is being given to a core group of programs and then making it possible for schools to choose from some elective options.

I am wondering how central office will work with this. Will it be supported by them? Will they encourage this software to also be installed on all computers in schools?