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Feature: Free Software
Teaching educators about free software
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CommentsThe names of the principal, his school, and the school district don't matter. It would be unfair to single them out, since their attitude is the norm rather than the exception, at least in the United States.
I met this man while serving on a Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) committee tasked with deciding which one of 10 schools was going to receive a $10,000 grant to help produce a special school journalism project, hopefully one that would help bring attention to local problems that affected both students and their communities. More than half of the funds requested in the grant applications were for computer hardware and software, with anticipated software expenditures generally exceeding hardware funding requests.
The big software beneficiary of the the grant -- no matter which school receives it -- will not be Microsoft, but Adobe, whose PageMaker, FrameMaker, and Photoshop were the most-requested programs. Even with academic pricing, grant applicants expected to spend at least $1,000 per computer on software, which is more than the cost of a decent desktop computer and 19-inch monitor.
What struck me, as I looked through the grant applications and scanned newspapers and other printed materials these schools were producing, was that they weren't trying to do anything I don't routinely do myself with OpenOffice 1.1, which costs $0.00. None of their photo manipulation needs were extraordinary, and all their current publishing was in black and white, so Photoshop's vaunted ability to make accurate color separations for printing was not needed. And if the rudimentary graphics capability included in OpenOffice wouldn't be adequate, new versions of the GIMP are much more user-friendly than earlier ones; it is now, at least, comparable to Paint Shop Pro for most common uses, including graphics preparation for black and white printing.
Let's not even get into whether schools should convert from Windows to Linux. Windows is "free" in the sense that it's included with almost all computers available from most school districts' authorized suppliers, and trying to convert people currently locked to proprietary software to an entire new operating system may be too large a step to expect at first.
Free software is still comparatively unknown
Any U.S. resident who consistently watches network TV, especially professional sports programs, has at least heard the word "Linux," courtesy of IBM. But there are no ads for free software as a concept. And most people find the idea alien. They aren't against it; they simply have never heard of it. Those of us who read NewsForge or Slashdot regularly, and hang out with friends we've met through Linux Users Groups or IRC, tend to forget that we are not normal. Most people don't debate fine points of GPL enforcement over beer. They don't even know what a GPL is, and if they hear the initials they probably think it has something to do with GPS, as in Ground Positioning Systems, not software licensing.
As you've seen in recent NewsForge stories, neither eBay nor most librarians know that you can freely distribute and redistribute free software until someone comes along and tells them. Why should we expect educators to be different?
Teaching teachers
One big barrier I foresee in teaching teachers -- and school and school district administrators -- about free software is their natural reluctance to teach students to use software that isn't "mainstream." There's no denying the fact that Windows and Windows-based proprietary software are going to be more popular on corporate desktops than Linux and free software for at least another 10 years or so, and educators feel they have an obligation to teach students skills they will be able to use in the "real world" after they graduate.
In graphics Adobe is the undisputed king. You can talk all day about the wonders of GIMP and how Scribus is getting to the point where it rivals Quark in basic functionality, but most ads for newspaper and magazine layout people still ask for Adobe and Quark experience, and employers are going to go on looking for that knowledge for years to come.
I can argue, truthfully, that layout principles are the same no matter what program you use, and that different software shouldn't have any effect on the quality of a publication's appearance, but it is going to take many years to overcome fear of computers as anything besides devices that are used purely by rote, with even tiny changes in configuration made only with great caution. Our major ally here is time. Today's 40-year-old school administrator may not have grown up with a computer in the house, but tomorrow's administrator will almost certainly have had one around since babyhood.
More familiarity with computers in general should lead to more willingness to experiment with new software.
But as we wait for the next generation of computer-familiar school administrators to rise through the education hierarchy, we need to gently work with the current generation to show them how free software can help them get more computer capability per dollar than they are used to getting with proprietary software. We can't tell them, "What you are doing now is wrong, you schlump," even if what they are doing is wrong and, by geek-world standards, they are schlumps. Instead, we must persuade with soft words and kindness. We must demonstrate positives rather than harp on negatives. "Microsoft is evil!" is not an operative statement when convincing school administrators to allow less-expensive alternatives in their classrooms. "Linux can't be affected by any current computer viruses," is a much better persuasive phrase.
The best advocates for open source in education are teachers
The best people to "sell" open source to sysadmins are other sysadmins, and the best people to lobby journalists are other journalists. It is no different with teachers. A teacher who uses open source presumably knows more about how available open source software will benefit his or her colleagues than the rest of us do. Working with administrators may take a slightly different tack, perhaps involving more emphasis on budget than on utility, but an education "insider" will still be able to provide insight someone not in the field will not have.
Even those of us asking school administrators to use open source because we are budget-concerned taxpayers (who should -- but often don't -- have the loudest voice in all government decisions) need to use comments and case studies written by people who have strong education experience.
Here are three fine resources:
- Open Source Education Foundation
- Schoolforge
- SEUL.org case studies (and, of course, the main SEUL.org site)
Using these three sites as starting places, you can find virtually any kind of "open source in schools" advocacy material imaginable, along with a chance to hook up with experienced advocates and exchange information with them.
If you are a teacher seeking information about Linux and open source, and how they can help your school deliver more computer "bang for the buck," you will find it. If you are not a teacher, you will find plenty of information written by teachers and administrators that can help you learn what's important in school software -- and what's not.
But whether you are an education establishment insider or an outsider trying to help local educators, the big thing to remember is that Mozilla wasn't built in a day. The process of bringing open source to schools is long, slow, and arduous, and you are up against well-financed proprietary software companies that regard school districts as lucrative marketplaces, and will spend oodles of dollars on fancy brochures and presentations to keep their education sinecure going as long as possible.Comments
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Ok.
The only problem is English and its confusion about freedom(independent) and free(gratis). All an evil oponent of freedom must do is mud waters by claiming free means "unpaid". We lose battle because of this. So, despite being important to use free, we must come up with another more precise word.
As a side note, "artikel" doesn't seem to be an English word. Do you mean "article"?
People currently use the phrase 'free software' to denote something obtained from download.com or similar site, thus, they brush off everything associated with the phrase 'Free Software' without questioning it. It's a losing battle that cannot be won given the crappiness of stuff on such sites. Use the term 'Freedom Software' and they'll start asking questions. Microsoft already has plenty of FUD out on the term 'Free Software,' let's see them try that with the term Freedom Software!
(as for something on-topic: I think someone should take OOo and put in a box for $50-$100 and thus meet the requirement districts have that it must be shrink-wrapped. Likewise for other products.)
Already done in Brazil. You can go to supermarkets and buy, next to computers and monitors, several low-cost software. I saw Oo.o for about US$ 7.
A shame it was 1.0; made me think there should be a way to upgrade easily to 1.1 via download for dudes with dial-up connections.
They have, it's called "Sun Star Office 7".
Now, off to work that into my email sigs.
Really, I'm surprised that term hasn't been suggested before. It isn't fun trying to change or even re-establish terminology yet again. Might be worth a try though.
Free (fr[=e]), a. [Compar. Freer (-[~e]r); superl.
Freest (-[e^]st).] [OE. fre, freo, AS. fre['o], fr[=i]; akin to D. vrij, OS. & OHG. fr[=i], G. frei, Icel. fr[=i], Sw. & Dan. fri, Goth. freis, and also to Skr. prija beloved, dear, fr. pr[=i] to love, Goth. frij[=o]n. Cf. Affray, Belfry, Friday, Friend, Frith inclosure.]
1. Exempt from subjection to the will of others; not under restraint, control, or compulsion; able to follow one's own impulses, desires, or inclinations; determining one's own course of action; not dependent; at liberty.
"That which has the power, or not the power, to operate, is that alone which is or is not free."
--Locke.
Re:problem with the words 'Free Software'
Posted by: Jonathan Bartlett on December 19, 2003 12:57 AMPerhaps, instead, we should always use capital letters when referring to Free Software, so that people know that we mean something specific.
Capitalizing the phrase only works when in written discussion, such what we're doing. Unfortunately, most of the world communicates (especially business folk) in spoken word (face to face and/or over the phone), where the capitilization of a word/phrase is not obvious. It is those situations where, i feel, Freedom Software works much better.
Additionally, someone reading (or writing!) a proposal or newsletter who is unfamiliar with Free Software may not catch on, and I myself am guilty of it: back in my college days, and before I knew about F/OSS software, I did a report for a COM class (business communications) about a selecting a product for a software development project's usage (the report was the proposal of what to use, how much it would cost, resources required to operate, etc). In the report, I analyzed several different products, both F/OSS (again, not familiar with the idea and philosophy) and proprietary, and chose to recommend a commercial product. CVS was one of the FSS products, but because it was 'free,' I interpreted that to mean cheap, and thus a risk not worth taking.
Unfortunely, the above mentioned school probably only uses the version of IE that came with the windows installation, which (I would imagine) means that they not only would not allow the installation of an alternate (more standards compliant) browser, but would even prohibit upgrading IE to the current version. To bad, the students will graduate with an outdated skillset (in web design, or whatever you want to call it) and not even be aware of the fact, or that there is a set of standards that they should strive for. And that is just one issue!
http://support.openoffice.org/
http://www.staroffice.com/
http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/12/03/225024<nobr>0<wbr></nobr> .shtml
Regards
I'm confused, are these officials too busy to read the EULA's they purchase? The vast majority of licensing agreements specifically hold inventors / distributors blameless upon failure. MicroSoft would have gone bankrupt @ Win 3.0 if they were legally liable for system crashes or lost data.
Ya - you can point all you want but will that solve you problem?
With Open Source you get so much more valuable help with much richer content then calling a support desk of some software maker and getting a secretary and passed on number of times before not solving you problem - but yet you can still point.
Being in IT for 15 years now - and having called software companies and having to find solutions with the opensource web resources I would have to give the nod to opensource. I have never had a problem that I could not find online and I have been using Linux since slackware was out before RedHat and computers had the dreaded isa bus and irq manual assignment.
I will take opensource web resources anytime over tech support of a company. It is great not to have to keep track of our support contract number or license key just to get the non-help. I didn't go to four years of college to keep track of license keys.
Oh and you better keep all your license keys handy when the BSA comes knocking and wants to audit your school. Ya - that is what I want my school adminstrators doing - keeping track of licenses instead of the children.
Whats wrong with that picture. Its a computer put linux on it and forget it and when the BSA comes knocking tell them to fsck off!!!
Ah, a relitive newbee to Linux. I started in November 1991 with HJ Lu's boot/root disks.
As for the actual point, while it's true that the "support" you can get from the Open Source community is better than just about every commercial counterpart, you can't expect schools to handle the support of their computers themselves. The teachers and administration don't have the time to search the web and lists for answers. We who have been in the IS business and who work with it every day sometimes forget that it's easy for us to go find an answer that way because that's what we do anyway. A teacher would be lucky to have an hour a week to spend on software support. This is what we need to address.
1. It's hard to spend money that way. Let see, we can buy ?? copies of free software with $10,000?
2. Prestige... using Free Software doesn't look very professional.
3. Their parents and friends probably don't have Free Software.
4. Software Envy. They can't stand that they don't have a $500 piece of proprietary software. Those poor kids will be failures!
Probably many more. Got to tear down those walls! Keep up the good work.
Case in point, any engineering, math, or Masters - PhD level group I've supported have had high levels of Linux / BSD penetration. At the local university, it's always that squirelly 140+ IQ freak who has Slackware running on his desktop, regardless of whether he's a geologist, chemist, poet or janitor.
Linux, because you're smarter than the average sod.
And with that, Bill Gates can sleep soundly at night knowing that his monopoly is secure, thanks to the mistaken popular belief invented by the Microsoft FUD machine, underpinned by Microsoft's unethical practices and propagated by the willing media that Windows somehow "belongs in the box".
But then you said that we shouldn't get into this argument...
and yes we do need to teach kids they are allowed to make moral descicions.
I agree with RMS that the ethic is overlooked by the open source community although it(open source) is a step in the wright direction,<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..... but the name Free Software just doesn't sound ok. It's because Free is ascociated with "no money" in my head , and I guess most peoples minds do this.
Lets stick with GNU GPL!
TITLE 17 - COPYRIGHTS
CHAPTER 2 - COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP AND TRANSFER
Sec. 205. Recordation of transfers and other documents
(e) Priority Between Conflicting Transfer of Ownership and Nonexclusive License. -
A nonexclusive license, whether recorded or not, prevails over a conflicting transfer of copyright ownership if the license is evidenced by a written instrument signed by the owner of the rights licensed or such owner's duly authorized agent, and if -
(1) the license was taken before execution of the transfer;
or
(2) the license was taken in good faith before recordation of the transfer and without notice of it.
What this says is any person distributing the GPL'd code after legal transfer, without a signed in writing GPL license is infringing on the new owner's copyrights.
Read it closely before your mouse finger convulses.
No it doesn't. What it says is that if the author of some code transfers his ownership of the code after it was contributed to a GPL project, the new owner can't try to take it back because the nonexclusive license previals. Duh.
instrument" clause?
could you point me to it please.
Looks like yours convulsed - the sentence above does not make any sense (without a signed in writing) - if you are going to argue about the GPL please proof read - you must of had microsoft software in your school.
Please check your grammer also (without a signed in writing?) it is hard to argue with someone that can't complete a sentence.
It's like this, when you got Linux you also got a license from IBM to use their copyrighted works but when you give a copy to your friend they got a license from IBM as well even though you made the copy. When you get a copy of AIX from IBM the copyright license again comes to you from IBM even though AIX is a derivative of UNIX SVRx. That is because IBM has a contract saying they can prepare derivatives and licence those to their customers. What is confusing is that contract and license are sometimes used interchangeably.
Do you see the difference here? If I gave you the Nonexclusive right to sublicense my copyrighted work, Such as IBM has with SVRx, we would need some type of contract that would have to be signed. This is fundamentally different than the GPL. However IANAL etc.
A CD duplicator costs $700. The teachers are in charge of which CD's are created. With ISO's from the Gutenberg project, TheOpenCD or Freeduc it allows the pupils to experiment on their home computers. The Duplicator can also can be used to create a school magazine that can be sold. Effectively you are giving them a printing press. The School computers don't need to be touched.
This will allow all students to have access to the same software regardless of financial status. With older computers now being within reach of most. Parents can pay for the CD's at $1 a time. The funds go back to the school for whatever they wish.
This leaves control completely in the hands of the teachers
The duplicator can then be lent out to another school.
It is possible to make a single kiosk style standalone computer that creates CD's very easily and cheaply as an introduction to the idea.
in fact, you could probably obtain a few free sample discs to begin with anyway(or download an ISO and burn themselves a copy if they don't care about presentation too much).
more info at http://www.theopencd.org/
Bullshit. RMS isn't trying to force anyone to do anything.
Administrators and CEO's really don't want your ethics pushed upon them.
This thread isn't about CEOs, it's about educators. People who should be concerned about the intellectual development, including the ethical development, of their pupils.
>educators. People who should be concerned about
>the intellectual development, including the
>ethical development, of their pupils.
Yes, and the idea that using "proprietary" software is actually -unethical- is such a common, widely shared belief in our society that we should encourage teachers and educators to indoctrinate their students with this philosophy. This is not only a good idea, but it's sure to succeed, because this is such a commonly held view!
Sarcasm mode off!
Look, not everybody is on the RMS groupthink bandwagon. Even the word proprietary with respect to software is part of that groupthink, because it's used in a way that has very little relation to the word itself in English. (See also: GNU/Linux and Free Software.) I respect the man, I respect his genius, and I respect what he's done for the community. But not all of us have drunk the "proprietary is unethical" Kool-Aid, even many of us who are huge fans of, and prefer, open software (including GNU software) for all sorts of reasons.
taking and grabbing to fit their need<nobr> <wbr></nobr>......
they just won't see.
Plant it like a seed...
The result is more than you ever hoped it be.
Ethi
Point us to just one place where RMS has written "proprietary is unethical". Or just one place where he is reliably reported to have said it. You put it in quotes, implying you're quoting. I'm calling you a liar. And I'm not hiding behind an Anonymous Reader identity.
>where he is reliably reported to have said it. >You put it in quotes, implying you're quoting. >I'm calling you a liar. And I'm not hiding behind >an Anonymous Reader identity.
You seem to think I was trolling or misrepresenting RMS's views. I wasn't.
Call me whatever names you like. What I'm saying is factually correct: this is RMS's view, and the stated view of the "Free Software" movement as per RMS. I suggest you take a look at gnu.org, or simply ask RMS himself. He thinks proprietary software is unethical.
I don't think most people in the Open/Free software community agree with that view. Bruce Perens describes this as his primary disagreement with Richard, for example. And I think suggesting that we teach that view in schools was a damn stupid idea, thus my post.
"A person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and this means saying 'No' to proprietary software."
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html
"Proprietary software is antisocial, so developing it is wrong."
http://lwn.net/2002/features/rms.php3
On the distinction between "free" and "open": "They wanted to distance themselves from the ethical stance of the free software movement, which says that users are morally entitled to the freedom to share and change software. The open source movement never says that non-free software is ethically wrong, only that they do not prefer it."
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/iterations/stallman.html
"The idea that the proprietary-software social system is wrong - the system that says are not allowed to share or change software—is antisocial, that it is unethical, that is simply wrong, may come as a surprise to some readers. But what else could we say about a system based on dividing the public and keeping users helpless?"
http:/216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:1lb7Z-APsPIJ:<nobr>n<wbr></nobr> otabug.com/2002/rms-essays.pdf+stallman+software+<nobr>u<wbr></nobr> nethical&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Oh, I put proprietary in quotes because I think it's the wrong term for what it's describing. I alluded to that in my post.
I think you owe my anonymous self an apology.
Yeah, I totally remember the time RMS came to my house carrying this big stick and a CD with Emacs, and he shouted "USE THIS! NOW!" while threatening to smack me with the shillelagh. I still have a knot on my head from when I forgot that CTRL-X-W was for "save as".
If you hand them free software as if it were just a crappy workalike for commercial software, they'll reject it. If you show them that it represents a job sector that their students are *not being prepared for*, they'll accept it in a heartbeat.
Both accomplish the same task as expensive proprietary, branded products, but are much cheaper because they are unencumbered with restrictive licenses/patents.
Maybe this could be a way to educate those people more easily ?
Jurgen
If you live in South East Asia and consider studying in Western Australia, please don't. Consider more advanced countries and universities that don't rip students off.
I am a graduate student majoring in Educational Technology. Like you, I am fighting to bring free and open source to the attention of the educational community and I am doing it for a variety of reasons. Most of my classmates are certified teachers, some of them having taught for 15+ years, while my background is in business IT.
Just as you have stated, we need to educate the educators on free software and we need to do it slowly and gently. The good news that you came close to, but still missed, is the educational discount that school budget managers love so dearly. You can get them to listen to any pitch for a good deal on commercial software, so why not use that to ease them into it? They get turned off of OpenOffice as soon as you mention that its free software, but you can hold their attention quite well when you tell them that StarOffice, a commercial Office suite, is free (as in free beer) for educational use. I know, I know...StarOffice is not free or open source, but it is nearly identical to OpenOffice (to the end user) and shares the same codebase. It also allows me to show the school administrators that there is a company that stands behind it. Besides, Sun deserves at least a little credit for the existence of OO anyway. Once they have a little taste, the OO discussion becomes much less painful.
Its all baby steps...
Second, I don't see why a school administrator that would see the advantage in an educational discount wouldn't want to use OpenOffice.org. I think it all comes down to how you pitch the whole thing. The problem is their inherent ignorance, so take advantage of that. Tell them it's "free for educational institutions", which is completely true (you just leave out the part about it being free for everyone else as well<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)). You don't have to sell them on the idea of Free Software, GPL dogma, etc., just as long as you get it into the school systems. Then, in the future, when another pitch comes by for Free Software they can finally tell the stupid admins that "Hey, you're already using Free Software right now".
Another idea is to start up a distribution company for specific pieces of Free Software (i.e OpenOffice.org versus OOo along with GNU/Linux), and then give schools educational discounts on the materials. Then they can feel secure with the fact that they're getting a great discount from a commercial organization.
In any case, proprietary software does not have to be a "baby step" to Free Software.
Actually, I didn't define commercial software, but while we are on the topic, OO is not commercial software from the school administrator's point of view, which was my point. I'm well aware that you can legally copy it and sell those copies, which fits your definition of commercial. As a happy Linux user, I have no problem with that. However, most people that resell free software also include no support whatsoever, which is the problem that school admins have with it. Proprietary software does at least generally carry the illusion of support.
Please understand that I'm not trying to argue with you or even defend the ignorance of school administrators, but as the article's writer pointed out, we need to understand that we, the free software users, are not the norm. I'm pretty sure he also pointed out that these people are not stupid. Tricking them into using OO by saying its free for educational purposes isn't going to fly...I already tried it. I did, however, succeed in getting two of my classmates (both in-service teachers) to try Linux at home and I got a few more to try StarOffice. I'm also talking to a nearby college about switching entirely to StarOffice. Sure, I'd prefer that they use OO, but surely, StarOffice is a good step. Besides, every teacher who tries this at home because I told them about it in class is just one step closer to the goal.
Free Software
Posted by: Enquest on December 17, 2003 11:41 PMOpen source is also ok but in a lesser extend. Certainly when it commes to schools.
Nice artikel!
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