Linux in schools?

[Paul Schulz]

Hi Dan,

All good points but the proprietary software distributors realise this
and get creative and sneaky. See:
http://mawsonlakesorg.blogspot.com/2007/11/2007-federal-election-commentary.html

On Dec 1, 2007 12:07 PM, Daniel Mons <daniel.mons at iinet.net.au> wrote:

(snip)

> It's about more that cost.  Free Software in schools is a huge boost for
> students as it means the number applications at their disposal are
> nearly unlimited.

Agreed

> Standard school desktops might have MS Windows and Office and that's it.
>   Maybe one or two licenses of some other expensive proprietary software
> (I've seen some schools with a dozen licenses of Dreamweaver and Flash
> MX or AutoCAD, but not nearly enough for the volume of students).

Due to the hassle for managing licences for individual schools,
software licensing is now usually negotiated at the Education
department or school collective (eg. Catholic schools) level.

These negotiations end up with Windows and Office licensing at a lower
'educational' rate but where the amount is tied to student or computer
numbers, which usually also includes 'educational home use'.

> But certainly not With Free Software - there's a host of programming and
> development tools in a wide variety of languages and needs (OS design,
> application design, game design, or even just for learning basic
> programming skills for the young), math programs for young and old,
> graphic design, CAD, photo editing, video editing and professional
> Hollywood-level 3D tools for multimedia studies, software suites for
> physics and chemistry studies, office packages, project planning
> packages... the list goes on forever.

All available for free, and freely usable by everyone at no cost.

> The bigger picture is the freedom of distribution.  With non-free
> software if you were to give a student a copy of MS Office to take home,
> you ar e performing a criminal act (ironic how under non-free software it
> is criminal to help your students).  With free software every student
> may take home a copy of all the software they use at school.  This is a
> huge opportunity for students to continue their learning outside of
> their school environment and really explore the tools at their disposal.
>  Similarly the students are under no restriction to complete assignments
> and projects in grossly inadequate school computer labs.

.. buy why should the decision makers be interested in anything other
than proprietary software?

> The "free as in freedom" message is much more important than the "free
> as in cost" message currently being pushed to education department
> decision makers.  Microsoft, Adobe and AutoDesk have been throwing free
> (cost) licenses at schools for years now as enticement to teach students
> their non-free software so that they take that "expertise" (read:
> "vendor lock in") into the working environment half a generation later.
>  What the education department decision makers don't realise is how much
> harm these free-of-cost but license restricted software choices are
> doing to the children they are trying to educate.

So.. how do we get the message through?
One example, from this time last year..
http://mawsonlakesorg.blogspot.com/2006/12/ubuntu-mantioned-in-south-australian.html

(Who want's to start a new thread?)

Cheers,
Paul

> -Dan
>

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