Need for good ICT adult education today, was: Apple or Ubuntu

[M. Fioretti]

(this is a message that I composed weeks ago but, for some reason
still unknown to me, sit in my "postponed" mailbox until now, sorry if
it looked like I just ignored Colin's comments)

On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 18:00:25 PM +0100, Colin Watson

> Oh, I don't know, my parents might well do if only by asking me.
> 
> One of the things we're trying to create with this whole free software
> thing is an environment where knowledge about how to fix software is
> decentralised.

But we can't get there (politically and legally) if we don't convince
non-geeks to lobby for this goal.

> software is an anomaly in our society

I am strongly convinced that software is simply so recent and more
alien (compared with all other technologies) that it is very dangerous
for FOSS to expect that the majority of people today will react to
anything software related like they would in any other case.

> I also think it's tremendously important to nurture the next
> generation of programmers... 

Of course. But if we don't make something really soon to convince the
_parents_ of that next generations, that is the parents of kids who
are in school today, that they must do something, the next Linus
Torvalds won't have the technical or legal possibility to do something
worthwhile. The only ones who can let you or me "nurture the next
generation of programmers" soon enough and on a scale big enough to
make a difference before it's too late are TODAY's parents. They are
the ones we must win over, asap.

> With any luck their parents might even care about the quality of
> their education, and get something that sounds like it would make a
> good learning tool rather than something marketed as an appliance.

Sure. But are today's parents _able_ to recognize what is a good
software learning tool? More than one every 1000 of them, that is? Can
they absorb this capability by anything they read today at gnu.org or
fsf.org?  Have twenty years of Gnu-style advocacy done anything
effective from this point of view?

Please note that I'm not criticizing the content and ideals of those
sites and their authors, I'm just pointing out that they are (in style
and attitude) totally ineffective among the general public.

> Why do we have to assume that end users only want black-box
> appliances and never want to learn?

Because this isn't an assumption at all now, it is just the way the
REAL world is today, for 99 adults out of 100. This is where the
standard Stallman/FSF talks fall miserably short, and where many FOSS
advocates dangerously delude themselves. The sooner we get to grip
with this reality, the better for FOSS. As I wrote in
http://digifreedom.net/node/57:

> "People" want to... "feel in control by having source code"?? Please
> go in the streets, and ask the first N people you meet, with N as
> big as you like, if they want that, or if they would feel more in
> control if you handed to them some source code.

It is a fact that almost nobody of those who vote and/or educate TODAY
_wants_ to look under software hoods, or can be convinced to care
about software licenses by the Gnu Manifesto alone. Or from any
campaign that sayd "boycott this or that... because it's bad for Free
Software".

> Both data formats and environment conversion are important, and I
> never said otherwise. However, I'd argue that data formats are much
> more important in a commercial setting, where I entirely agree with
> you that interoperability is essential.

I'll just add here that the Public sector is much more important, if
not the only important one: if, for example, we convince NORMAL
people, not the geeks on this and other FOSS lists, to vote for law
that say only OpenDocument is allowed for archival of public documents
and/or interchanging office files with Public Administrations, the
bigger part of the Microsoft monopoly just disappears.

> My experience of converting small-time home users is that they
> don't care all that much about many of their documents,

This is because, by and large, we haven't gone all digital yet as a
society. If something is really important, people still rely on paper,
since they bought home computers just as typewriterswith a monitor or
game consoles. 

But society and services are going digitall very quickly, so it's
important to make people see that their home files being locked in an
emulator may be irrelevant but means that something much more serious
is already happening to their rights and wallet see
http://digifreedom.net/node/44 .

> I've done just this for home users by simply setting up the old
> application to run under emulation when I couldn't find any way of
> importing its data, and there was never any problem with this
> solution.

Well, you've just masked the problem, haven't you? Of course, as long
as it's family recipe databases or pictures galleries, no big deal at
all. It is important, however, to make the general public aware that
this kind of solution is unacceptable for public documents.

> > There are many private and small business users who _want_ to
> > change, but cannot do it only because of formats. I can be eager
> > to migrate to FOSS as much as I want, but if, in order to eat, I
> > have to exchange with customers and suppliers large spredsheets
> > with MS Office macros or Publisher files (just to name two in
> > thousands of practical examples)...
> 
> I agree with you in the business market

the other scenario where there is the same problem is education:
public schools which demand students to deliver homework, admission
forms, theses, etc... in proprietary formats.

Summing all up, please be assured that this is not at all an attack of
any sort to Colin. I'm just starting from it to try to say that:

there is a serious need to inform and educate today's _adults_ as soon
as possible, starting from ALL parents and teachers, because without
THEIR votes and actions we cannot win;

that we have no time to wait for some next generation to grow up
enough competent and responsible, as the means to become such are
being locked in these very years:

and that it's dangerous to assume, only because we the few people on
these forums all agree that the GNU manifesto is great, that repeating
it is going to make any meaningful difference soon enough to avoid
serious damage.

Ciao,
		Marco Fioretti
-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on
how software is used *around* you:    http://digifreedom.net/node/84