[IAEP] USB based access in Australia

[Sebastian Silva]

2008/12/11  <forster at ozonline.com.au>:
> Con has done quite a lot of work promoting the use of open source software here and will be well known to many IT teachers. At least in the state of Victoria, the education department has done a bulk purchase of Microsoft software and software is then seen as effectively free at the school level in government schools. Even though the schools are free to chose what software they teach with, there is little driver to move them to open source.

This is a battle that is happening all over the Globle. Microsoft
needs to perpetuate its monopoly and has no scruples to dump their
software into education, even giving free hardware (there is a promise
for 1000 XOs with windows for Peru). This conduct must clearly be
monitored coming from a convicted monopolist.

I believe privative software ought to be banned in public schools
altogether, especially in developing countries. This is why
FuenteLibre is leading a national campaign called "Windows es una
Invasión Cultural" to counterinform the corporate PR.

Teachers and citizens ought to know what is at stake, and we're set to
let them know.

Privative software poses two serious ethical and potentially legal
problems to the educator. By restricting tha natural tendency to
share, and in fact criminalizing it and comparing it to attacking
boats and stealing, we're implicitly teaching a miserable attitude
inhibiting solidarity. This is unacceptable.

The second problem is the illegality of discovery... if a child asks
"how does this work"... will you have the heart to tell them... "i'm
sorry dear, it is illegal for you to know... or even poke at it, go
play with something else".

Any latin american Mamita, would scold a child for showing another a
shiny new toy or game and not sharing it with him, or a sweet and not
sharing it. Anybody in my culture knows just "lending" something that
could easily be shared with other is a miserable attitude and latin
american Mamitas call it *BAD EDUCATION* to do so.

What I find more humbling in this huge atrocity that we've inflicted
upon society, of allowing miserable cultural attitudes like privative
software to prevail, is how we've limited ourselves, by sheer
ignorance and lack of conscience, how we've underestimated humanity's
combined creative capacity, that we've built walls and gates around
knowledge and culture and wisdom.

It is time for us to make amends, to rescue culture from this
dependence, for only by truly appropriating software will the computer
become a cultural medium for expression.

>
> The high fee private schools have more incentive to move to open source, the cost of software per student is quite high, but nearly all still prefer to go with MS is it is seen as an industry standard. This misses the point that IT education is not about learning to operate specific packages but to use them as tools to think with.

The point must be made that a mere cost analysis, while powerful and
also in our favor, misses the point. What is the social cost of
alienating the user from the technology? What is the cultural cost of
limiting expression and sharing? What are we teaching children?
>
> Many students are effectively forced to use pirate MS software if they wish to work at home.

I find a very good "tool to think with" is to replace each instance of
"to pirate" with "to share" in headlines. It usually shows the
ridicule argument.
"...students are...forced to SHARE MS software if they wish to work at home".
Of course, then it would be too clear that MS does not allow sharing.
"BSA and companies... launch campaign against SHARING" is one of my
favorites and more often seen.

>
> So my full support for Con's work but dont expect any sudden adoption of open source here.
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-- 
Sebastian Silva
Iniciativa FuenteLibre
http://blog.sebastiansilva.com/