FSCONS 2013: Why is free software important in education?

Why is free software important in education?

Edmund Laugasson, PhD student fromTallinn University, Institute of Informatics, Estonia

[email protected]://sites.google.com/site/phdedmund/

The Digital Safety Lab is supported by the Tiger University Program of the Information Technology Foundation for Education.

This research was supported by the Tiger University Program of the Information Technology Foundation for Education.

https://sites.google.com/site/phdedmund/

Keywords

● sharing the knowledge● sharing the tools● social responsibility● independence● learning● saving costs● quality

http://bqtglobal.com/W_EU/Images/Photo/Software.jpg

http://bqtglobal.com/W_EU/Images/Photo/Software.jpg

Why is FOSS important in education?

FOSS: free and open-source software

● user freedom– FOSS respects user's freedom and social solidarity

of his community

– proprietary software take away user's freedom, keeping them divided and helpless

http://www.gnu.org/education/



Divided because users are forbidden

from sharing the program, and helpless

because they do not have the source code

of the program.

That is: users cannot change the software, they cannot find out what the program is really doing, and it can do very bad things.

So – users cannot share the knowledge and tools in case of proprietary software but it suppose to not be so.

http://www.gnu.org/education/FOSS: free and open-source software



Free Software means that the userhas the 4 essential freedoms:

Freedom 0 is the freedom to runthe program for any purpose.

Freedom 1 is the freedom to study the source code of the program and change it to make it do what you wish.




Free Software means that the userhas the 4 essential freedoms:

Freedom 2 is the freedom to helpyour neighbour; that is, the freedomto make and distribute exact copiesof the program whenever you want.

Freedom 3 is the freedom to contribute to your community; that is the freedom to make and distribute copies of your modified versions of the program.




With these four freedoms a program isFree Software because the social systemfor its use and distribution is an ethicalsystem that respects everyone's freedomand the freedom of the community of users.Software must be Free because we all deserve freedom, we all deserve to be allowed to participate in a free community.

Therefore, schools should teach mostly Free Software. There are four reasons why this is so.




The most shallow reason is tosave money. Schools do nothave enough money, so theyshould not waste their moneypaying for permission to useproprietary software.

This is an obvious reason, but some proprietary software companies usually eliminate this reason by donating copies of their proprietary programs to the school at no charge or at a small price.



Why is FOSS important in education?The reason why they doso is, that is to getstudents addicted.It is a malicious plan.This is a plan to use schoolsas instruments to imposea permanent dependenceon students.

If a school teaches how to usea proprietary program, the studentwill be dependent on that programand after he graduates he will have to pay to use that program. He will probably work for a company that does not receive copies of the program free of charge.




Therefore, proprietary softwaredevelopers use schools to imposepermanent dependence on thewhole society.

Schools must refuse to participatein such a malicious plan becauseschools have a social mission which is to educate the next generation to be good citizens of a capable, strong, independent, cooperating and free society.This can only be achieved by teaching Free Software. Schools should mostly use Free Software and very rare cases proprietary software.




But there is a deeperreason: to form goodprogrammers, becausein order to learn goodprogramming skillsstudents need to readlots of code and writelots of code.To learn to write good code for big programs students need to write small changes in the code of big programs.

All this is possible only with Free Software. Only Free Software allows education in information technology.




But there is still a deeper reason:to teach good citizenship, becauseschools have the mission to teachnot only facts and technical skills,but above all the spirit of good will,the habit of helping others.

Therefore, each class should have this rule: student - if you bring a program to the class, you can not keep it for yourself, you must share it with the rest of the class.




The school should practice what it preaches, it should introduce Free Software in the classroom.

All schools should migrate to Free Software and teach Free Softwarebecause eachschool shouldparticipate inleading societytowards freedomand socialsolidarity.



What is happening in Estonia?

● World Bank rated Estonia as a high income country in spring 2011

● Microsoft has increased their prices up to 25 times since 1st July 2011

● Microsoft offered 3-year contract with old fixed prices during 1st July 2011 till 1st July 2014 – these dates may vary in different schools

● it is hard to find more moneyfor schools

● Estonian Government hasbeen done 5 stateprocurements in FOSS field

http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-lending-groups#High_income

What is happening in Estonia?● spring 2013 has started active discussion over it at

schools in Estonia – lost two years● Microsoft Office will mostly be

abandoned● Microsoft Windows will remain in some places until

incompatibility issues cannot be solved

Most important incompatibilities are:● people's attitude toward FOSS● knowledge – e.g. do not edit and save

OOXML files (docx, xlsx etc) with LibreOffice – convert to ODF formats (odt, ods etc) and then edit

About expenses to switch FOSS

● if to deploy free software– training about new software

– existing data backup/restore if necessary

– software installation and configuration

– setup domain (OpenLDAP) + filesharing (e.g. NFS) in case of roaming profiles

– support service

– maintenance service

About expenses to stay M$

● if to remain onto proprietary software– up to 25 times higher licence fees

– possible higher security issues(old OEM's but alsoMicrosoft Windows itself)

– support service

– maintenance service

Schools in Estonia are usually using Microsoft School Agreement (MSA), which requires to licence all computers in school regardless of their real usage. Also it requires base licence (OEM ~85€ together when buying new computer or Get Genuine ~110€ per computer for later licensing), because MSA is an upgrade licencing type.

Rough calculations about transition

● Estonian capital city Tallinn has 204 educational institutions – schools (~80), kindergartens

● ~7000 computers● in one school ~80 computers● in one kindergarten ~5...10

computers● expenses are increasing from ~20 000 € to

~360 000 €, it means 18 timesroughly (VAT 20% included)

Tallinn: installation calculations

● ~80 computer per school and 1 hour per computer if to clone previously prepared customized installation media containing all needed software and updates already

● 35€/hour x 80 computers = 2800 € per school for software installation

● 80 schools x 2800€ = 224 000 €for all Tallinn schools (one time expense)

● with same price goes other costs if needed – backup/restore, setup domain + filesharing, etc.

Tallinn: teachers training calculations

● per school: average 3 groups, 15 people per group

● 35€/h x 3 hours x 3 groups = 315 € per school● 80 schools x 315€ = 25 200 € for all schools

25 200 € roughly one time expense would be for teaching the basics of using GNU/Linux operating system, hereinafter: Linux.

Tallinn: IT-specialists training calculations

● 3 days, á 8 hours = 40 hours● 15 people in group, ~150 IT-specialists in

Tallinn schools● 10 groups x 40 hours x 35€/h = 14 000 €

14 000 € roughly would be one time expense to educate IT-specialists to support free software at Tallinn schools.

Transition costs together

● 80 schools at Tallinn, Estonia– 224 000 € for installation

– 25 200 € for teachers training

– 14 000 € for IT-specialists training

It makes 263 200 € roughly as one time expense.

Additionally comes setup of domain + possible filesharing.

Also support and maintenance costs. These are expected to reduce due to more stable and more resistant against malware. Plus more valuable community.

When to remain to old system...● 7000 computers in Tallinn

schools, Estonia● Microsoft School

Agreement requires o licence all computersat school

● MS Windows costs 24 €per year one computer

● MS Office costs 32 €per year one computer

● 7000 x 24 = 168 000 € for MS Windows per year● 7000 x 32 = 224 000 € for MS Office per year

When to remain to old system...● MS Windows + MS Office

together:168 000 + 224 000= 392 000 €roughly per year

● Plus support andmaintenance costs.

● Vendor lock-in, malware and damages from them.

Further plans● create Free Software Competence Centre in Estonia

– offer FOSS support to publicsector

● for IT-specialists (technical)● for regular users (user-level)

– courses for IT-specialists andusers

– develop FOSS solutions

– promote FOSS in Estonia but not only

– find partners in Estonia and also outside

– etc...

● pilot project in Tallinn: move three schoolsand two kinderkartens onto FOSS –Linux as OS and LibreOffice as office suite

Questions?

Edmund Laugasson, PhD student fromTallinn University, Institute of Informatics, Estonia

[email protected]://sites.google.com/site/phdedmund/

The Digital Safety Lab is supported by the Tiger University Program of the Information Technology Foundation for Education.

This research was supported by the Tiger University Program of the Information Technology Foundation for Education.

https://sites.google.com/site/phdedmund/