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Free software makes
sense in education
When her friends come over, they end up learning without even being conscious of it. One girl her size, who has never handled computers below, drags on the mouse. As she moves it across the mouse-pad, the image of a furry bear gets jerkily unveiled on the monitor. This piece of software was written by a team of Swedish students. They would like to get a thank-you email from anyone willing to take the trouble. The best part is nobody paid for the CD they’re using. It’s not pirated either. You can run it off any computer, by just booting up from your CD-Rom drive! It comes in a ‘distro’ (distribution) called FreEDUC. (www.ofset.org/projects/edusoft/edusoft.html) Free software Free software is opening up a whole new world. Education is one of its major beneficiaries, globally. Are we sitting up to take note, though? You have free software tools that help students, whether they’re in kindergarten or studying complex streams of engineering. It’s name might be a bit misleading. The term ‘free’ refers to ‘freedom’ and not price. Free software, and its more-recent offshoot called "open source", give the users a number of ‘freedoms’. Unlike in the world of proprietorial (pay-per-computer) software, the user has the right to run a free software program for any purpose, study how it works, redistribute copies, and also improve the program and release improvements to the public. In real terms, this means that it is next to impossible to charge huge amounts for that software you so badly need to make your PC productive. This is very relevant for a resource-poor, talent-rich country like India. Secondly, because knowledge is so freely shared, free software allows for low entry barriers. Anyone can see the source-code of a program (without which, you wouldn’t know how it works) or contact coders who have played a key role in writing this program itself. Niranjan Rajani, a South Asian researcher based in Finland, recently put together a study titled ‘Free as in Education: Significance of the Free/Libre and Open Source Software for Developing Countries.’ He argues about the benefits of FLOSS, as is also called. See www.maailma.kaapeli.fi/FLOSS_for_dev.html Says he: "Take the example of education. In terms of computer education, FLOSS has no match. You’re free to tinker with the code. Not only that, you can get in touch with the people who wrote the code and ask why this or that was done in a particular piece of code." Rajani adds: "FLOSS has a complementary and reciprocal relationship to education. One needs an educated section of the population to fulfil the full potential of FLOSS, and at the same time FLOSS helps, enhances, and complements education by providing tools to promote education." But it’s not just computer education that we’re talking about. Free Software has a big role to play, and here are a few good reasons why: Not bread money alone: Because free-software evangelists are not motivated by money alone, chances are that they will work on areas that have the highest social need. It’s no coincidence that education is high on their agenda, both in India and abroad. Some of the best brains are here. The strong sense of ‘community’ makes it very easy to share software, ideas and solutions. Open to all: Entry barriers in contributing to free software are very low. Educators can, and are, shaping this movement and it is responsive to the world of education. Indian concerns, Indian developers: If we don’t solve our own problems, will a giant corporation in the US do so for us? FLOSS makes it easy for anyone with the motivation, and a bright idea, to contribute to an exciting global network. And, the software world shows us that people contribute their skills and work not only for money. They do so for altruism, and a sense of sharing knowledge. They may also do it to develop new skills, or even in anticipation of indirect rewards (like improving job opportunities). Affordability: Free software is not about price. It’s about freedom. Yet, in cash-strapped countries like India, the affordability of this tool makes it particularly suitable for deployment in education. Support community: To scare off users from free software, one argument is that there are few firms behind this global campaign. Yet, once a region builds up its skills—and we’re fast getting there—then they spread fast. Dozens or hundreds of mailing lists and newsgroups exist that offer support from a worldwide community of users and programmers. Indian-language solutions: If there are a handful of volunteers, it is possible to make rapid strides in "Indianising" software. Even for small languages, which proprietorial software might not see as viable. Networks like the Indic-computing-users mailing list are doing interesting work on this front. See http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/ Adapt, rebuild, reuse: You don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Anyone interested can adapt existing software for his needs. In Goa, the local chapter of ILUG (India Linux Users Groups) rebuilt a ‘distro’ that was meant to make it easy and uniform to install by even unskilled people in schools. Interest is here: In India itself, a number of groups are working to adapt free software to education. There’s even one called LIFE. This list is at life@mm.hbcse.tifr.res.in In the software world, the FLOSS movement has shown its ability to produce results. This is one area of life where the alternative is proving to be really good. Maybe better than the ‘real’ thing, i.e., the dominant model of software production. Getting started Using free software often means that you need an additional operating system (OS) to run it on. (A few software, on CDs like GNUWin or the Open CD, run on the Windows platform. But this is rare.) You can install a new OS alongside an existing OS like Windows. You should be able to
access much of your earlier work in GNU/Linux too, unless it is created
under CDs of free software can
be downloaded from the Net, or copied quite legally from friends. It can
even be purchased at Rs 25-50 per CD. Many Indian cities have GNU/Linux
user-groups, called LUGs or GLUGs. Find a list at www.linux-india.org or
gnu.org.in. For a listing of case studies of GNU/Linux use in education,
visit http://casestudy.seul.org.
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RIZA
is nearly five. For her, the computer is a toy. Instead of adding one
more difficult ‘subject’ to her tiring school day, she occasionally
plays educational games on the PC.