Open Source Software Usage in the Schools Executive overview

Transcription

1 Open Source Software Usage in the Schools Executive overview September-October, 2006 original author: Kliment Simoncev IT Expert This document is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license Ministry of Science and Education of Republic of Macedonia This paper is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. 1/20

2 Table of Contents About this document...3 Definitions and Acronyms...3 Introduction...4 Key Terminology... 4 Free software...4 Open source... 4 Open standards... 5 Open systems...5 F/OSS (or FLOSS)...5 Short history... 5 F/OSS strengths and weaknesses... 6 Benefits of Free software...6 Social, economic and cultural aspects...6 Transparency... 7 Creativity... 7 Pitfalls of Free software... 7 Free vs. Open source software... 8 F/OSS in education... 9 Benefits of F/OSS in education...9 Greater learning of concepts rather than products new approaches of teaching and learning... 9 Possibility of localization (translation)... 9 Customization and personalization... 9 Encourage Innovations... 9 Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) Bridges the digital divide and ensuring affordable access to ICT Alternative to Illegal Copying F/OSS in education curriculum...12 F/OSS in IT curriculum Programming languages Databases F/OSS as education tool in non-it curriculum...13 F/OSS primer Educational technology...14 Collaborating communities of practice...14 Open Content Free Operating system Linux...15 Who will use F/OSS? Teachers and students as co-creators How to make F/OSS sustainable? Recommendations Conclusions /20

3 About this document This document is the Executive overview of the Conceptual Strategy paper for using Free and Open Source software in Education. This document should help in the early inception phase of open source in the Education of Macedonia, elaborating short-term and long-term benefits. This document can also be used from a decision maker perspective as a summary document related to the Conceptual Strategy. Additionally it can be used as introductory reading for the Conceptual Strategy paper. Definitions and Acronyms MoSE FLOSS F/OSS OSS TCO ICT MNSE IT PDA API POSIX IEEE FSF CoP PHP Python C++ Java Linux Unix Software linense Ministry of science and education Free Libre Open source software Free/Open source software Open source software Total cost of ownership Information Computer technology Macedonian strategy for Education Information technology Personal digital assistant Application programming interface Portable Operating System Interface for unix Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Free software foundation Community of practice Programming language Programming language Programming language Programming language Operating system Operating system A software license is a license that grants permission to do things with computer software. The usual goal is to authorise activities which are prohibited by default by copyright law. For example, a software license might give permission to make copies of the software. A copyright holder may offer a software license unilaterally, or as part of a software license agreement with another party. 3/20

4 Introduction Free, Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS) refers to any software distributed under a license that allows users to change or share the software source code. The three most important characteristics of FLOSS are that: 1. It allows free (unrestricted) redistribution 2. The source code is available at minimal cost 3. Derived works may be redistributed under similar non-restrictive terms. The three principles listed above emerged from a long history of Free and Open source software, sometimes overloaded with internal controversy (such as the debate of Free vs. Open source). In the same time being motivation for the introduction of other licensing models (Creative Commons) and debates on open culture, open content and open education. The aim of this paper (and the Conceptual Strategy given in separate paper) is to find ways of how FLOSS could be applied to educational context, while achieving several objectives: 1. Levering open source software in different use cases in education. 2. Enabling knowledge sharing and collaboration between teachers and students. 3. Unveiling myths about open source software. 4. Introducing the concept of open education. 5. Analysis and identification of common open source applications that can be useful in particular contexts of educational curriculum. 6. Providing proposals for a sustainable model of open source. Key Terminology Free software The term free is applied to software in two senses: (1) software that has zero purchase price and (2) software that is not restricted by licenses or has a license that ensures its freedom. Software with zero purchase price is commonly referred as free-of-charge. Open source The term open source refers to what has been described as the bill of rights for the computer user (Perens 1999). In other words, the license that describes how the software should be distributed, and the rights you have as a user to change or share the software source code. Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. In modern programming languages, the source code that constitutes a program is usually archived in several text files, but the same source code may be printed in a book or recorded on tape. The term is typically used in the context of a particular piece of computer software. A computer program's source code is the collection of files that can be converted from human-readable form to an equivalent computer-executable form. The creative asset of programming work (text!) is comparable to human written language in many ways. In that fact lie the origins of free and open source debate that is touching hot issues about artistic copyright and free speech. 4/20

5 Open standards The term open standards refers to the detailed, descriptive overview of a process, protocol or format. This overview is formulated through stakeholder consensus, must be openly published and usually has no legal or intellectual property restrictions. Open systems The term open systems refers to IT systems implemented on open standards. In practice, the term is most commonly related to POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface for unix) a collective name of a family of related standards specified by the IEEE to define the application programming interface (API) for software compatible with variants of the Unix operating system. F/OSS (or FLOSS) Free/Libre/Open-Source Software, or FLOSS, is an alternative term for free software. The software is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. Synonymous with free software and open source software, the term describes similar software, licenses, culture, and development models, but is used by those who wish to be inclusive or who do not want to take a side on whether "free software" or "open-source software" is a better term, although neither side has shown much enthusiasm for the term "FLOSS". (Wikipedia). In this paper (and also in the Conceptual Strategy paper) we use the acronym: F/OSS to mark the difference between Free and Open source software. Short history 1. Free software is introduced by software development for the GNU when the operating system began in January 1984, and Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in October Richard Stallman introduced a free software definition and the "copyleft" license, designed to ensure software freedom for all. 1. Open-source software" was proposed in 1998 as a replacement label for "free software". Later that year, the Open Source Initiative was founded to promote the term as part of "a marketing program for free software". 1. "Libre software" was first used publicly in 2000, by the European Commission. The word "libre", borrowed from the Spanish and French languages, does not have the freedom/cost ambiguity problem that the english word "free" does. 5/20

6 F/OSS strengths and weaknesses Benefits of Free software Social, economic and cultural aspects 1. F/OSS supports the local IT industry and digital self-sufficiency. Especially important for developing countries like Macedonia. Indirectly gives back to non-profit sector like education. 2. F/OSS supports entrepreneurship and business formation. Opportunities for small and medium business. F/OSS recognizes participation in software development at the level of the individual and not the corporation. Emphasizing individual the level is important for the development of small-to-medium enterprises. Also, nowadays big companies are facing with same challenges trying to compensate personal/public intellectual capital with strong corporate beneficences. 3. F/OSS supports innovation, local solutions and learning. F/OSS encourages hands-on, selfdirected and experimental learning of primary source' 1 material (i.e., source code) with peer-based support mechanisms for guidance and feedback, an empowering way of learning that is particularly important in an information society. And the results are software solutions and content that are particularly suited to local needs (cultural aspect of open source and IT society in general). 4. F/OSS promotes collaboration and open standards. 5. F/OSS supports local content creation and consumption. Existing F/OSS can readily be adapted for local languages, reducing barriers to access and to the mastery of skills while helping eliminate the marginalization of those from cultures not ordinarily possessing a high level of fluency 2 in one of the world's major languages. 6. F/OSS reduces vendor dependence and lock-in. Vendor dependence on micro level (company, ministry, school, etc.) and at macro level (state, government, overall economy, etc.). 7. F/OSS allows market entry for firms that would otherwise be unable to withstand corporate competition balancing the pressure of global international enterprises, such as IBM, Microsoft, Sun etc. It could be a potential kick-starter for the local IT industry. 8. Open source raises the profile of developing countries in the global economy, and narrows the digital divide. 9. F/OSS puts user needs first: F/OSS shifts the competitive advantage among IT companies to value creation for the customer, removing recurring revenue streams such as licensing upgrades and ancillary software purchases. Development and services are to be responsible for revenue in the first place. Note that in education, students are developers and users in same time. 10.Open source promotes transparency and accountable government: The nature of open technologies can help move forward a culture of openness and transparency in government 1 Can we have better exercise for talented and motivated students than 'primary source'? 2 Macedonian education aims to produce a highly fluent young population, butthe localization argument still stands as vital, especially for young kids 6/20

7 as well as in society. Promoting public access to government by facilitating information sharing and interoperability of IT systems among stakeholders. Enabling the government to be accountable to the people instead of being beholden to the proprietary software. 11. F/OSS enables rapid development in a global community. Transparency Open standards and systems such as F/OSS ensure that participants understand what they are contributing to and make the code visible and available for others to use in an open way. Open source projects are frequently the result of collaborations within small groups of people. Consequently the availability of the source code is not supstantial enough for someone to simply take the code and start working with it. Communities working together, sharing knowledge and skills are an inseparable part of open source projects. However, transparency is a prerequisite for any collaborative and knowledge intensive work. Creativity F/OSS does not guarantee creativity by itself 3, but it can make creativity run and work. However, lesser commercial pressure leaves the door wide open for less practical research activities resulting in the outcome of qualitative new solutions. Pitfalls of Free software Lack of awareness of F/OSS: the evidence suggests that most IT managers simply do not know about the fact that F/OSS exists. Poor Internet and international links. To work effectively with open source code you need to be part of an active, global community of like-minded developers. Internet in Macedonia is very weak (at least in a very fragile state, with strategy and commitment greatly dependent on the emerging economy). Because of software piracy there is no clear, general evidence for decision-makers of F/OSS delivering cost savings. Cost savings should not be the primary reason why open source is important in education (that is our primary concern!), but it is definitely the first short -term benefit giving immediate visible results and making support of the F/OSS initiative more easier to conduct. 3 Many of the open source projects are replicas of proprietary project. 7/20

8 Free vs. Open source software Open Source and Free Software is a matter of philosophy and approach. The difference in the terms is where they place the emphasis. Free software is defined in terms of giving the user freedom. This reflects the goal of the free software movement. Open source highlights that the source code is viewable to all and proponents of the term usually emphasize the quality of the software and how this is caused by the development models which are possible and popular among free and open source software projects. The Open Source Initiative believes that more people will be convinced by the experience of freedom. The FSF believes that more people will be convinced by the concept of freedom. The FSF believes that knowledge of the concept is an essential requirement, insists on the use of the term free, and separates itself from the Open Source movement. The Open Source Initiative believes that free has three meanings: free as in beer, free as in freedom, and free as in unsellable. Open Source says nothing about the freedom to modify and redistribute, so it is being misused by people who think that source access without freedom is sufficient (for example licenses that make up the Microsoft shared source initiative ). A comparison of Free and Open source software can be summarized in the following table: Free Software Open Source software Organization Free Software Foundation Open Source Initiative Figurehead Richard Stallman Eric Raymond Favored license Gnu Public License: viral, ensuring openness of code in perpetuity BSD-style licenses: not placing any restrictions on use of software Benefits Freedom of information Better quality software Social values Leftist; communitarian; idealist Libertarian; laissezfaire; pragmatist The term FLOSS (FOSS,F/OSS) is often used to bridge the ideological divide between the free software and open source software movements. It can also be used as a neutral term when discussing free / open source software with those of differing ideological viewpoints. For additional information regarding licenses and different philosophical stand-points of the two movements see the Conceptual Strategy paper. 8/20

9 F/OSS in education Benefits of F/OSS in education Greater learning of concepts rather than products new approaches of teaching and learning Learning facts only and memorizing those facts is listed in the Macedonian National Strategy for Education as a main thing to be changed with the intention of infusing a more concept-based and experimental spirit in education curriculum. Learning the fundamentals of some topic is more important than learning facts only. Taxonomy of facts, user-manual style of knowing things, high level of knowledge commercialization, constant strive to be practical, fear of wasteful knowledge and wrong investments lead everyone to be oriented as a full-fledged product consumer. Learning methodology should be moved from product-oriented to concept oriented. F/OSS can help a lot in such educational strategy. Possibility of localization (translation) The practical outcome of having and learning of source code is an opportunity for software to be localized (translated) in the language of the target user group (students and teachers). This would facilitate the day-to-day use of software (especially when when it comes to targeting the non-fluentin-major-foreign-language group). Adoption of new software products can not be blocked by language barriers. Cultural differences can be promoted and multicultural diversity embedded in the tools we are using. Usability of software is expected to be raised on a higher level by promotion of cultural identity. Customization and personalization Similar to localization but at greater extend, customization is about personalization of software -shaping educational experiences to meet our own needs. F/OSS offers the possibility of changing (modifying) the program for our needs and particular purpose. Localization can be provided (by design) and allowed by software vendor (by licensing agreement!) for closed source products, but customization can not be provided in an unrestricted way as in the case of F/OSS. The personalization of education the degree to which learners are able to shape educational experiences to meet their own needs is easier to achieve by using F/OSS. Encourage Innovations Students can experiment with code and software. They are free to explore software in more 9/20

10 innovative ways than closed source software. They are free to publish and promote those activities on their own (giving credits to the original author and taking credits of their own). Self-promotion can be very stimulating for students and can encourage innovation. Students can feel significantly incorporated into the community by participating with their own work and earning credits for that, while exercising their individuality just as well. Innovation in other non-it related activities could take place in areas such as music, visual art, and social science with the help of computers and software as experimentation lab. Multi-disciplinary approach of solving problems and high degree of problem understanding can be achieved when the source code is open. Different students can see the same thing from a different perspective resulting in many variations, versions and application areas of exactly same software. Software can evolve in a lot of different directions, which might be also regarded as a pitfall of open source software projects, due to the risk of unaimed development. That's why experienced guiding in F/OSS software (a similar situation as in education) is very important. Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) Education is frequently not well financially funded. Lack of stable financial funding as permanent state is one of the obstacles stated in MNSE. F/OSS even not free-of-charge completely, can help lowering the total costs of applying ICT tools in education. Practically, we can identify software as low cost with no external license fees for using. If the responsible institution - on behalf of teachers and students is capable of managing F/OSS in daily operations then no warranty and external support services is needed which means that software is gratis. The only cost is money spend for the distribution of software and for hardware/network infrastructure needed for running systems. This working scenario can dramatically decrease the cost of ICT systems in education, virtually to zero expenses. Even more, if there is capacity for some kind of development of F/OSS based systems (including services offer) institutions can have some income based on collaboration with business community which can eventually lead to a self-financing method in education. This is primarily an advantage for Universities, but it can be also a real-world situation for high schools, especially when the business community is the consumer of such services 4. Talented students can participate in such activities. When the institution is relying on F/OSS support service expenses go mainly to domestic outsourcing companies, not for license fees. That means prospects for empowering local economy and small-to-medium markets, especially from a perspective of decentralized economy where education is partly funded by local financial resources 5. Macedonia is not a rich country. Not rich enough to easily ignore gratis F/OSS software. Also not rich enough to make scientific research based on expensive commercial software. Scientific research as part of the overall education strategy in all countries is based on F/OSS software, not just because of the financial advantages. Strategic positioning, knowledge sharing 6 and selfdevelopment are crucial for overall benefits of a country with non-direct and short-term financial benefit, but with stable and controlled development policy. Donation of proprietary software can only be a partial solution of financial deficit problem in education and it is highly recommended to be complementary measure for buffering problems that can not be solved with F/OSS with expected quality. Mixing proprietary and F/OSS is recommended as pragmatic way of solving day-by-day activities which can not be conducted solely with F/OSS. Identification of such administrative and educational workplaces where there is no available F/OSS should be identified and financial planning should be done. In parallel to this, there should be an ongoing process of search and investigation for F/OSS software substitutes. 4 Education-Business feedback issues. 5 New decentralized model of financing in education. 6 As every scientific method is shared! 10/20

11 Bridges the digital divide and ensuring affordable access to ICT The F/OSS initiative is based on democratic and liberal foundations. The principles of F/OSS and FSF are freedom and equality. This practically means that every class, ethnic and religious community should have the same affordable access to ICT as democratic right. F/OSS software is low cost software making democratic values in education very realistic even in a poor country like Macedonia. Fundamental science research is based on ICT without exception. A country like Macedonia should consider the availability to access (and use) of community based F/OSS (including open source in Sun, IBM, and other labs) as great a development opportunity. This is a way of minimizing the gap in ICT and software development, staying tuned to different research areas where others are developing applications and trying to develop software of its own. This so called research divide can be minimized with the use and production of F/OSS. Alternative to Illegal Copying To be just an alternative to illegal copying is not a main benefit, but it should not be ignored as non-relevant. Illegal usage of proprietary software is very common. Very often teachers are forced to use illegally copied software to fill ICT gaps in their curriculum. They are (1) not aware of F/OSS as an alternative or (2) feel very hard to manage F/OSS. In both cases teacher end up with nonlegal system to work on. 11/20

12 F/OSS in education curriculum Main objectives are to provide all necessary facilities for: Design of digital resources for learning (the degree to which learners, teachers and educators are able to work alongside programmers to create resources tailored more specifically to their educational needs). Development of the teaching workforce sharing knowledge between teachers. Supporting teachers in on-line communities. Develop comprehensive E-learning systems. Facilitating the use of Free and Open source software production ready. Building F/OSS communities peer-to-peer collaborative networks (sustainable open source) Develop sustainable business models for F/OSS in education. Develop legal framework for F/OSS. The objectives listed above are elaborated in the Conceptual Strategy paper along with this document. F/OSS in IT curriculum F/OSS is most influential to IT curriculum, by sharing same technological background and programming skills. Particularly in IT curriculum, the concept of children as programmers can be applied. Students and teachers can contribute to their own ICT infrastructure in a proactive way. Programming languages Thousands of different programming languages 7 have been created and new ones are created every year (Wikipedia). In the Conceptual Strategy paper we introduce several mainstream languages such as: Pascal, C/C++, Java, Basic, as well as web programming languages such as: PHP, Perl, Python, etc. Compilers for all mentioned languages are available in open source, as well as development environments for educational and professional usage. Introducing those languages in programming curriculum can have positive feedback on capabilities of students to contribute to open source project written in those same languages (see the Conceptual Strategy paper for more comprehensive elaboration). Databases Every single ICT infrastructure is based on some database system. A database system is backend storage for all digital education material, courses, seminar works, etc., it is an unavoidable IT part of any school administration system as well. Most popular open source database mentioned in the Conceptual Strategy is MySQL, available as open source database, but commercially well supported with different warranty service plans. Similar to the concept of student as programmer capable to participate in his/her own school infrastructure as maintainer and developer, students can help in database administration tasks /20

13 also. Skilled in same database tool they are using, students and teachers can try to make the principle of eats its own dog food 8 working. This principle is compatible with open source fact of developer being user and vice versa. F/OSS as education tool in non-it curriculum At first look, there is not direct and obvious connection between F/OSS and non-it educational curriculum. However, introduction of new teaching and learning methodology (e-learning systems, interactive courses, digital content creation, applied programming in science curriculum virtual labs) makes F/OSS a natural paradigmatic model rooted from same principles as the scientific method and knowledge sharing (see Conceptual Strategy for more details). F/OSS can make multidisciplinary projects work in free and non restricted environments. Open tools (available for everyone interested to shape them for own needs) can utilize multidisciplinary work in a more creative way. For more details on software categorization and applicability of F/OSS see Conceptual Strategy /20

14 F/OSS primer Educational technology Educational technology is the use of technology in education to improve learning and teaching (Wikipedia). Particular use of educational technology is use of high technology in K-12 classrooms and higher education. K-12 ("Kay twelve") is the North American designation for primary and secondary education. This acronym stands for Kindergarten (5 or 6-year-old) through 12th grade (generally 17 or 18-year-old) educational process and curriculum. F/OSS usage for K-12 education is primary concern of this paper and the Conceptual Strategy for usage of Open source software in education. The objective is to develop infrastructure and integration technologies on Free and Open source software as prerequisites for an effective educational environment leading towards the improvement of performance. Different educational tools and technologies should be part of the educational technology framework such as: Content Management Systems Learning Management Systems Communication/Collaboration infrastructure Server Web centric centralized infrastructure Interactive virtual learning systems Desktop end user learning workstations More elaboration for any of tools listed above can be found in the Conceptual Strategy paper. Different solutions can be applied regarding different technology stacks and application frameworks implemented such as: PHP-based, Python-based, Perl-based or Java-based all representing mainstream development and production platforms for running a versatile spectrum of educational software. Collaborating communities of practice The concept of a community of practice (CoP) refers to the process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations (Wikipedia). The term was first used in 1991 by Jean Lave 9 and Etienne Wenger 10 who used it in relation to situated learning 11 as part of an attempt to "rethink learning". In Etienne Wenger's paper: "Knowledge management as a doughnut: Shaping your knowledge strategy through communities of practice" three elements are defined for connection communities of practice: Domain: the area of knowledge that brings the community together, gives it its identity, and defines the key 9 Jean Lave is a social anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and has a interest in social theory. 10 Etienne Wenger is as a leading expert on communities of practice. He was a pioneer of the "communities of practice" research and is now a globally recognized thought leader in the field. 11 Situated learning is education that takes place in a setting functionally identical to that where the learning will be applied 14/20

15 issues that members need to address. A community of practice is not just a personal network: it is about something. Its identity is defined not just by a task, as it would be for a team, but by an area of knowledge that needs to be explored and developed. Community: the group of people for whom the domain is relevant, the quality of the relationships among members, and the definition of the boundary between the inside and the outside. A community of practice is not just a web site or a library; it involves people who interact and who develop relationships that enable them to address problems and share knowledge. Practice: the body of knowledge, methods, tools, stories, cases, documents, which members share and develop together. A community of practice is not merely a community of interest. It brings together practitioners who are involved in doing something. Over time, they accumulate practical knowledge in their domain, which makes a difference to their ability to act individually and collectively. There are 3 main aspects of Open source in correlation with communities of practice: Open source software as the tools providing an IT environment for collaborating communities such as: bulletin boards (discussion groups), mailing lists, wiki systems, blog systems, portals, content management tools, document management systems, etc. Opens source development as collaboration activity open source development communities of practice. Open content facilitation of explicit knowledge emerged from tacit knowledge within communities of practice. All aspects are equally relevant (interconnected and dependable) providing the foundation of F/OSS in education shaping F/OSS framework. Open Content The success of the Open Source phenomenon has prompted efforts to apply similar principles in the publication of content. The idea behind publishing Open Content is that anyone can use the content, distribute it freely, modify it and redistribute it. In this way, the content can be improved upon and knowledge is made freely available for the common good. The term Open Content was coined by Dr. David Wiley who launched the OpenContent project in 1998 and provided the OpenContent License. The Open Content License is superseded by the Creative Commons licenses (MIT OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons license). Open Content concept can be licensed with other licenses such as GNU Free Documentation License (for example Wikipedia - free Web-based encyclopedia that is available under the GNU Free Documentation License). For example, this document and the Conceptual Strategy are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Free Operating system Linux An operating system (OS) is a software program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. A key component of system software, the OS performs basic tasks, such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing the processing of instructions, controlling input 15/20

16 and output devices, facilitating networking, and managing files. (Wikipedia) There are a lot of free operating systems (see Conceptual strategy paper for selected list of free operating systems), but Linux can be identified as most popular free operation system positioning itself as mainstream operating system. Linux can be found on servers, desktop and PDA appliances as embedded operating system. A large number of Linux distributions exist, most of them based on several mainstream/general public distributions. One popular Linux distribution that is drawing great attention is Ubuntu distribution, elaborated in the Conceptual Strategy as example and proof-of-concept. Any GNU/Lunix distribution can be taken under consideration regarding deployment of free operating systems in schools; however special attention should be given, regarding support, easyof-use and end-user experience especially related to migration from proprietary, to open source infrastructure. Linux running server based software has proven itself as a stable, secure and reliable operating system. As well as a desktop based operating system that is running ICT educational and general purpose software such as: OpenOffice, Firefox, etc. Linux distributions are becoming more and more user-friendly reaching the state of plug-and-play setup and operability needed for practical day-by-day activities from the perspective of a wider user target group than just technical gurus and computer geeks. Linux is an example of a success story in terms of managing and running a world-scale open source project gathering huge number of professional open source developers, volunteers, testers, end-user and business parties around a same initiative. 16/20

17 Who will use F/OSS? Of course, teachers and students are a target group. But a more appropriate question would be: What would be the new role of teachers and students in new learning and teaching model? Are they are only teachers (producing knowledge) and students (consuming knowledge) or new technology and F/OSS philosophy position them to be co-creators in common educational process? Teachers and students as co-creators Teachers and students as co-creators raise some important questions that are to be answered: To what degree would students and teachers want to or be able to become involved in cocreating digital resources? Are teachers and students capable of maintaining their own open system infrastructure? What kinds of F/OSS systems would teachers and learners want and what levels of functionality and ease-of-use would they require? What kinds of authoring tools need to be customized/adapted/developed in order to support teachers and learners to become more actively involved in the co-creation of resources? What kinds of resources and policies do we need to put in place in order for the different communities (F/OSS, software industry, researcher and educators) to work together? What business models would need to be developed to enable co-creation to support all sectors? Free software can not give strict and short answers to these questions, but can definitely provide all technical and conceptual means for a wide spectrum of different educational strategies. Answers to questions similar to these one can be found in the Conceptual Strategy paper explained thought different examples and showcases. How to make F/OSS sustainable? Most of yhe studies about the sustainability of F/OSS projects argued that learning is a major motivation factor. An elaboration regarding the tight relations of F/OSS with the scientific method and the sustainability of knowledge in general is presented in the Conceptual strategy paper. F/OSS primarily follows the evolutionary model of development of IT systems, applying the concept of decentralization of the producer-consumer model. This means that consumers of information are free to contribute, as they are also producers, which differs from proprietary software development where small companies of situated people are producing information only. Sustainable communities are a key factor for F/OSS sustainability. Regarding that, some principles of structuralization of the F/OSS community should be done. For example F/OSS can be categorized by the following categories: (1) Exploration-oriented F/OSS; (2) Utility-oriented F/OSS; (3) Service-oriented F/OSS. The mentioned project differs regarding objective, control style, system evolution, and community structure. Community members (structure) working on F/OSS projects structures can be visualized in following way: 17/20

18 Level/Role Spectrum of roles from less to more participation and structuralization 8 (highest) Passive User Using software as most of commercial software 7 Reader Peer reviewing, learn from source 6 Bug Discovering reporting bugs. May not read source code, but in most cases do. Reporter 5 Bug Understand small portion of source code and change it. Fixer 4 Peripheral Improvements and small changes of software developer 3 Active Active development developer 2 Core Member Grounding and leading 1 (deepest) Project Leader ROLE description Less participation, end-user Understanding, Reading Testing, Reporting Bug fixing Occasionally development Major new development High constant participation in long-run, development High participation, responsibility Every F/OSS participant (student, teacher, outsourcing developer, university student, professor, lecturer, etc.) can have one or several roles as briefly summarized in the table above. The structuralization above is quite technical but tends to give a big picture of the structure of every F/OSS project. Different sustainability principles should be promoted with the objective to provide sustainable F/OSS project(s) framework implementing structure above, such as: Awareness for F/OSS in general Monitoring development of F/OSS stay in-touch with community Collaboration with developers Education and documentation Development of local resources Maintenance of software distribution Translation of software as continuous process Customization and extension of software Development of brand new products Levering open standards Warranty services and service level agreements This is a list of principles that are elaborated in the Conceptual strategy paper. 18/20

19 Recommendations Here we will only outline a list of recommendations elaborated in Conceptual Strategy. Raise awareness for F/OSS in education Establish F/OSS committee and/or task force group Enhance and support volunteering activities among students and teachers Consolidate NGO participation in F/OSS development according to strategy and current OSS operations in education toward common objectives Introduce F/OSS in educational curriculum Be a member of world-wide F/OSS educational community at institutional level with active participation Exchange and share the idea at ministry level of other countries. Participate in world-wide founded projects in the area of interest Develop joint-venture programs with open source funded business community Establish collaboration in development with Universities, educational and support of OSS activities Empower collaboration between central and local government in one broader open source community Establish help-desk for F/OSS usage in education on behalf of Ministry of Science and Education Define mainstream distribution for usage in education Establish F/OSS repository server as central hub for standardized F/OSS used and recommended for usage in education Incorporate F/OSS related issues in MoSE educational portals already established and running Synchronize translation activities of different software across different languages used in education. Involve not technical people in the translation of software. Standardize translation terminology and make it official Leverage F/OSS as social and cultural participation tool Promote Open Standards usage in school administration as a complementary strategy to open source. Encourage software extension. Return back to community. Develop customized versions of chosen Linux distribution regarding age, educational topic and deployment option Use F/OSS on proprietary OS 19/20

20 Conclusions Thanks to the concept and existence of F/OSS, scientific and educational users (teachers, students) can build and support for their own ICT software infrastructure, in accordance with their needs (defined by educational curriculum) and within the scope of their (limited) resources. In that way, they can collaborate with, and contribute to the work of their colleagues who are facing the same educational challenges (and also problems). F/OSS may be expected to become a significant factor in strengthening the Education and in contributing to competitiveness for new generations (educated on open source technologies) in Information Society technologies, generally. F/OSS could create new opportunities for business development and employment in the knowledge industries. In F/OSS communities, the concept of ownership becomes redefined. Instead of controlling a given good, F/OSS communities control the developmental dynamic of evolving the good. The openness of open source, therefore, is more about open future (and opportunity) than about access to currently existing source-code text. Decision points for choosing between F/OSS and proprietary software are very well elaborated from both F/OSS and commercial software advocates with long lists of arguments. However, free and open source software for usage in governmental institutions (including MoSE) and public agencies might be a preferable choice. This would be the case especially in the situation of the new economy model promoted by F/OSS philosophy, proving itself as viable by economic criteria while maintaining the concept of freedom and openness as a strategic objective. From this perspective the choice of appropriate open source licensing models is very important. This paper (and the Conceptual Strategy) can not give straightforward answers to many questions, still left unanswered. Also, this text does not aim at offering final conclusions or solutions. However, it might help making some ideas and concepts behind the F/OSS phenomenon more clear and by doing so it is proposing some directions toward practical implementations of F/OSS concepts in education. 20/20