Before I was aware of the free and open source software alternatives, I would
have probably accepted this request as fair enough. But when I learned how good
Open Office was for example, and saw what OpenOffice.org had to say on their
website, "You can install this software on every computer in the school and on
every pupil's and every teacher's computer at home without paying any license
fees. Please encourage others to do so..." I had to ask these questions:
Why are public education departments buying software at such an expense, and
insisting that their staff and students use the same, when the equivalent
alternatives in software are not only free, open and more flexible, but are more
equitable, accessible, usable and reliable for the students and teachers?
And while we are considering that question I'd like to put forward
another:
Why are those same public departments investing so much in a culture and
practice of copyright, intellectual property and user pays business models when
technology such as the Internet, free and open source software, and concepts
like open courseware make it economically viable to at last offer a free and
open education equally to all?
Paula Chandler on 09 Jul 11The above excerpt from the article I found at flexiblelearning.net stuck out to me because until I started reading The World is Open, I was not aware that there were free alternatives to such expensive software such as the Microsoft Office Suite that our district pays tens of thousands of dollars for each year to maintain the licenses. When I started using google docs, I was amazed at the sharing abilities and the many other capabilities that exist with such Open Source resources. At this point I have not actualy created documents in google docs but look forward to doing so.
