Re: [Fsfe-uk] Useful background on FLOSS in education

[ian]

On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 11:44, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 10:51, Ramanan Selvaratnam wrote:
> > I read only the first 7 pages. It even proclaims Linux and FreeBSD to be 
> > open software operating systems!
> > Would it not be more meaningful to describe FreeBSD (atleast) as a free OS?
> 
> The lack of recognition of Free Software seems to be a failing of the
> report, they use 'open source' in it's place consistently. However, I
> have to say that this was the only real failing that I found with the
> report (I've only briefly glanced at it), it seems okay to me.
> 
> For example, the discussion on 'open source' licences recognises the
> motivation to give users specific freedoms (and enumerates them into
> five freedoms; the extra one being 'freedom to access source', which the
> FSF's four freedoms explicitly implies) [p9].
> 
> It also recognises pedagogical benefits in using Free Software [p15], so
> we're not just talking about an economics report here: it addresses the
> moral and ethical reasons one might want to use Free Software.
> 
> Overall, I don't think it's that bad...

I think we have to accept that popularism is always going to be around.
I know scientists who hate many TV science presentations because parts
of them are inaccurate. Ok, its better to be accurate if at all possible
but I'd rather reports like this existed and went around than no reports
at all. After all these people do need to learn and having a go and
making mistakes is often the best way to learn. Not doing anything for
fear of making an error is a good way of killing learning.

So yes, let's point out errors but try to do it in such a way that it
encourages the people making them to do more work!

-- 
ian <address@hidden>