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SchoolTool Calendar 0.10 ReleasedSchoolTool Calendar 0.10 ReleasedPosted Jun 15, 2005 15:11 UTC (Wed) by peace (guest, #10016)Parent article: SchoolTool Calendar 0.10 Released
The timing on this could not have been better for me. I am meeting with our school districts super intendent tomorrow morning to go over options for pilot projects using FL/OSS software. I was focusing on library software and thin clients, now I will take another look at SchoolTool.
The trick is getting people to understand the fundamental differences between "going FL/OSS" vs. proprietary. With Free software they need to internalise the need to get behind the project, as users, contributors and funders. I am trying to educate people that Libre software is not gratus. Real people with real needs devote their time to creating it. The real benefit is in what RMS has stated all along, the freedom to modify, share and use it for any pupose you see fit. Of course there are strong positive financial arguments as well, but they need to be de-emphasized. What I see hapenning in the FL/OSS ecosystem is that "users" are picking the fruits without watering the roots. I don't think this is actually intentional, I just think they are not educated about how things really work. I think it is partly the Open Source (not Free) software movements fault for continualy touting the "free$" money angle instead of the more beneficial but harder to explain Libre angle. The public is simply following our lead and it is causing individual developer burnout and corporate take over (enlightened private funders not withstanding, thanks Mark ;-).
Whats needed is a concerted effort to tackle the more fundamental economic realities that underly the production of FL/OSS software. We need to encorporate that model into our society. If we do not we may have every government and organization switched over to FL/OSS, waiting for the next release that never comes because they were never taught how to tend the garden.
Kind Regards
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SchoolTool Calendar 0.10 Released Posted Jun 15, 2005 16:19 UTC (Wed) by nstraz (subscriber, #1592) [Link] I heard a great simile at the last TCLUG event. Instead of using "Free as in speech/beer" the speaker said, "Free like a puppy." I think that's a great way of conveying that FL/OSS has great rewards, but takes some effort to make it work for you.
SchoolTool Calendar 0.10 Released Posted Jun 15, 2005 16:51 UTC (Wed) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link] I'm going to be chuckling all day now, thanks :-)
What I have found is that people, organizations and government (I have talked to all) understand the need to pay for tools and services. They just don't know how to do that with Free software because the mechanisms are either not apparent or not available. All they see are "download now" buttons and a choir of people singing, "switch, it's free"! Maybe we should start spelling OpenSource as Open$ource :)
As Free software becomes mainstream it is not unresonable to expect the larger society to contribute economicaly to it's sustainability. In fact I have found that this is actually what organizations and government want to do. The system of economics is set up to do exactly that. People who understand economics are suspicious of free$, as they should be. It's not sustainable given the demands of the market, which is what Free software is integrating with.
While "free like a puppy" is qute, whats needed is an explanation of the process for involvement. I think that is largely the responsibilty of the Free software VAR's. They need to become more aware of the need to educate their clients and set up the infrastructure for sending support back to the projects that are developing the software that they use as the core of their business. Maybe "Free like a garden" is more to my point.
Kind Regards
SchoolTool Calendar 0.10 Released Posted Jun 16, 2005 0:29 UTC (Thu) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link] I think it's a bit early to be up in arms about not having enoguh people contributing things back.
even with people who don't contribute things back the total number of people who do is climbing, it doesn't matter that much that the percentage is droppign slightly, the total amount of free software is climbing as never before.
also people (and orginizations) tend to start useing something that has no obligations much easier then things that do, but as their use grows and they want new features added, thats the time to talk to them about contributing back
SchoolTool Calendar 0.10 Released Posted Jun 15, 2005 17:31 UTC (Wed) by danielpf (subscriber, #4723) [Link] Let us compare software development to scientific research.
Mathematics or basic science research is very similar to open source software development because information is freely exchanged. In contrast, applied research in private companies where information is only partly shared is similar to proprietary software development. For defense related research, information is not shared at all, except by spies.
1) Suppose N basic science teams work on related topics in the same field. Each team produces one discovery a year and publishes it with all the details. After one year each team has gained N discoveries, in total N^2 discoveries can be applied in the field.
2) Now suppose N applied science teams do the same, but only publish their result without details. After one year each applied science team can only fully use their own discovery. But they know in part what the other N-1 discoveries are, so may be able to duplicate some of them more easily. So guided they can achieve, say, k times their own results. After one year the field can use kN discoveries. So when k<N, open research is already more efficient globally.
3) Completely secret research is obviously worse. The other teams do not even know which discoveries have been achieved by the others. After one year only N discoveries in total can be used, and perhaps even less if some discoveries have been duplicated by ignorance.
In summary, there is a simple reason why open source software is more efficient when there is a large pool of programmers interested to work on similar projects, it is a multiplicative process: each result is multiplied by the number of participants.
SchoolTool Calendar 0.10 Released Posted Jun 15, 2005 18:04 UTC (Wed) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link] Scenario 2 would also seem to be greatly hampered by patents. If reasearch teams then patent their results it becomes tricky to use that results directly and dangerous to do research in general (submarine patents).
In all scenarios the scientists need to make a living. There is an understood economic model for doing this in the sciences. We need one for Free software too.
Kind Regards
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