Sir,
Last day I made a long conversation with my friends who are studying Com Sc. I was talking about free software. While I was talking about GNU/Linux, one of them asked me "'Bill Gates is a great person', We get M$ Windows freely and how he gets money?". I was astonished to learn that not only him, most of the students don't know how he makes money. Most Com Sc students is thinking like this. They don't even know what is the difference between proprietary and free software. They don't know the Need of free software, the problem of Licensing etc..
I explained the facts about Free Software, Beginning of GNU Project, The power of GNU/Linux and some technical details. They were actually surprised!! and told me that it was interesting. They were interested in free software. I explained them the problems regarding 'Patents, Copyrights'.
While going through our 11th class Com Sc syllabus, its nothing, its only about some technicals...also the syllabus is following details about old technolgies. It contains - only about:
What is Information? Need of Information? What is Computer? What is data processing? The steps of data processing?, Number Systems........C++ basics..etc.
while our teacher was teaching about Primary and Secondary memory, She told that only there are three types of RAM. - Static, Dynamic, Synchronous Dynamic. I think these facts are old. Now a days, its very rare
to get a SD RAM. All new motherboards support only DDR SD RAM. Then how can we accept that?
Even after completing +2, the Com Sc students won't know the real things like The Need of Free Software in India, Its possibilities, Difference between 'GNU/Linux and M$ Windows'. They may only remember some syntax in C++ and some defenisions of Computers and Information.
I am explaining the point that 'Free Software can only make the Com SC an experience'. So the need of Free Software in 11th Class is inevitable. From this year itself there should be Free Software.. Atleast it should be able to conduct some free software awareness programs and workshops for 11th class students.
How can we implement these things?
Thanking you, Sarath Lakshman www.slynux.org --- "V. Sasi Kumar" sasi.fsf@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 09:37 -0700, Sarath Lakshman wrote:
I am here to inform you about an issue in 11th
Class.
Now I am studying in 11th class - Computer
Science.
Our text book is following the proprietary C++ compiler (Turbo C++ Compiler) and there is nothing about Software freedom and importance of free software.
Actually, the textbook only says C++. What compiler is to be used is decided by the school, as far as I know. The syllabus was revised to take into account the fact that students like you who joined the 11th standard this year have already been trained in using computer applications. The change is more visible in the syllabus for students of Commerce and other subjects. However, Free Software as such has not made an entry. This is because the revision was only superficial since it was done at the last minute and there was no time to rewrite the textbooks. Let us hope the government will change this at least next year. Meanwhile, if the new IT@School GNU/Linux distribution becomes popular in schools, there is every chance that many schools will naturally switch over to gcc in the Plus 2 level.
The same problem will arise in the case of database also. Although the textbook discusses only SQL, many schools may use proprietary versions and not MySQL or PostgreSQL.
A more serious problem exists in the case of Commerce students, who have to learn Visual Basic!
If your teachers are receptive, you can try to show them that gcc is the best compiler available, and that it is Free. But they may want a graphical interface.
Best
V. Sasi Kumar sasi.fsf@gmail.com Free Software Foundation of India
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