"Raghu" == Raghavendra Bhat ragu@vsnl.com writes:
Raghu> Members of FSUG-Kochi have submitted a memorandum to the Raghu> Government of Kerala regarding the choice of software and Raghu> syllabus prescribed for the IT@School project. Link up and Raghu> read the full memo at
Raghu> http://www.symonds.net/~fsug-kochi/mass-memo.html
Nice document. I specially liked section 2 which talks about proprietary communication standards. Agree that those are going to cost much more in the long term than open or closed source. Leo, are you listening?
Section 4 is a bit weak. MS is now making source code available to limited audiences, and could theoretically make source available to Kerala schools if pressurised. Instead you could add stuff about learning from play: get the source, modify it, distribute modified source, gather experience. Software development today is (or should be) assimilation and integration rather than pure development. And that is what our school students should learn: not how to write code but how to judge what existing code comes closest to their requirements, how to modify it, how to integrate it into their application.
Finally, your argument may be strengthened if you point out the fact that free software like Linux will work just fine on older 386 and 486 PCs, unlike Winduhs which would require a hardware upgrade with each software version upgrade. And since we have already started making open source arguments (cost), why not bring in the other open source arguments too? Let's talk about the stability of free software, its security, its lack of creeping-featuritis.
Regards,
-- Raju