Gaining popularity? Yeah right, says Google

I have been under the impression that GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software have been gaining popularity, especially within the last couple years.  One trip to Google Trends proved me wrong.

The first search I tried was “GNU/Linux”, but since Google Trends didn’t know how to handle the “/” properly, I entered “GNU Linux” instead.  The result was astonishing.

Entering just “Linux” doesn’t give any better results.

Nor does just “GNU”.

This made me wonder: are distributions themselves gaining popularity?  Obviously Ubuntu’s graph would go way up, but what about the more elder, time tested distros?  Debian isn’t doing so well.

Fedora and Red Hat aren’t increasing either. (Blue is Fedora, Red is Red Hat)

At least a stone-age distribution like Yggdrasil can’t loose too many users!

The KDE vs. Gnome debate (with the former obviously being the stronger contender, and the latter only having the popularity Ubuntu gives it) is at a neck and neck downward spiral, though not as sharply as most of the other Free/Open Source Software keywords. (KDE is blue, Gnome is red)

So what about proprietary software companies?  Are they going down too?  It depends on which you are talking about.  Microsoft is slowly but surely going down.

It’s taking its partner in law-defended crime, Novell, down with it.

Many proprietary software companies are increasing, though.  Take Adobe for instance.

Apple is also doing well.

Is this really that big of a problem?  Hopefully not.  Despite what most of us think, Google doesn’t know everything.  While it is an amazing resource, we still have to use our noodles.  In my opinion, there is no way that the popularity of GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software can be decreasing with the amount of activity going on.  KDE is almost done rebuilding itself, Artheros opened up some of its drivers, Firefox set a world record, etc.  I could go on forever.

Let’s keep spreading the word about GNU/Linux and Free/Open Source Software! (and possibly do some Google searches on the subject as well…)

Is Free Software dependent on the Internet?

Is Free Software dependent on the Internet?  I have fantasized a (hopefully) comical situation that describes where I believe Free Software would be today if the Internet had never been invented.

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Once upon a time the was a man named Tommy.  Tommy’s loved his job as systems administrator for the grain distribution giant Garcill.  He never had to do any real work; he could get by fine by doing almost nothing at all.  Every now and then someone would have a problem with one of their computers.  No worries; it didn’t take any effort whatsoever to throw a new cd in the cd drive and wait for Windows to reinstall itself.  Other than occasional responsibilities, Tommy was free to sit at his desk all day, eat popcorn, and play hours worth of “Captain Comic”.

In order to make it seem like he was really motivationally driven to create the best possible technology system for Garcill, Tommy would occasionally attend technology conferences.  The Chicago Mid-summer IT Convention was one of his favorites.  You see, most of the people attending this conference were going for technology news and advice.  This was one of the few places these pieces of information could be obtained, other than the occasional newspaper or TV story.  Tommy thought differently.  He knew the tourist attractions in Chicago were plentiful, all of which could be paid for through company money.  Plus, the presenters never used microphones, so they couldn’t wake you up during a well-deserved nap.  Life was good, thought Tommy, as he loaded up his suitcase with the things he would need to have a blast roaming the streets of Chicago.
Tommy arrived at the convention ready for a good time.  Every year, he would compare the sessions he attended with the ones from the previous year to see what the worst one was.  So far, the most boring one was “Understanding the Security and Compliance Implications of Large Scale Data Management” from 2005.  Would this year be better or worse?  By the sound of the first session, it would be worse.  “GNU: The Operating System of Hackers”.  Wasn’t a gnu another name for the wildebeest, and what the heck was a hacker?
When he walked into this session, there was some hippie standing on the stage.  A hippie?  Why in the world was there a hippie standing on the stage?  What could he possibly lecture about, freedom?  Yeah right.  “Go back to the 70s,” Tommy thought to himself.  While waiting for the lecture to start, though, it started to bother him.  What could a hippie possibly lecture about.  He obviously wasn’t going to lecture about freedom.  What did freedom have to do with technology? “Maybe it has to do with saving the wildebeests,” he thought.  “But they aren’t endangered.”

Tommy’s mind kept ping-ponging until the hippie stepped up to the podium to begin his lecture.  He introduced himself and claimed he was the last true hacker, and that a hacker was someone who programs for fun.  When he wasn’t allowed to modify the source code to a printer during his days at MIT labs, he decided to make a complete operating system that allowed anybody to modify it.  He called this operating system “GNU”.  Releasing GNU this way allowed people to have the freedom (”uhhh”, Tommy moaned) to use the piece of software, make changes to it, and give away the original program with or without your changes.
The presenter went on to talk about how he created the GNU project.  In the 1980s, he started working on some of the basic components of GNU.  He continued working faithfully on it, and had a usable operating system by 2005.  Another benefit, he explained, was that it kept growing.  If somebody wanted to add a feature, they could add it, and then give away the new modified version to anyone interested.  Then this person could modify the modified version, and give that away again.  After explaining all of this, the speaker put an old computer disk on his head and said he was “Saint IGNUtious, of the church of Emacs, granting computer freedom to all.”

“That was different,” Tommy thought.  “Some of these presentations are really boring, but that was just plain stupid.  How many times am I going to find someone who just made the changes I need to a piece of software?”  As he walked out, he noticed that there were some demonstration computers set up.  Tommy thought he would try one out, just to see how powerful this GNU thing was.  Tommy sat down at the computer, and stared blankly at a screen that was, well, almost blank. It was a terminal.

“What does this thing do?” he asked the man next to him.  “Type ‘ls /usr/bin’,” he replied.  Tommy typed ‘ls /usr/bin’ and words were printed on the screen.  “Those are all of the files in the ‘/usr/bin’ directory.”  “What else does this do?  I can do that on any UNIX machine.”  “Not much.  I suppose, though, that no one person can program a good operating system all by himself.”  “I am sure there are a bunch of people out there who really want to work on GNU, but have no way of doing so.  How would that person get his/her changes integrated into the code?”

“I should have probably introduced myself.  I am Dan, from Indianapolis.  I work in the Garcill IT department.”  “You work for Garcill!”  Tommy exclaimed.  “Yeah.  I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I do a lot more work than you probably think.  The technology director in Minneapolis doesn’t exactly do what he is supposed to, so I am usually stuck cleaning up after him.  So, where do you work?”  “Uh… I…” Tommy stuttered.  “I am on the All-Mart IT staff in Kansas City,” Tommy lied.  “Sounds much more appealing than my job cleaning up after that buffoon,” Dan joked.

Not finding that joke very funny, Tommy quickly looked back at his computer screen.  It still had the output of the command he had typed earlier on it.  Among those words listed was word ‘emacs’.  “Wasn’t Emacs the name of that ‘church’ from the presentation?” asked Tommy, trying to change the subject. “Yeah, I think it was.”  Tommy typed ‘emacs’, expecting something amazing to happen.  A text editor popped up.  After a few minutes, the two men gave up trying to figure out how to actually type something into the text editor and left to go their the next presentation.

“What is your next session?” Tommy asked.  “Caldera UNIX Desktop Deployment for the Medium-sized Business.”  “I’ve got the same one.”  As the two men walked to their next session together, their conversation had nowhere to go but back to the previous presentation.

“So why would anyone ever use GNU over a more powerful version of UNIX?” “It seems to me that he has this insane dream of everyone working together to create software for the greater good.”  “Unless people printed out their changes and mailed them to a central developer, there is no way to communicate changes to the main developer.  It’s impossible for anything productive to ever happen.”  “Yeah, it’s not like computers can call each other up on the phone and have a conversation!”  They laughed, but the laughter was short-lived.  For the next seven hours, Tommy got to sit through session after session after session.

After the convention, and some fun roaming the streets of Chicago, Tommy caught the flight back to Minneapolis.  He forgot about the presentations he attended at the conference, but he didn’t forget about the fact that someone else had to clean up after him because of his laziness.  Tommy learned that the time he put into his job really did make a difference.  He had a good feeling that he was, ethically, doing the right thing.  He walked hastily down the hall to help some co-workers with their Windows computers.

The Hablator “Iron” (0.4) - The Best Casual Chat Script Ever

I have just updated a (GPL’ed) PHP chat application I maintain called “The Hablator”.  It is the best casual chat script ever.  (When Amazon.com just opened, it already claimed to have “Earth’s biggest selection”, so saying that about The Hablator isn’t too radical…)  What I mean by a casual chat script is that it isn’t made to be a complete replacement for IRC.  It is designed to serve a few purposes.

First, it allows a site’s visitors to share opinions and collaborate.  It isn’t meant to be a chat room that thousands of “regulars” log into every day.  For instance, if you run a radio station, The Hablator would give your listeners an opportunity to discuss the song currently playing. These people come and go as they wish.  Each time they come, they are greeted with fast and easy access to the chat area.  It isn’t any easier or harder in future visits.

Next, it is a great platform for having online meetings on.  For instance, I joined a documentation project a little while ago.  We had to have a meeting to kickstart the project.  We weren’t going to meet again, so we just wanted a quick and easy solution.  Initially, the first meeting was going to be on Skype, but I refused to install that piece of proprietary junk on my computer and have my bandwidth wasted on other peoples’ telephone conversations.  After that, we tried to move to IRC, but one of the members had some kind of trouble with her IRC client.  She was going to try to find and install a new one, when I suggested we move to The Hablator.  Everyone could easily log on, so we were able to instantly start discussing business matters.  The Hablator worked without a hitch.

Finally, it was made to replace rapid-response email conversations.  This was actually the initial inspiration for creating it.  I found myself getting into several “rapid-response email conversations” in which one person sends an email, and gets a response back almost immediately, to which the person responds and immediately get a response, and so on.  I looked around on Hotscripts for a chat script, but didn’t see any that fit my needs.  All of them were clunky Java/Flash programs, required users to go through a registration process, or didn’t seem relevant to what I wanted to do. (At that time, Java was still proprietary software.  Even if it would have been Free Software, it would have still been a little bit heavyweight for what I wanted to use it for.) What I really wanted was a fully-featured chat program that had just a touch of shoutbox feel to it.  I forgot about it for a while, until the summer of ‘07 when I got stuck in another rapid-response email conversation.  I was determined to create a chat script to solve the problem.  The Hablator 0.1 was born!

I don’t know why I just used an exclamation point in the previous sentence, because this version was really ugly, and didn’t work very well. The Hablator 0.1 was an IFrame that contained the contents of a certain PHP file.  That specific PHP file existed for two reasons: to echo the line <meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”3″>, and to load the contents of the file message.txt.  Whenever anyone posted something, it would open up message.txt and add whatever the user had typed to the beginning.  There was no AJAX whatsoever.  It submitted like any other form, and then once it was submitted,  the user was redirected back to the main chat page.

The Hablator “Stone” (0.2) was released less than a month after.  To be honest with you, I didn’t really change much besides the light to indicate when other users are typing.  That light was really challenging for me at the time, though.  Before this time, I had never had any experience with AJAX.  I suppose learning AJAX during your second month of Javascript is pretty good, but not when you don’t know how to use it.  I spent the longest time trying to figure out how it worked.  What was this XmlHttpRequest thing anyway, and how did it work?  All I knew about it was that I had to use it if I wanted this light to work.  After two weeks of working with it, I finally figured it out.  Everything was in place.  It worked great on Firefox, but did it work on IE?  I had to find a Windows computer to check.  Hoping for the best, I navigated to a demo installation and logged in.  Nope.  Nothing.  I worked for days to get it to work on Internet Explorer.  After numerous email conversations with complete strangers, several forum posts, and hundreds of heaping helpings of frustration, I found the answer.  header(”cache-control: no-cache”).  IE was dumb enough to cache a request made through an XmlHttpRequest object!  What company would be stupid enough to make a browser that caches AJAX requests?  Oh, Microsoft!  After removing this bug, I finally released version 0.2 “Stone” and took a week-long vacation to celebrate.  (It’s a great way to celebrate, especially when you learn that the modifications you did to your server immediately before leaving broke Apache’s configuration, so all requests to the server end up as 500s.  It is even more assuring to know that your server is safely locked up in your father’s bedroom, where no one can get to it!)

While The Hablator “Stone” (0.2) wasn’t exactly a release that introduced a bunch of new features, The Hablator “Bronze” (0.3) was.  All of that time spent working through my problem with the last release had made me a better developer.  I also had a huge list of features I was ready to add.  I started adding feature upon feature, until I knew school would be starting back up soon.  At the time, I assumed my classes would be extremely vigorous, so I thought that I should release before school started.  I finished up some essential features, and started bugtesting.  I made it before school started with two days to spare!  In this release, I realized how complicated I had made the AJAX before, and switched it all over to jQuery.  I also changed the main chat system to an AJAX system based on jQuery.  Yeah, the jQuery libraries were pretty big, but it was still smaller than loading a long list of messages every couple seconds!

At the beginning of the year, I decided I was done with The Hablator.  I really wasn’t all that interested anymore.  Plus, it did everything I originally wanted it to do.  But later that year, I recieved some emails from some people requesting certain features.  It was the first time I realized that The Hablator was actually being used by other people.  I decided to make another release of The Hablator, because there were a bunch of things that still drove me crazy about it.  Once school got out, I had a few music composition projects to work on.  Once those were well underway, sometime near the middle of June, I started back up.  I invited Kate back into my life, an old friend of mine that I hadn’t seen for what seemed like an eternity.  I was ready.  After some sporadic work on both The Hablator and my music composition projects, I started some serious work on it near the middle of July.  Since then, I have been working to produce The Hablator - “Iron” (0.4).

The Hablator has a bunch of really cool features.  It now uses several libraries, including Luke Plant’s FlatFile database, jQuery (obviously), and a slightly modified version of Gary White’s Browser Detection script.  I would like to thank the developers of these projects.  Because of these developers, The Hablator has a feature set far beyond what it would have if I had to make all of those libraries myself!  You can see the complete list of features in the changelog.

I don’t know what is in store for The Hablator in the future.  If I find (or someone else finds) some bugs in this release, I’ll make sure to release an updated version.  There aren’t any new features I want to add, so for right now, it is going to be dormant.  Sometime, I may port it to Joomla!, if I find the need to do so.

I think The Hablator is the best casual chat script ever, but you don’t have to take my word for it!  Download it at http://BernsteinForPresident.com/hablator.php or try the live demo at http://BernsteinForPresident.com/hab-sample.  Hopefully you will find it as useful and fun as I do.

Explaining Software Freedom to a Beginner

I needed a good way to explain software freedom to people who have little to no computer experience (possibly parents or grandparents, kids, stay-at-home moms/dads, etc.), so I created the following blog post.  Many of these people could benefit from free software, but aren’t going to learn about it through mainstream media.  These people are usually easy to convert to Free Software, because they don’t already have blind opinions about the benefits of proprietary software.  They also don’t resist with the “I don’t want to learn a new program” excuse, because they haven’t put much time into learning any software yet.

You are free to modify and distribute the following under the terms of the GNU FDL.  To redistribute this, you can download it in PDF format or ODT format.

What is Software Freedom?

Many years ago, when computers were just being invented, people really didn’t care about computer software. If a company or organization was lucky enough to own a computer, it would find or create a piece of software to use on it afterwards. Other companies or organizations with computers would be nice enough to give away the software they had written, because it really didn’t mean that much to them. People had all the freedom they could want with this system. They had the freedom to give away their own software, and to receive software from others. They had the freedom to change any piece of software to accomplish the task at hand. They even had the freedom to give their modified version of a piece of software away to someone else in need.

Since then, the times have changed. Now, many pieces of computer software are locked down in a way that prevents people from making changes, just so that the software can be sold for a profit.

What is wrong with most software?

The reason companies lock down their software is because know they can make money off something that should be shared among everyone. Under normal circumstances, there isn’t any problem with people trying to make money. There is a problem when people want to make money so badly that it interferes with progress and innovation.

Different companies and individuals had to keep reinventing the wheel in order to sell their software; they couldn’t just change someone else’s software to fit their needs. Lots of people spent a lot of time writing computer software that somebody else had already written. If these people had shared the software they wrote with everybody, all of the time spent duplicating an existing program could go to improving it.

Another problem with not sharing software is the fact that one company or individual maintains complete control over what that piece of software does. More often than not, that person or company will be interested in making money instead of making the software as powerful and useful as possible. Therefore, the program’s creator is free to put obtrusive or unobtrusive advertisements into the program.

Obtrusive advertisements are pop-ups, nagging screens asking you to buy the “full version”, and other advertisements that ask you to spend your money in a certain way. An example of an obtrusive advertisement that you may be familiar with is the MSN icon (the butterfly) on the bar at the top of Windows Media Player. Another example of obtrusive advertising is when the Apple iPhone adds the text “Sent from my iPhone” to the bottom of all emails sent.

Unobtrusive advertisements are certain features or the lack thereof that force you to use software from a certain company again in the future. Unobtrusive advertisements are far more common than obtrusive ones. An example of unobtrusive advertising is the fact that Microsoft Word saves in Microsoft’s “.doc” format instead of the international standard, “.odt”. This forces you to use Microsoft Word again in the future if you want to view or edit that file. It also forces anyone else who wants to view or edit that file to use Microsoft Word.

The History of Software Freedom

One of the first people to realize a problem existed was Richard Stallman. In the 1970s, Stallman became frustrated when he couldn’t make an improvement to a piece of software he had received at no cost. This made him start to think about the computer software market. He was talented at creating software himself, and he knew several other people who were as well. They decided to create all of the software that a computer needs to run, and then share it with anyone who wanted it. It would be free of cost, but more importantly, anyone would have the freedom to change and redistribute it. Stallman wanted to make sure that, if modifications were made to his software, other people would be able to benefit from those modifications as well. Therefore, he put a modest requirement on his software that stated, “If you make changes to this software, those changes need to be shared as well.” He called this collection of software “GNU”. In 1991, another component was added to GNU to complete it called “Linux”. Therefore, the complete system was called “GNU/Linux”.

What is is called?

Stallman called this form of software “Free Software”. Most people incorrectly call any software that is free of cost “Free Software”. In true Free Software, the “Free” part refers to freedom, not cost. While it is true that most Free Software is free of cost, not all software that is free of cost can be called “Free Software”. Many times, applications that are free of cost are marketed as Free Software. There have been other names given to Free Software to help differentiate it, including “Freedomware”, “FOSS”, and “FLOSS”. Often, is is also called “Open Source Software”, or “OSS” for short. (Open Source Software has a few very minor differences from Free Software, but for our purposes, they are the same concept.)

Stallman also called any piece of software that wasn’t Free Software “Proprietary Software”. He carefully chose not to use the term “Commercial Software”, because he knew that some companies have indeed found ways to make money off Free Software. Calling freedom-subtracted software “Commercial Software” would give the impression that Free Software can’t be used in the industry, which is far from the truth.

Why Free Software is great

Free Software is generally much higher quality than Proprietary Software for several reasons. Many of the people who create Free Software do not get paid for doing so; it is created completely in their free time. These people obviously have a passion for creating software, since they are willing to do it in their free time. This gives the free software community the cream of the crop developers. There isn’t anyone working on Free Software who does it just for the paycheck.

In addition, all software is shared. This means that, unlike proprietary software, the wheel is never reinvented. Let’s say an German developer spends several years of his life creating a computer program that does the user’s yard work, and decides to make it Free Software. Now let’s say that a Russian software developer wants to create the same program, but in Russian. All that Russian developer has to do is go through and translate the existing piece of software. In the world of Proprietary Software, that Russian developer would have to start from scratch and recreate the whole application. Free Software just saved this person years of work. After a while, you can see everyone’s hours, days, and years start to add up to a considerable amount of time saved. This time saved directly translates into quality and progress

Free Software won’t always do everything people want, but it is guaranteed not to do the things people don’t want. If there is anything that the world as a whole does not like inside a piece of Free Software, it will eventually be removed by someone who feels strongly about its removal. This system of checks and balances is one of, if not the best, system of quality control ever created.

Final Comments

Free Software is any software the gives people the freedom to do what they want with it. Proprietary Software is any piece of software that is not Free Software. Free Software offers a massive number of advantages over Proprietary Software, because it is created by people, for people. Features are not added to or subtracted from Free Software based on how much money they will generate, but instead on how useful they will make the software.

One of the reasons not many people know about Free Software is because Free Software projects usually don’t advertise. The creators of software usually prefer to use all of the money available to them to improve the software. The only advertising these projects get is word of mouth.

To help promote the spread of Software Freedom and the advancement of technology, try using some pieces of Free Software instead of Proprietary Software. Two very well known pieces of Free Software you may want to try are the Firefox Web Browser (http://mozilla.com/firefox) and the OpenOffice Productivity Suite (http://openoffice.org). There are Free Software applications to replace most Proprietary Software. Two good sites to go to to find more free software are Osalt (http://www.osalt.com) and the Free Software Foundation Directory (http://directory.fsf.org). Together, we can help spread Software Freedom.

The FSF needs a new approach to advertising

Ah!  A fresh issue of the “Linux Format” magazine.  I rip off the plastic wrap and open up to a random article.  This article is about the newest piece of proprietary Grubby Games software.  I immediately realize something isn’t right.  My eyes slowly make their way to the bottom right side of the page.   There is an advertisement for the Free Software Foundation staring right back at me.

When I saw this, I was shocked!  I had never seen an advertisement for the Free Software Foundation before!  I have been reading incorrectly-titled “Linux” magazines for a long time, and never once seen an advertisement for the Free Software Foundation.  I feel that most GNU/Linux users who care about GNU/Linux enough to go buy a magazine on it already have an opinion about the Free Software Foundation.

There aren’t too many GNU/Linux users I have actually met in person.  One of these users had never even heard of software freedom before.  He had been using “Linux” since the middle 90’s.  When I wished him “Happy Software Freedom Day“, the conversations followed:

Him: “What is that?  Is that a day for pirating software?”

Me: “No, software freedom as in Free Software”

Him: Blank stare

Me: “The Free Software Foundation?”

Him: Blank stare

Me: “It’s kind of like Open Source, but…”

Him: “Oh, Open Source!”

At first, this surprised me.  How could someone who used GNU/Linux for that long not know about software freedom?  Well, I figured that there really were a handful of people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and did not know anything about software freedom or the FSF.  But I never assumed that a large number of people were like this…  until I learned about the stereotype “Ubuntu user”.

By no means am I saying that all, or even most Ubuntu users know nothing about Free Software.  I personally use Kubuntu.  Even Richard Stallman and the rest of the FSF use gNewSense, a derivative of Ubuntu.  The reason I am making the reference to Ubuntu users is because so many of them believe that Linux=Ubuntu, and have no idea what GNU/Linux is. Just do a Google search on “Best Ubuntu Applications” and see how many come up.  Now take a look at how many of them don’t mention “Linux” anywhere on the page, even in the comments.  It’s shocking.

In my opinion, the users I am talking about use GNU/Linux for one of four reasons:

• They want to make themselves seem really geeky
• They are trying show off to their peers
• They need to save money
• They have no choice

Some people think that these people should not use GNU/Linux in the first place.  I firmly disagree.  Originally, I tried “Linux” back in ‘05 because I heard it was free of cost, and I had a computer that wouldn’t run anything other than Windows ME.  I thought it would be a good experience to try to get this computer to work.  I played around with it for a year or so, until I did my History Day project on it.  When I started, I didn’t even know the name of the OS was GNU/Linux, let alone what GNU was.  This was my introduction to software freedom.  Most of what I know now came from the research of that project.  After learning the history behind Free Software, I became an instant advocate, and immediately made a presentation to my school’s Tech Coordinator about why Free Software should be used in our school.  (Even though it didn’t work very well - when you are in middle school, you don’t exactly have that much power…)  If I hadn’t been drawn into GNU/Linux by the initial cost factor, I would have never even tried it in the first place.

I do think that it is a good idea for the Free Software Foundation to advertise.  It is important that new users are inaugurated into the world of software freedom.  I don’t, however, believe that the magazines are the best way to reach the target audience.  “Linux” magazines have already left a bad taste in Richard Stallman’s mouth (see “The GNU Project“), so why would he allow the Free Software Foundation to advertise there?  Almost all of the people who read those magazines either already know and love the FSF, or have conciously chosen to ignore it.  At a level that requires buying an expensive magazine, you won’t get many newbies.

So what are my suggestions for where the FSF should advertise?  If they could pay to include a chapter in “Linux for Dummies”, that would be a much better outlet for the pennies the FSF makes every year.  Obviously that isn’t possible, so my suggestions are as follows:

• Answer posts relating to proprietary software on UbuntuForums.org and LinuxQuestions.org, and talk to these people about the benefits of Free Software
• Create media, including videos, music, etc that people would enjoy listening to (that means this doesn’t count) that they would enjoy sharing with others
• Start Free Software User Groups
• Make an effort to get schools to switch to Free Software

Think about it: would it better if everyone in the world heard the name “FSF” mentioned once, or if a small group of first time “Linux” users were educated about why Software Freedom is important.  One trip to the Free Software Foundation’s website probably won’t get anyone to change their ethics regarding computer software.  I admit that I went to both the FSF website and the GNU website after I first used “Linux”, but didn’t really take the time to understand any of it.  The FSF needs to hook people.  The advertising techniques I mentioned above (and certainly ones I didn’t think of as well) would greatly enhance the publicity of the FSF.  The goal is to get people hooked, not to try to tell people to go to fsf.org and make a donation.  You can’t get people hooked by showing them a generic advertisement; you have to get down to the personal level.

I love the Free Software Foundation dearly, and appreciate all the work they are doing to spread software freedom.  I just hope that they can improve their advertising to better spread the word of Free Software.

6/30/08 Update: I just received a comment from Paul Hudson, editor of “Linux Format”.  He informed me that “Linux Format” gives that advertising space out to the Free Software Foundation for free.  That’s really nice of them to help out the FSF.

Unfortunately, this also reveals another problem.  The Free Software Foundation doesn’t do any advertising or publicity!  They do all of this great work, but don’t spread the news beyond their their cronies.

10 Reasons why Free Software and GNU/Linux should be used in schools

I’ve got a pet peeve. I love reading “Why GNU/Linux should be used in schools” articles. My pet peeve is the fact that the main focus of most of these articles is cost. The way it is portrayed by the media turns it into a cheap “alternative” that you use if you can’t afford Windows or hate Microsoft. This isn’t what makes GNU/Linux truly great for schools. Using that as my motivational drive, I decided to compile a list of the top 10 reasons that make GNU/Linux and other Free Software essential for schools.

1. No vendor lock-ins - Once you go to a proprietary company, it’s hard to leave. Many people, especially computer-illiterate people, believe that companies all try to make their products the best so that consumers will like them. While this is definitely true for most markets, the software market is completely different. The longer you use a piece of proprietary software and build up your infrastructure around it, the harder it is to leave.

2. Freedom to redistribute - The freedom to redistribute allows schools to bridge the gap between home and school. Since the GPL allows free redistribution, any student or staff member can install it on his/her own computer and have access to the same applications that they have at school. Many freeware programs do not allow you to redistribute them, or limit the environments in which they may be installed.

3. Security – In almost all cases, Free Software based solutions are more secure than proprietary software based ones. Free software leaves software in Beta until it is really ready to be used, whereas some proprietary software companies sell you Beta 1. When you use a rock solid system like Debian Stable, it is rare to find a security hole. When security holes are found, they are patched much sooner because everyone has access to the source code. People don’t have to wait for weeks on end to see if the company decided to fix the bugs they found.

4. No pressure to upgrade - “Done!” exclaimed Joe, the school’s network administrator. He grabbed his Norton Ghost CD, slammed it in the garbage, and strutted down the hallway back to his office. It was a wonderful thing, to see all of these computers running Megasoft Doors XT. It had taken years to get XT onto all of these computers. As he approached his office, he noticed a shadowy figure standing in the doorway. “Are you Mr. Joe Peterson?” asked the equivocal man. “Why yes, I most certainly am. How may I help you?” Joe asked, as he stepped into the door. The man followed him into the office, and closed the door behind himself. After about an hour, both men emerged from the office. Joe had a new responsibility now: install Megasoft Doors Perspective on every computer in the school. In most schools, situations are closer to Joe’s extreme than the average person would expect. Big Brother Salespeople are lurking around every corner.

5. Computers last longer - I have a machine from ‘96 running the most recent version of Debian smoothly. Older computers can run stripped-down distros, like DSL or Arch, that will work great on nearly any computer. I wonder how a certain other operating system from a monopolistic company would work if it had only 32 mb of RAM to work with? (Probably the same way it would work on a brand new Alienware machine: not at all! :D) Even through many schools wouldn’t want to use computers this old, it provides another excellent opportunity: distributing them to poverty-stricken children. This isn’t possible with today’s proprietary operating systems because of licensing problems. Even if it were possible, it would still be far from practical to give students a computer that doesn’t even have the RAM to open a web browser.

6. Ability to modify - The truly amazing part about Free Software is that you can adapt it to fit your needs. All software has limitations. Proprietary software power users know the limitations of their software. Free software power users know how to fix the limitations of their software. This flexibility is especially important in the educational environment, where programs must be molded to suit students, staff members, and administrators.

7. Students get exposure to free software - Nobody knows what the future will hold. It could be an online desktop. It could be cell phones completely replacing laptops. Nobody knows. The more exposure students have, the better. It also helps students develop more tolerance. People today think of GNU/Linux as the ‘generic brand’ product. Every GNU/Linux user has, at some time, had someone “inform” them in this jeering, derisive voice, “You get what you pay for.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but nothing in life is free. People don’t understand this. Therefore, when they hear about GNU/Linux, they don’t take it seriously. For the same reason people buy outrageously priced Abercrombie clothing, Coach purses, and BMW cars, they continue to buy “designer” software.

8. Choice – When students get older, they shouldn’t ever be forced to use any specific piece of computer software. Every piece of software has its advantages and disadvantages (though some more than others), so everyone deserves an educated choice. When you don’t have a choice, things don’t tend to go very well. That’s why monopolies are illegal. Lets take my cousin for example. She called me a little while ago wondering how to use Photoshop, which she had just purchased. I told her I never used it, because I used GIMP instead. When she asked about GIMP, I explained it to her. You can imagine the disappointment she must have felt, especially since she bought it to do a few simple image edits that even a novice Imagemagick user could do via the terminal. So why did she immediately go to Photoshop? It is because she had a class at school about how to edit images with it. Knowledge is power.

9. Open file formats – If everybody and everything in the world would work together and seamlessly exchange information, we would be in Utopia. Unfortunately, that will never happen. Some jerk (or group of jerks, formally called a “Corporation”) will end up ruining it for everybody. Imagine a new company just started up, called Ship-N-Store. Ship-N-Store offers a completely free service. What they do is hold all of your most important stuff for you. You simply package up all of your most prized possessions and ship them off to this company. Then, to get your information back, you simply write a letter to this company, and they will hopefully send your stuff back. You are probably asking yourself why anyone would use such a stupid service, even if it is free of cost? People would do it for the same reason that they would use a closed file format: to put themselves at the mercy of a large group of people who want nothing but money. Using a closed off file format offers no advantages whatsoever, beyond compatibility with certain proprietary products. In the future, there is no guarantee that any piece of free or proprietary software will be able to open the files that you save.

10. Ethical – Free Software encourages sharing with those around you. One person can use their time to create something that affects thousands of people in a positive way. Richard Stallman learned this back in ‘85, and it motivated him enough to start the GNU project. Free Software is the heart of projects like OLPC and The Helios Project (formally Komputers4Kids). It is based on the same philosophy that made Wikipedia the seventh most popular site in the world. (Wikipedia used to be, in part, a GNU project.) The only way great things can be accomplished is if everybody works together. Linus Torvalds figured this out in ‘91. Linus’ Law, coined by Eric Raymond, states that “With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” This couldn’t be more true. Would you rather have one professional detective look for your lost wallet, or have everyone in your city keep an eye out for it?

There are so many benefits other than cost to using GNU/Linux in schools. In this article, I have only scratched the surface. I strongly encourage you to join the fight against proprietary software in schools. Together, we can make IT work!

If only schools could change

Right now, many schools’ technology systems are corrupt, but not necessarily for the right reason.  It seems like schools are completely locked in to Microsoft, not only as a platform, but also as a curriculum.  A great example of this is the description for the “Using Tech - Accelerated” class in my school.  The prerequisite for going into the advanced “Using Tech” class is “experience using most Microsoft products”.  This just shows that schools today aspire to teach kids how to use Microsoft, not how to use computers.  The excuse is that “Microsoft is what is used in the business world”.  Make of this statement what you wish, but I don’t believe for a second that that is the only reason.  I am making these generalizations based on my school district and other school districts I have seen.  I speak with my district’s technology coordinators regularly, so I understand the attempt to make the perfect technology system, but it isn’t really happening.  The reason is society in general.  My school is already completely based on Microsoft.  The experience of other school districts, and common sense, tells us that staff members will not allow something like this.  In other districts, attempts to make even the tiniest changes repeatedly fail due to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude.  I overhead a conversation a little while ago.  For the most part, this is how it went:

Teacher: “It’s almost time to go, so save your work and email it home if you aren’t done.”
Student: “Can I use Google Documents?”
Teacher: “Why?”
Student: “It is a lot easier than emailing it home.  I learned about it in ‘Using Tech’ class.”
Teacher: “Well, you could, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Student: “Why not?”
Teacher: “Because there is no need to use it.  Emailing it works just fine.  Plus it doesn’t sound very reliable, and if something goes wrong, no one will know how to help you.  Just email it home.”
Student: “Okay”
A great technology wasted because the teacher doesn’t know how to use it.  The student knew perfectly well how to use it, but the teacher was clueless.  This is a perfect example of how schools want to change, but can’t.  This situation is kind of like a school district switching to GNU/Linux.  In the teacher’s eyes, Google Documents did the same thing that emailing it home did.  Teachers (and even most people in general) don’t want to learn a new technology if it doesn’t offer immediate significant advantages.  They are willing to put in the time to learn other technologies, like LCD projectors in the classroom, because it is obvious that there will be instant bennefit.  To them, GNU/Linux is just another headache. In addition, there is no cost effective way to switch immediately, especially in larger school districts.  GNU/Linux turns out to be far more expensive than Windows, after staff training and migration costs.  Now, my district is trying to adopt Moodle.  This is a giant leap in the right direction, but in a marathon, a giant leap means nothing.  It takes a sustained effort of steps to win a marathon.  A sustained effort is the only way for any school district to switch.  The problem is that there are too many other resistant people and other issues (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/05/13/schools-microsoft.htm) for something like that to happen.  The only way to push this forward is for community support.  If there are more people pushing for FOSS adoption than against it, we can make something happen.  I STRONGLY encourage you to write a letter to your district’s schoolboard, superintendent, principal(s), administrator(s), technology coordinator(s), or anyone else that may or may not listen.  A battle of this magnitude must be done Bazaar style: with numerous people doing their part.

About my Blog

I have always felt so-so about blogs.  I enjoyed reading them, but I never imagined myself having one.  I thought they were a waste of time, so I didn’t give the concept of having  one much thought.  That was a mistake.  One day, from out of the blue, my dad declared that he was going to start a blog.  My whole family thought he was nuts.  He thought it was an amazing idea, and that he would get famous and be on the news.  He made a bet with us that he would have over 100 subscribers by the end of summer.  That was some easy money.  (I don’t want to give you the URL, though, because I don’t want anyone to subscribe to it.)  I continued on with my daily life until I had an interesting news feed pop up in Akgregator: “New FSDaily feature: community blogs!”.  My initial reaction was, “Has the whole gotten blogging fever?”, but then, it occurred to me: people may like to read about my opinions. Why?  Because I am a high school student who is a FOSS advocate.  I have a hunch there aren’t too many of those around.  So I had a discussion with my father.  In the end, there was an additional bet: that my blog would have more subscribers than his.  I went to go start blogging with FSDaily, but I didn’t really like the platform.  Therefore, I went here instead.