1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
|
---
Generator: 'texi2html 1.82'
description: Untitled Document
distribution: global
keywords: Untitled Document
resource-type: document
title: Untitled Document
...
1. Why Schools Should Exclusively Use Free Software {#why-schools-should-exclusively-use-freesoftware .chapter}
===================================================
Educational activities (including schools) have a moral duty to teach
only free software.
All computer users ought to insist on free software: it gives users the
freedom to control their own computers—with proprietary software, the
program does what its owner or developer wants it to do, not what the
user wants it to do. Free software also gives users the freedom to
cooperate with each other, to lead an upright life. These reasons apply
to schools as they do to everyone. However, the purpose of this article
is to present the additional reasons that apply specifically to
education.
Free software can save schools money, but this is a secondary benefit.
Savings are possible because free software gives schools, like other
users, the freedom to copy and redistribute the software; the school
system can give a copy to every school, and each school can install the
program in all its computers, with no obligation to pay for doing so.
This benefit is useful, but we firmly refuse to give it first place,
because it is shallow compared to the important ethical issues at stake.
Moving schools to free software is more than a way to make education a
little “better”: it is a matter of doing good education instead of bad
education. So let’s consider the deeper issues.
Schools have a social mission: to teach students to be citizens of a
strong, capable, independent, cooperating and free society. They should
promote the use of free software just as they promote conservation and
voting. By teaching students free software, they can graduate citizens
ready to live in a free digital society. This will help society as a
whole escape from being dominated by megacorporations.
In contrast, to teach a nonfree program is implanting dependence, which
goes counter to the schools’ social mission. Schools should never do
this.
Why, after all, do some proprietary software developers offer gratis
copies of their nonfree programs to schools? Because they want to *use*
the schools to implant dependence on their products, like tobacco
companies distributing gratis cigarettes to school
children.[(1)](#FOOT1)@firstcopyingnotice{{@footnoterule@smallskip
Copyright © 2003, 2009, 2014 Richard Stallman\
{This essay was originally published on <http://gnu.org>, in 2003. This
version is part of @fsfsthreecite}They will not give gratis copies to
these students once they’ve graduated, nor to the companies that they go
to work for. Once you’re dependent, you’re expected to pay, and future
upgrades may be expensive.
Free software permits students to learn how software works. Some
students, natural-born programmers, on reaching their teens yearn to
learn everything there is to know about their computer and its software.
They are intensely curious to read the source code of the programs that
they use every day.
Proprietary software rejects their thirst for knowledge: it says, “The
knowledge you want is a secret—learning is forbidden!” Proprietary
software is the enemy of the spirit of education, so it should not be
tolerated in a school, except as an object for reverse engineering.
Free software encourages everyone to learn. The free software community
rejects the “priesthood of technology,” which keeps the general public
in ignorance of how technology works; we encourage students of any age
and situation to read the source code and learn as much as they want to
know.
Schools that use free software will enable gifted programming students
to advance. How do natural-born programmers learn to be good
programmers? They need to read and understand real programs that people
really use. You learn to write good, clear code by reading lots of code
and writing lots of code. Only free software permits this.
How do you learn to write code for large programs? You do that by
writing lots of changes in existing large programs. Free Software lets
you do this; proprietary software forbids this. Any school can offer its
students the chance to master the craft of programming, but only if it
is a free software school.
The deepest reason for using free software in schools is for moral
education. We expect schools to teach students basic facts and useful
skills, but that is only part of their job. The most fundamental task of
schools is to teach good citizenship, including the habit of helping
others. In the area of computing, this means teaching people to share
software. Schools, starting from nursery school, should tell their
students, “If you bring software to school, you must share it with the
other students. You must show the source code to the class, in case
someone wants to learn. Therefore bringing nonfree software to class is
not permitted, unless it is for reverse-engineering work.”
Of course, the school must practice what it preaches: it should bring
only free software to class (except objects for reverse-engineering),
and share copies including source code with the students so they can
copy it, take it home, and redistribute it further.
Teaching the students to use free software, and to participate in the
free software community, is a hands-on civics lesson. It also teaches
students the role model of public service rather than that of tycoons.
All levels of school should use free software.
If you have a relationship with a school—if you are a student, a
teacher, an employee, an administrator, a donor, or a parent—it’s
your responsibility to campaign for the school to migrate to free
software. If a private request doesn’t achieve the goal, raise the issue
publicly in those communities; that is the way to make more people aware
of the issue and find allies for the campaign.
<div class="footnote">
------------------------------------------------------------------------
### Footnotes
### [(1)](#DOCF1)
@raggedright RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company was fined \$15m in 2002 for
handing out free samples of cigarettes at events attended by children.
See
<http://bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/features/health/tobaccotrial/usa.htm>.
@end raggedright
</div>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document was generated by *tonghuix* on *March 25, 2016* using
[*texi2html 1.82*](http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/).\
|
