85 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
85 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE - Education - Argumentation</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<div align="center">
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<h2>Why give precedence to Free Software at school?</h2>
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</div>
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<p>
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Whether they like it or not, teachers make their pupils'
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parents buy proprietary software if they use it at school.
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By doing so, they contribute to a money-based selection even though
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Free Software used at school can be brought home! Free Software
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is republican software:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>"Liberté": freedom to use, copy, modify, distribute, get
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access to the source code. You can read more about Free Software's
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essential freedoms on our page <a href="http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/freesoftware.html">
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What is Free Software?</a>.
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</li>
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<li>"Égalité": equality between users, whatever school or family
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means may be: with Free Software, a small poorly-funded school
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has the same choice as a more affluent or prestigious one.
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</li>
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<li>"Fraternité": fraternity, cooperation and mutual aid between
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developers and users, between users, between school and family.
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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When appropriate, it is necessary to give students real computing
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skills, not only proprietary software "directions for use". Consequently,
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they should get unrestricted access to the source code, modify or
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adapt it to their own needs, and thus improve the applications they use
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or develop.
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</p>
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<p>
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Free Software is particularly performing and secure for communication,
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a priority at school for Internet access and E-mail... Free Software
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allows remote servicing, a necessity for its deployment in large
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schools. Free Software is impervious to current viruses.
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</p>
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<p>
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School has to stay away from consumerism. School needs, and the means they
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require, have to keep clear from fashion or software industry advertising.
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Free Software gives increased perennity to hardware as it allows a longer
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use of old (and cheap) hardware, particularly as terminals or "client"
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computers. Free Software allows software perennity as there is no necessity
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to buy the last software releases to obtain an (eventual) improvement.
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Updates can be immediatly developed (so you don't depend on an editor
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goodwill) and shared with other users worldwide.
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</p>
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<p>
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Knowledge is universal, Free Software too.
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</p>
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<p>
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In Education, means are more limited than in other sectors, because they
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have to be employed on a large scale. It's more relevant to pay grey
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matter (e.g. help for projects conception, personal and educational training)
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or extra devices than to pay proprietary licences.
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</p>
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<p>
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The original version of this text was written by Jean Peyratout
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</p>
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</body>
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<timestamp>$Date$ $Author$</timestamp>
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</html>
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Local Variables: ***
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mode: xml ***
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End: ***
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-->
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