Chapter 4, It’s a Free Software World After All

 

Indeed summer vacation is upon us in full-swing! Having just covered 4 of the New England State’s in the last two weekends, plus a wedding on Long Island, and Florida to come next week, it is safe to say my Fiancée and I have been plenty busy! How does this relate to Chapter 4 of our EDU 685 reading you ask? Well, for one, since most of my out-of-class reading is done while on the go (in this case on the car ride home from Maine, don’t worry- I wasn’t driving!) it served as a conversation piece between Jessica and I (Jessica is also an Educator. An SNHU employee at that) about Free and open source software comparing experiences, opinions, and programs we’ve used both as students and on the instructor side. Also, in verbally summarizing the chapter to her from the passenger seat, I was able to draw connections between one of the chapter’s main themes and that of my own educational journey:

Bonk differentiates between the business world of computer software and the educational world. One is closed-minded and cut-throat, the other, open, collaborative and global. In my own realm of experience, these basic generalizations of the two worlds are indeed one of my driving factors behind not only being back in school, but being back in school so that I can continue to bloom in the field of education as an instructor. I personally found my experience with the business world to be too superficial-praying on every relationship for some sort of sale, to have your performance and office popularity based on numbers and performance, and I found the entire experience to have a slight negative undertone. Even co-workers were simply just that; co-workers. We shared the same mindless tasks, boring routines, and were there for the same personal gains. I did not care to learn more about them, collaborate outside of paid hours, heck, even birthdays seemed forced. Education to me is different. It is fun, interpersonal, a refreshing positive atmosphere of progression, shared ideas, and learning experiences that are viewed as very good things; unlike making mistakes on the job, which can often be costly, maybe even your last!

In relation to the text, the business world (example, Microsoft) is closed-sourced, heavily copy-written, and mainly concerned with their bottom line, so economically they sell their products for profit. The Microsoft programmers design code that cannot be viewed by the user, edited, remixed, or redistributed in any way, shape or form, so really the only people Microsoft are concerned about when designing a program, are well, Microsoft. In contrast, the world of education was founded from its hacker roots of sharing programs and helping others make them better in the AI lab of M.I.T. software is not copyrighted, in fact, it is copy“lefted” almost as to completely encourage sharing and changing it. Finally, as Bonk cited in the development of Sakai, a basically free version of our “Blackboard” that was co-developed with his university (Indiana), educational programmers are writing code for essentially the entire world to see, use, and change. One is instantly impressed with not only the global perspective that this open source software provides, but also to the sheer number of individuals that can effectively tweak and contribute to the content as opposed to sharing with only the small population of those currently employed by Microsoft to do so.

Another interesting fact, hacker does not always have to have the negative connotation of security breeching criminal. In fact, “hackers” are computer hobbyists that find the work interesting and have helped design, create, change, and influence some of today’s latest and greatest free and open source software.

Free and open source are two words that I have been using inter-changeably since my first computer class, MBE 642 last fall. To this point, I had never thought there was much difference between them, I just assumed they both meant the software was free, as in, free = $0.00, do not pay for it. It was not until reading chapter 4 however that I realized that while free does still mean without a cost, “open source” refers to programmers allowing users to view, access, edit, change, and redistribute the source code of the software. I explained it to my fiancé in the car by saying;

If you were using a program you liked, you could copy it as many times as you wanted, without having to worry about licenses or copyright laws, and give it to all of your friends and family. If your sister, then used it, but didn’t like a button, a function, or even just a color on the program, she could then change the program and use it as it fits her. Then, when she goes to share it, she can even copy and distribute her version!

I can remember taking basic HTML/CSS in college and thinking I was so cool for knowing how to click “view>Source” from my web browser. Then, as I understood more of the computer language tags, I was able to at least see the connections and how some were used. Finally, in one of last jobs, we were responsible for Search Engine Optimization, which essentially meant improving the keywords in website’s meta tags, so again I was vaguely familiar with scouring through lines of code, however would never claim to be a web developer of any kind. This Open source concept intrigues me, because as I grow to learn more and more about computer technology, it expands the possibilities of what one can do with free and open source software and how it can be used in the classroom. I wonder if one day in my future technology lab if I will not only be showing students how to write their own lines of tags, but how to critique and edit each others…