[Fsf-friends] INDIA: Respected Vice Chancellor...
Frederick Noronha (FN)
fred@bytesforall.org
Thu Mar 17 03:53:53 IST 2005
Please sign this memo and add your suggestions and points. FN
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_/ ____\____ Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa
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Writing with a difference, on issues that really make the difference.
- - - - - - - - -
http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/?VTU-FLOSS_Campaign
VTU-FLOSS Campaign
The Vice Chancellor Visvesvaraya Technological University Belgaum - 590 014
Karnataka State, India
Respected Sir,
Re: Opening wider software avenues for your students through Free
Software.
There are thousands of engineering and polytechnic colleges in India. Each
year, a few hundred thousands of graduates and diploma holders earn their
degree. They pay thousands of rupees as fees to get the best facilities. A part
of this goes to buying the softwares which they use either in college lab or
for doing their assignments at home.
For every software which India's engineering students use; there is an
alternate Free Software program available. Free Software offers freedom,
accelerated possibilities and wider vistas to our students. But in a 'talent
rich, resource poor' country like India, it is also an issue of costs. Huge
amounts of resources will be saved, and productivity gained, while deploying
Free Software. This will not only make engineering education more
cost-effective, but also more productive.
Free/Libre and Open Source Software has many other advantages such as
reliability, performance and security; building up of long-term capacity within
the state and country itself; the Free (as in freedom) philosophy; encouraging
innovations; offering alternatives to illegal copying; throwing up many
possibilities in localisation; helping students vastly by allowing them to
learn from the source code; getting access to literally thousands of tools; in
addition, of course, to lower costs.
Issues related to Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in education are
outlined very well at http://www.iosn.net/education/foss-education-primer/
Other than cost benefits, Free Software has other extremely pertinent
advantages. We would urge you to serious consider the following:
* No-fee licensing
* Ease of license fee management
* Better large-scale programmability
* Easier integration
* Better performance
* Development convenience
* Better support
Niranjan Rajani in a study on FLOSS in the developing world, notes, "FLOSS has
a complementary and reciprocal relationship to education. One needs an educated
section of the population to fulfil the full potential of FLOSS, and at the
same time FLOSS helps, enhances, and complements education by providing tools
to promote education."
In the case of education in computer sciences, FLOSS provides opportunities
which nothing else can, as the Finland-based researcher Rajani points out:
* Unrestricted access to the source code.
* An environment of unlimited experimentation and tinkering.
* Collaboration and interaction with a community of programmers,
coders and users around the world.
In addition to providing ready and available tools, Free Software provides
positive examples from projects around the globe. In practice, this means that
if someone in some other place has created a tool to reach a specific
educational goal, one can take it as a starting point and build on it, without
the need to "reinvent the wheel". The Dspace project and the Koha library
software, mentioned earlier, are but two simple examples of such possibilities.
As far as collaboration is concerned, Sourceforge is perhaps the biggest
collaboration project ever created, uniting tens of thousands of software
projects and hundreds of thousands of people around the world. "FLOSS itself
has been called the most collaborative human effort ever," as Rajani points
out.
In addition to the above, the inherent qualities of FLOSS make it a prime tool
for achieving local language educational software, especially for languages
which are not deemed commercially viable for proprietary software vendors. This
has the scope of offering both relevance and employment to so many of your
bright young students.
There are literally hundreds of Free Software's programs which colleges or
universities can adopt. As Vishweshwaraiah Technological University is one of
the biggest engineering-related universities in India, its time for VTU to give
the lead and move towards using Free Software. This would encourage other
Universities to follow suit. Let the VTU have the pride to be the first one to
adopt Free Software in educational curriculum, on a scale significant enough to
make a difference to the future of VTU, its many students, and India itself.
Here we submit some examples of three such alternative Free Software programs
which can be used for technical education.
* (1) Operating System: Windows v/s GNU/Linux
Because of the software tools prescribed in the colleges, and also a general
lack of awareness of Free Software options, most colleges use Microsoft Windows
based operating system. Yet, in terms of technological features, stability,
learning possibilities, the GNU/Linux is increasingly being recognised as the
best available globally. It is the best suited for any educational institution.
Students can not only use it, but also can study its source code to understand
its internal workings. Likewise, they can easily get in touch with the many
volunteers who have put together this amazing set of tools, and collaborate
internationally to created more suitable products and also hike their own
skill-sets.
But many of the colleges use or have started adopting GNU/ Linux, starting with
the server room, where it is well known for its stability and security now it
has entered our labs and desktops.
* (2) Simulation: Matlab v/s Octave
Matlab is used in communication and electronics lab. Matlab for an individual
license for use in a university (academic use) costs $500. Any college will
have to buy a minimum of 25 licenses. This means shelling out Rs.537,500.
Octave, which is a simulation software written by university professors. This
usually comes, along and as part of, the GNU/Linux Operating System. The
advantage to students is that they don't have to buy a limited student version
to use at home. They can use Octave both at lab and at home.
SciLab? is another Free Software competitor for Matlab. It uses sophisticated
algorithms to analyse data and produce aesthetic graphics.
NG-SPICE is another GPLd Circuit Simulator which is based on the University of
Berkley's Spice Version 3f5.
* (3) Office software's: MS Office v/s Open Office
Currently, we all used Microsoft Word to submit our project documents for
review and for other academic purposes. Recent technological developments now
mean that we have Open Office which is as good as Microsoft Office and has the
same, if not better, features. Microsoft Office in fact lacks some features
like PDF (Portable Document Format) support, compatibility with older versions
of Microsoft Office, lack a vector drawing application, etc. Open Office gives
you everything starting from a word processor, to presentation software to PDF
generator. It is fully compatible with Microsoft Office -- so already existing
data in those formats can be used. Don't you think it's the right time to save
money and enhance efficiency of technological education in our country?
The above are just examples. There are many such software programs from which
the students can benefit. We hope the university understands the urgency and
the need. We would be happy to give the university any information/help that is
needed. Currently, India has a wide range of volunteer GNU/Linux support
groups, a list of which can be found at http://wikiwikiweb.de/LugsList
* (4) Computer Networks Subject Teaching: Ethreal, tcpdump, NS2 etc
We use the above mentioned tools for the teaching of Computer Networks and Data
Communication subjects. There are a number of other GNU GPLed tools which can
be used in a number of other labs for teaching and learning.
* (5) Content Management Systems: Drupal, PHP-Nuke etc
For building websites and info portals for students to make online learning
possible. In the world of online forums, Free Software have a number of free
options. You could well imagine the impact that the accelerated spread of such
easily-reachable and usable tools would have, not just on the engineers of
tomorrow, but on the wider Indian society as a whole.
We thank you for your patient hearing, and urge your reputed university to take
speedy and decisive steps in this direction.
Thanking you, We remain, Yours sincerely,
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