blog/data/2012-05-27-skolelinux-ralf-gesellensetter.txt

   1 Title: Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter
   2 Tags: english, debian edu, intervju
   3 Date: 2012-05-27 17:15
   4
   5 <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
   6 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
   7 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
   8 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
   9 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
  10 since then, helping to make sure the
  11 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
  12 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
  13
  14 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
  15
  16 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
  17 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
  18 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
  19 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
  20 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
  21 our computer network.</p>
  22
  23 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
  24 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
  25 (4 months).</p>
  26
  27 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
  28 project?</strong></p>
  29
  30 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
  31 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
  32 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
  33 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
  34 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
  35 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
  36 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
  37 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
  38 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
  39 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
  40 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
  41 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
  42 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
  43 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
  44
  45 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
  46 Edu?</strong></p>
  47
  48 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
  49 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
  50 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
  51 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
  52 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
  53 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
  54 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
  55 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
  56
  57 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
  58 Edu?</strong></p>
  59
  60 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
  61 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
  62 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
  63 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
  64 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
  65 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
  66 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
  67 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
  68 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
  69 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
  70 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
  71 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
  72
  73 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
  74
  75 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
  76 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
  77 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
  78
  79 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
  80 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
  81
  82 <p><ol>
  83
  84 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
  85 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
  86 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
  87 developing.</li>
  88
  89 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
  90 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
  91 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
  92 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
  93 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
  94
  95 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
  96 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
  97 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
  98
  99 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
 100 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
 101 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
 102 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
 103
 104 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
 105 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
 106 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
 107
 108 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
 109
 110 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
 111 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
 112 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
 113 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
 114
 115 </ol></p>