Tags: english, debian edu, intervju
Date: 2013-11-12 09:50
-<p>There is a certain cross-over between the
+<p>
+
<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
-project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
-project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
-effort between the projects. One person with a foot in both camps is
-Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
+project</a>
+
+</p>
<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-<p>Klaus Knopper, master degree in electrical engineering, professor
-for information management at the university of applied sciences
-Kaiserslautern/Germany and freelance Open Source software developer
-and consultant.</p>
+<p>I am Klaus Knopper. I have a master degree in electrical
+engineering, and is currently professor for information management at
+the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
+freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
<p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
Edu?</strong></p>
- - Quick installation,
- - works (almost) out of the box,
- - contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,
- - is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a single
- company,
- - has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their experience
- and problem solutions.
+<ul>
+ <li>Quick installation,</li>
+ <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
+ <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
+ <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
+ single company,</li>
+ <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
+ experience and problem solutions.</li>
+</ul>
<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
Edu?</strong></p>
- - Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to the next
+<ul>
+ <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to the next
version. Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to a new version
means a full new installation from scratch to get it working again
reliably.
- - Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a little
+ <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a little
outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or similar
educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing as their base.
- - Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
+ <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is not
always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network configuration is
actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux and not easy to change,
so schools sometimes have to change their network configuration to make
it "Skolelinux-compatible".
- - Some proposed extensions, which were made available as contribution,
+ <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as contribution,
like secure examination mode and lecture material distribution and
collection, were not accepted into the mainline Skolelinux development
and are now not easy to maintain in the future because of Skolelinux
somewhat undeterministic update schemes.
- - Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers compared to
+ <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers compared to
Debian.
- For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now rather
- consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until Skolelinux is
- more closely integrated into Debian and becomes upgradeable without
- reinstallation.
+</ul>
+
+<p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
+rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
+Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
+upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
- GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
- programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence, occasionally
- LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various programming
- languages for teaching.
+<p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
+programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
+occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
+programming languages for teaching.</p>
<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
- Strong arguments are
- - knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for teaching and
- learning.
- - students can learn with and use the same software at school, at home, and
- at their
- working place without running into license or conversion problems.
- - closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather than exposing
- it, and
- proprietary software vendors try to bind customers to certain products.
- But
- teachers need to teach science, not products.
- - If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what would you
- need
- proprietary software for?
-
- > > * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
-
- An interesting problem is perspective of the industry vs. perspective of
- educational institutions. A common problem seems to me that schools claim
- to "HAVE to use proprietary software", because employers and industry
- would "require this". The industry on the other hand claims to "HAVE to use
- proprietary software" because that's "what students learn at school".
-
- Interesting interview partners could be those companies who will hire
- students after their graduation, in order to show that there is an
- actual demand of skilled GNU/Linux users and experts in the industry.
+<p>Strong arguments are
+
+<li>
+
+ <li>knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
+ teaching and learning.</li>
+
+ <li>students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
+ home, and at their working place without running into license or
+ conversion problems.</li>
+
+ <li>closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
+ than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
+ customers to certain products. But teachers need to teach
+ science, not products.</li>
+
+ <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
+ would you need proprietary software for?</li>
+
+</li>
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