blog/draft/2013-skolelinux-jonathan-carter.txt

   1 Title: Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter
   2 Tags: english, debian edu, intervju
   3 Date: 2013-06-04 10:30
   4
   5 <p>
   6 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a></p>
   7
   8 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
   9
  10 I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My days
  11 vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm getting
  12 older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)
  13
  14 I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
  15 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
  16 each other.
  17
  18 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
  19 project?</strong></p>
  20
  21 I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
  22 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter and Knut at
  23 the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in London. They provided great feedback
  24 that helped the bootstrapping of Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and
  25 even Ubuntu) was still very new and it was great getting input from
  26 people who have been around longer. I was also still very excitable
  27 and said yes to everything and to this day I have a big todo list
  28 backlog that I'm catching up with. I think over the years the
  29 relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has been gradually
  30 improving, although I think there's a lot that we could still improve
  31 on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure we'll get there
  32 one day.
  33
  34 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  35 Edu?</strong></p>
  36
  37 Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about it
  38 for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project that
  39 puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces very
  40 high quality work.
  41
  42 I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
  43 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
  44 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
  45 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
  46 community members and commercial suppliers to support.
  47
  48 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  49 Edu?</strong></p>
  50
  51 I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to separate
  52 "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is what I
  53 originally rambled on about)
  54
  55 The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
  56 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
  57 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
  58 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
  59 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
  60 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
  61 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
  62 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
  63 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
  64 currently.
  65
  66 I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
  67 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
  68 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
  69 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
  70 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
  71 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
  72 autonomous.
  73
  74 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
  75
  76 My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was Windows
  77 free for years but started dual-booting again last year for some games
  78 which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in particular). Gaming
  79 support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds so I suppose I'll
  80 soon be able to regain that disk space :)
  81
  82 Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
  83 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
  84 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
  85 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
  86 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
  87 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
  88 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
  89 X.
  90
  91 I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
  92 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
  93 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
  94 it :p)
  95
  96 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
  97 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
  98
  99 I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in many
 100 cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I don't
 101 think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with that.
 102
 103 I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
 104 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
 105 advantage of that.
 106
 107 I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
 108 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
 109 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
 110 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
 111 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
 112 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
 113 best solution for them.
 114
 115 To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
 116 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
 117 make a decision that would work for them.