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[homepage.git] / blog / data / 2013-06-12-skolelinux-jonathan-carter.txt

Title: Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter
Tags: english, debian edu, intervju
Date: 2013-06-12 09:50

<p>There is a certain cross-over between the
<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>

<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>

<p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>

<p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
each other.</p>

<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
project?</strong></p>

<p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
[Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
we'll get there one day.</p>

<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
Edu?</strong></p>

<p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
very high quality work.</p>

<p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>

<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
Edu?</strong></p>

<p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
what I originally rambled on about)</p>

<p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
currently.</p>

<p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
autonomous.</p>

<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>

<p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>

<p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
X.</p>

<p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
it :p)

<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
get schools to use free software?</strong></p>

<p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
that.</p>

<p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
advantage of that.</p>

<p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
best solution for them.</p>

<p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
make a decision that would work for them.</p>