Also, you made me think that companies are slipping into closed source
without anyone calling them on it because they are using "Software as
a Service." Part of the education program could be to teach people to
recognize what they're getting -- and to realize the consequences.
That's a great idea. I remember seeing a few other Open Source projects concerned over lack of Open Source release of certain projects (more in the area of online information such as books and dictionaries).
Between us, and thinking aloud: Google is certainly a case in point,
although it's difficult to say anything negative about such a huge
force. I'm in the same old struggle, shades of ten years ago, with a
school's tech team, trying to get them to see that while it is now
stupid for a school not to take advantage of Google's tools, it is
just as stupid not to do so ... judiciously. All the school's photos
need not be on Picassa; nor should all students' portfolios be on
Google servers. Mentioning how easy the alternatives are to either of
these things has gotten me incredulous looks that remind me of the
first time I broached the topic of free and open sources. The
politics have changed, but, in some ways, people are just as (willing
to be) ignorant as ever. I don't know what happened to "consumer
education."
/end rant.
Great point. Google is good about letting you take your data anywhere and have some great educational products and tools. However, many of those tools aren't Open Source. There's even a Chromium project to provide an Open Source (explicitly) version of Chrome.
It would be very nice if Schoolforge could help educate people about the difference between being able to maintain something yourself and being reliant on a company as well as other important FLOSS related topics.
Justin, thanks for adding the extra fields for the software. I started using some of them today. Will hopefully get through our list over time and update more listings.
Sincerely,
Laura
Sincerely,
Laura