[school-discuss] FLOSS History

[Joel Kahn <jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx>]

In response to my posting of the link
to SCO's 2003 Open Letter on the subject
of copyright, John Frank wrote:
>Sending me a link to a four year old
>letter about a case that is closed?
>Remove me from this list please.

Actually, I'm not really sure how "closed"
the case is; in an apparently more-recent
document on the SCO site . . .

http://www.sco.com/company/news/statement.html

. . . an assertion is made that some "issues
remain to be litigated."

In any case, Malc wrote:
>Thanks for the link! It is interesting to
>look again at these 'historical' documents
>and see how things panned out. DMCA!? That
>was a storm in a teacup! 'Only' four years
>old, seems like a millennium.

"Historical" is the key word here. Which got
me to thinking: in the school systems and
universities where FLOSS plays a large role,
how much is the history of FLOSS itself part
of the curriculum? How much are young people
being taught about the various choices made
by folks like Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond
way back in the 1980s and 1990s, and why the
founders of FLOSS made those choices? How much
do students really know about what led to the
technological environments (and the continuing
controversies) that they deal with today?

Would anyone care to comment?

Joel



       
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