Re: [school-discuss] FLOSS History

[Justin <jriddiough@xxxxxxxxx>]

My high school programming teacher *made* us study folks such as Herman Hollerith, Charles Babbage, Joseph Jacquard before we wrote a line of code.  Obviously, we students wanted to get down to coding, and didn't see much importance in learning what someone thought up in 1800.  I've since emailed him a few times over the years to thank him.  

There wasn't much discussion or utilization of FLOSS, except when he would bring up intellectual property to the class and forget to mention Free Software licensing as an alternative to the traditional copyright schemes.   Once I would bring it up though, he always gave it a fair place in the discussion.

"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?