I’ve been a bystander following the GRICS controversy in Québec and learning as I go. The latest installment is an open letter written to Le Devior newspaper by Louis Desjardins, past-president of the Board of a secondary school on Montréal’s south shore. Michel Dumais has reprinted the entire letter, and there is much of interest.
For instance, I now discover that GRICS may be a non-profit but it is governed by all the school districts in la Belle Province – what some might call a monopoly. GRICS is also committed to the Microsoft platform for all of its application development, forcing schools to upgrade to newer and costlier MS systems instead of opting for cheaper, open standard systems like Linux. As Desjardins puts it, GRICS has created its own cage of MS products from which it cannot escape. The main thrust of Desjardins’ letter is in addressing GRICS’ recent press release stating that GRICS would use open source applications when deemed suitable.
La première erreur que comment la GRICS est de considérer les logiciels libres comme un simple produit. C’est inexact. Aucun logiciel propriétaire ne peut etre redistribué, modifié, étudié, évolonté, amélioré ou partagé. Les logiciels libres n’encourent aucuns frais de licence. Ils sont bien plus que tout simplement économiques : quoi de plus simple que d’utiliser un logiciel libre dans toute une classe, toute une école, toute une commission scolaire, en toute égalité? Sans avoir faire approuver un budget au préalable et identifier le petit nombre de postes sur lesquels on l’installera. On peut installer les logiciels libres partout, sans mot de passe ni numéro de série, sans contrainte lire la peur de la copie, à la perte de revenus de licences, au piratage.
Une autre erreur est d’envisager qu’on puisse se servir des logiciels libres comme d’un simple objet de consommation. Il n’y a pas de consommateur ici. Il y a des partenaires, des membres d’une communauté, des utilisateurs et des développeurs. Concrètement, cela veut dire qu’à partir du moment ou la GRICS croit que les logiciels libres ont une place dans les écoles, elle doit aussi assumer sa responsabilité à l’égard de la communauté du libre et l’aider à progresser. Cela s’appelle partager et c’est une valeur qui est au coeur de l’approche libre. Il se trouve que le partage est aussi une valeur chère au monde de l’éducation, comme il a si bien exprimé M. Jacques Daigneault, président de l’Association des utilisateurs de l’ordinateur au primaire-secondaire (AQUOPS) dans sa récente et remarquable lettre ouverte, toujours disponible sur le site web de l’organisme : www.aquops.qc.ca. my translation:
The first error that GRICS makes is in considering open source as a simple product. This is not correct. No proprietary software can be redistributed, modified, studied at your leisure, improved nor shared. There are no licensing costs with open source software. Open source software is more than just cheap: what is simpler than using open source software in a class, an entire school, or a school district, which is completely legal? Without having to go through any budgeting processes, and identifying each machine, we can just go ahead and install it. We can install open source software everywhere, without passwords and serial numbers, without fear of copying, loss of license revenue or of pirating.The other error is to view open source as a simple consumable product. There is no consumer here. There are partners, members of the community, users and developers. Concretely, from the moment that GRICS believes that open source has a place in schools, it must take reponsibility within the open source community and help it to progress. This is called sharing, and it is the value at the heart of the open source movement. We find that sharing is a value dear to the world of education as was well-explained by Mr Jacques Daigneault, president of the Association of Computer Users for Primary and Secondary School, available [in French] on www.aquops.qc.ca.
I watch these happenings in Quebec and wonder about the situation in other provinces, including New Brunswick. As Desjardins says, open source is a value system, not just cheaper products. Learning and education are about sharing. Unfortunately, I see our own province continuing to pay significant licensing fees for proprietary software, even though there are open source alternatives. Embracing open source creates a commons for sharing and innovation. I have already suggested this to our government, but to no avail :-(
