What is Open Source?

Many people have heard the term Open Source software but are not really quite sure what it means or whether it has any relevance to them.

Open Source software is usually developed collaboratively by individuals and organisations with an interest in or need for a particular application. The programming code is made freely available for people to use, and if they have the ability, to improve.

There are all sorts of reasons why people and organisations contribute to and use Open Source software: practical, philosophical, educational and commercial.

Some Open Source applications, such as the Firefox web browser, are now very well known. What is less well known is that 70% of websites in the world use Open Source software called Apache, or that Google runs almost entirely on Open Source. Most people are also unaware that much of IBM's commercial software has Open Source foundations, or that the current Apple Mac desktop software is based on an Open Source operating system. Even less publicized is the fact that many everyday gadgets, such as set-top TV boxes, Tivo video recorders, car satellite navigation systems use the Linux Open Source operating system.

How does Open Source software compare to Windows?

Because, for historical reasons, the vast majority of PCs are still delivered with the Windows operating system, most people have little knowledge of the alternatives. In the past few years Linux has become a very user-friendly and capable desktop operating system. In Munich, where the City Council is migrating all its 14,000 PCs to Linux, people have been astonished at how simple the software is to use and how easy it has been to make the switch.

Linux desktop running Microsoft Word

High quality Open Source software is now available for everything you could want to do on a PC:

• Open Office (a complete office suite), Firefox for web browsing, Thunderbird for e-mail, Kopete or Gaim for instant messaging, Gimp for picture editing, Kaffeine or Mplayer for watching videos and listening to music.
• Many commercial software companies now also release free versions of their software for Linux, for example: Adobe Acrobat Reader, Macromedia Flash Player, RealPlayer, Google Earth.

The Benefits

Because of its open and collaborative nature, Open Source software is ideal for use in education. The scientific community is of course itself based on the free sharing of knowledge.

There are thousands of Open Source applications available for use in schools, from interactive learning suites for primary school children such as Gcompris to sophisticated science applications for secondary school children such as Celestia (astronomy) or Kalzium (for learning the periodic table).

Whilst there are evident financial benefits in using Open Source software (the complete absence of licensing costs), there are many additional advantages for schools in switching to Open Source:

• Linux, in contrast to its commercial counterparts, will work quite happily on older PCs, allowing them to be used for longer or recycled.
• Linux is ideal for use in what are called “thin client networks” where the computing is done by a powerful central computer and the users work on simpler and cheaper terminals. Such networks are extremely reliable and can be deployed in school computer labs at a fraction of the cost of a traditional PC network. The thin clients also use far less power than normal PCs, resulting in considerable savings on energy bills and helping the environment.
• Because the software is not restricted by commercial licences, children can use the same software at home without any additional costs.
• Open Source software frees schools from the burden of monitoring proprietary software licences (and the threat of prosecution from FAST if such monitoring should fail for any reason).
• Linux is helping to bridge the digital divide: MIT, Google, Redhat and News Corporation are developing a fully functional $100 laptop computer for distribution to millions of children in Brazil, Thailand, Russia, South Africa and India (The project is called One Laptop per Child). But it is not just the developing world that stands to benefit. The US State of Masachusetts is talking of distributing the laptops to every child in the state.

Where is Open Source used in schools?

Linux is enjoying a boom in forward-thinking countries which place a high priority on education:

• In Norway several hundred schools and tens of thousands of schoolchildren are using Skolelinux, a version of Linux especially designed for use in the Norwegian education system.
• In the Extremadura region of Spain, Linux is being used exclusively across the whole education system.
• In South Africa, Linux computer labs are being rolled out to hundreds of schools.

Although the UK is a bit less advanced than the rest of Europe in the adoption of Open Source in education, there are 55 schools listed on schoolsforge.org.uk as using Open Source, including some of the best State schools in the country. At the end of 2005 Becta, the government's advisory body on IT in education, published a report recommending the wider adoption of Open Source in schools for economic and educational reasons.

Conclusion

Individual schools which have taken the time to investigate and use Open Source sofware have benefitted enormously. The Mall School in Richmond, for example, saved approximately 60% of the cost of a new ICT suite by choosing a Linux-based solution.

As the use of Open Source software continues to increase exponentially across the world, schools cannot afford to miss the next wave in computing technology – particularly as it's free in every sense of the word.