After successfully initiating the process for starting of CBSE curriculum at Aasim’s school we now want to get them over to using OSS for students and their office.
To get them going at the office level we have a simple plan – the school library does everything manually, so we donate a computer installed with an OS Library Management software and teach the librarian to use it. Since the librarian is not very computer savvy she has no preconceived notions about how things should work.
The difficult part is what to tell the students, motivating the younger ones to use OSS. I am having a hard time trying to come up with proper analogies for piracy and open source without involving the complex almost incomprehensible issue of intellectual property… Stuff like you get a present and someone steals it does not cut because in software piracy the pirate is not stealing your software – just making a copy of it!
After a great deal of thinking the best I have been able to come up with is analogy of allowing someone to cheat from your paper in exams, this hopefully children will understand as cheating in exams is bound to be understood by them.
The next question was so how does OSS fit into the analogy – In the OSS school there are no exams!! Everyone shares their knowledge with each other and to each ones capability.
I know that there are still few loop holes in the analogy – so if anyone has a better idea do write in….