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Linux in Higher Education: Open Source, Open Minds, Social Justice
by Bryan Pfaffenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21-Mar-2000
Colleges and universities should move to adopt Linux as an international
standard for computing in higher education.
It's generally agreed that college and university students should learn
the fundamentals of information technology, including the use of
operating systems, office application software and the Internet. It's
quite another matter, though, to pay for the necessary
infrastructure--wired
dormitories, industrial-strength servers, lots of PCs around campus, and
pricey commercial software for student use. Now that Linux and
open-source office applications such as AbiWord and Gnumeric are available
for free, institutions of higher education can save big money in
software costs, and more than a few campuses and university consortia are
starting to take Linux seriously (see, for example, Robiette 1999).
They're discovering what Linux users already know--namely, that Linux,
compared to Microsoft Windows, offers an unbeatable combination
of advantages, including a zero price tag, do-it-yourself flexibility,
freedom from licensing headaches, stability, performance, compliance with
public standards, interoperability with existing systems, and a design
that reduces the threat of computer viruses (see Prasad 1999).
As I'll argue in this essay, there's much more at stake here than money.
In what follows, I'll argue that open source software in general--and
Linux in particiular--holds the key to the ability of colleges and
universities to retain their traditions of scientific and scholarly
excellence as
they adapt to an increasingly computerized world. By establishing Linux as
the international standard for academic computing, institutions of
higher education can directly address challenges to the integrity of
scientific research, do a better job of preparing students for a world of
rapidly
changing technology, and combat the growing and disturbing disparities in
access to information technology. The following sections detail the
case for Linux in higher education--a case that, in my view, amounts to a
moral imperative.
Closed-Source Software in Science? Goodbye, Verifiability
Since science's earliest days, the enterprise has been based on a
gift-economy notion very much like that underlying open- source software:
scientists receive credit and prestige for their discoveries, but they do
not receive ownership of them. On the contrary, scientists are expected to
publish their findings in open, public journals, which are accessible to
all. These journals print scientific articles only after a submission
passes
peer review, in which a scientist's peers scrutinize all of the
assumptions and calculations that produced the conclusions. The journal's
editor
will publish a scientific article only when the peer reviewers conclude
that the underlying methods are sound. To be sure, the system doesn't
always work perfectly, but--like democracy--it is clearly superior to its
alternatives.
Increasingly, scientists are beginning to see that their use of
closed-source software poses a profound threat to the integrity of science
(Kiernan
1999). Computer software is increasingly used to analyze research results
or simulate real-world systems. However, scientists rarely make their
software available to other scientists for scrutiny--and even if they did,
they often used closed-source programs in which the underlying source
code is protected by copyright and trade secrecy claims. But this practice
strikes at the heart of science, namely, the notion of verifiability. To
be
accepted as valid, all calculations and assumptions that go into a given
scientific assumption must be open to public scrutiny. Yet closed-source
software makes such scrutiny impossible.
These are the simple facts, from which Dan Gazelter, a professor of
biochemistry at Notre Dame University, draws the following, compelling
conclusion: scientists are positively obligated to use open-source
software, and what is more, the future of an increasingly computerized
scientific enterprise may well depend on their decision to do so (Gezelter
1999; cf. Wilson 1999). Increasingly, scientists and university
librarians are developing clearinghouses and large-scale development
projects to create more open-source alternatives for use in higher
education (see the Open Science Project and oss4lib).
But the use of open-source software is insufficient. If the future of
science depends on scientists' use of open-source software, one can very
well
argue that colleges and universities are under a positive obligation to
move away from closed-source computing infrastructures as well as
closed- source software. Consider this: many of the instructions in
computer programs do little more than issue directives to the operating
system; this is done by means of the operating system's application
programming interface (API). To verify scientific software fully, the
scientific community may need to examine the program's interaction with
the operating system. Yet Microsoft refuses to document the
Windows API fully and regards the Windows source code as an immensely
valuable trade secret. What is more, Microsoft has taken the lead in
lobbying for proposed changes to the U.S. commercial code that would
effectively criminalize reverse engineering.
It's not enough for scientists to use open-source software; they must also
use an open-source operating system. Colleges and universities can
help to assure the ubiquity of open-source software and operating system
usage in science by moving to Linux as an international standard for
academic computing.
Computer Literacy, Yes--But What Kind of Computer Literacy?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Let's turn from professors to students and examine another area in which
the use of commercial, closed-source software is rapidly growing: the
computer literacy curriculum. Even if it is admitted that open-source
software is needed at the research level, skeptics will counter that
colleges
and universities do not exist in a vacuum. Whether we like Microsoft or
not, they will argue, we still need to teach students how to use the
software they will encounter after they graduate--and that means Microsoft
Windows and Microsoft Office. Among those pushing for this type
of computer literacy instruction are local businesses, which hope to avoid
paying the enormous costs needed to train their employees to use such
software effectively. Increasingly, computer literacy instruction looks
like a Windows and Office training seminar. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is
taking advantage of this situation by cutting deals with colleges and
universities that provide every enrolled student with licensed copies of
Microsoft software. In response to this assertion, I argue that a focus on
Windows and Office skills is the wrong type of computer literacy
instruction at the college and university level. In addition, I argue, it
fails to serve the needs of business.
Is a focus on Microsoft Windows and Office skills the right kind of
computer literacy instruction at the college and university level? If you
accept the conclusions of a major national report that reflects a growing
consensus among computer literacy educators, the answer is "No." The
report, titled Being Fluent with Information Technology (National Research
Council 1999), is the report of the U.S. National Research Council's
Committee on Information Technology Literacy and represents the best
thinking of the leading experts in the field. In brief, the report rejects
a
narrow focus on skills-based training for the following reasons:
Employers may indeed realize reduced training costs if college
graduates know how to use Windows and Microsoft Office, but these gains
are short-lived; for example, Microsoft frequently introduces new
versions with additional features and altered procedures. An education
that focuses on version-specific software skills will produce
graduates who may very well be able to use Office 97, but these same
graduates
may lack the deeper conceptual knowledge that would enable them to
move smoothly to Office 2000 or some other office software suite.
Given that the practice of democracy depends on an informed citizenry,
colleges and universities possess a positive obligation to acquaint
students with a conceptual understanding of information technology
(IT), one that goes beyond "which button to press" in Microsoft
Office. Graduates should know enough about IT to form opinions on the
compelling IT-driven issues of our day, including the growing
threat to privacy rights, the risks posed by the software industry's
campaign to rewrite intellectual property law and much more.
The pace of technological innovation in the software industry is so
rapid that the "which-button-to-press" training today's first-year
students receive will be laughably obsolete by the time they graduate.
Colleges and universities should equip students not only with
computer usage skills, but what is more, the conceptual knowledge and
understanding that will enable them to learn how to apply new
technologies in short order.
Recognizing these facts, the authors of Being Fluent with Information
Technology conclude that a computer literacy curriculum focusing on
skills alone is insufficient. The ideal curriculum, they argue, would
equip students with computer fluency, a "robust understanding of what is
needed to use information technology effectively across a range of
applications" (14). In addition to possessing the essential skills of
software
usage, computer-fluent individuals can apply information technology in
novel situations--and what is more, they can understand the
consequences of doing so. As the authors observe, "these capabilities
transcend particular software and hardware applications" (17). Equally
essential to computer fluency is the mastering of fundamental computer
concepts, such as the difference between absolute and relative cell
references in an electronic spreadsheet program.
If computer fluency is indeed a desirable goal, then it follows that
colleges and universities can and should base their curricula on products
other
than Microsoft's. A student who learns the fundamental concepts of
spreadsheet usage from Gnumeric, admittedly, may not know which key to
press when confronted with Microsoft Office. However, computer literacy
instruction should not focus on which key to press, but rather on the
concepts that underlie the use of computer software. A student who fully
understands the concepts of absolute and relative cell references will
experience little difficulty learning Microsoft Excel; she will quickly
learn which key to press. Indeed, asking students to move to a different
vendors' spreadsheet application may well be the best way to test whether
students have acquired the desired computer fluency. In contrast, a
student whose computer literacy instruction emphasized Excel skills rather
than the transcendent concepts of software usage may require a
round of costly retraining when the next version of Excel is released.
>From the foregoing argument, one can conclude that colleges and
universities can well serve the goals of computer literacy education by
moving
to a Linux standard. We should teach the concepts of operating system and
office software usage, and there is no reason to use expensive,
commercial products for this purpose. At higher curricular levels,
colleges and universities are arguably under a positive obligation to move
away from closed source software and proprietary computing infrastructures
(Vermeer 1998). Increasingly, it is not only scientists who must
understand the details of operating systems and computing networks;
advanced research in virtually every field of scholarship inevitably
requires the type of intermediate to advanced understanding of information
technology that was formerly possessed only by computer science
graduates. In this context, open-source operating systems and networking
infrastructures offer a significant advantage: they are open to
dissection, analysis, and scrutiny in ways not possible with closed-source
architectures.
Addressing the Digital Divide
Let's leave the campus entirely and consider the broader society. And
what's going on is troubling. There's an increasing gulf separating the
IT-literate "haves" and "have-nots." Over the past 35 years, the income
ratio separating the world's richest from the world's poorest nations
has nearly tripled (Watkins 1999). In general, familiarity with IT and
access to IT are associated with the adaptability needed to cope with
rapid
social and economic change. With this adaptability comes greater earning
power. Conversely, lack of familiarity and access are associated with
flat or declining incomes. What is more, this disparity in IT
literacy--the so-called "Digital Divide--tends to line up not only with
ethnic
divisions in the U.S., but also with the widening global gulf between the
economies of the North and those of the South (Vee 1999).
If IT has helped to generate the problem, it may also offer a solution, in
the form of Internet-mediated distance education. Using distance
education, colleges and universities may be able to extend educational
opportunities to precisely the areas that are poorly served by colleges
and
universities today, such as the inner cities and impoverished rural areas.
But academia may not be able to succeed if distance education is
hijacked by commercial vendors, who are bent on extracting lucrative
profits from what they see as a huge and growing market. Already, they
are pushing universities to adopt policies that rob professors of their
right to the intellectual property produced in the classroom, so that this
property can be packaged and sold to commercial distance education vendors
(Noble 1998).
Distance education cannot succeed in impoverished areas of the U.S., let
alone the Third World, if students and schools are forced to pay
commercial software licensing fees and copyright fees in addition to the
cost of computer hardware and network connections. The use of
commercial operating systems and commercial applications for distance
education is impossible to justify when stable, high-quality products are
available from the open-source community. This is precisely the reasoning
that led Mexican government officials to choose Linux and the
GNOME desktop as the foundation for a new push to place computers in
Mexican schools (Kahney 1998). The economies of Linux are no less
relevant to underfunded schools in rural and inner-city settings in the
U.S. (Dean 1999). Adopting commercial, closed-source software as the
infrastructure for distance education amounts to a slap in the face to the
poor.
Joining the Movement for Social Justice
Were colleges and universities to move to a Linux standard for academic
computing, they would soon become full participants in a growing
movement to use open-source software as a means of achieving social
justice worldwide. They would become engines of open-source software
development -- and the results could make a genuine difference in helping
to remedy international inequities in access to information
technology.
If you're skeptical of this claim, consider the Littlefish project (Frazer
and Brown 1999). In brief, Littlefish is an open- source project that
seeks
to develop license-free patient information software for use in rural and
Third World settings. In such settings, the use of commercial software
is impossible, and not just because of the cost; the vendors of commercial
patient information software have little interest in supporting users in
remote or impoverished locales. Accordingly, part of the Littlefish
project's goal is not only to create high-quality, open-source patient
information software, but what is more, to create a worldwide community of
practitioners who possess and are eager to share the expertise
needed to implement effective patient-tracking systems, even under
conditions of extreme poverty and geographic isolation. Does this effort
matter? The answer is found in one simple statistic: 97 percent of
childhood deaths occur in developing countries. Effective patient
information
systems could help to reduce this mortality significantly.
Arguably, open-source software holds the key to addressing significant
issues of social justice and economic development worldwide (Vee
1999). Accordingly, colleges and universities should do all they can to
foster open-source software development, and this purpose would be
admirably served by adopting Linux as the international standard for
computing in higher education.
Linux: The New International Standard for Computing in Higher Education
I'm fully aware that moving to a Linux standard would pose new and
difficult challenges for colleges and universities; for one thing, Linux
isn't
the easiest operating system to learn, and maintenance costs could soar as
students meddle with system configurations and wind up with
unbootable systems. Still, Linux distributors are working hard to make
Linux easier to install and use. As the GNOME and KDE desktops reach
maturity, they will open the use of Linux to a much broader audience. But
most importantly, the very nature of Linux as an open-source
operating system will enable colleges and universities to create and
distribute customized Linux distributions (for an example, take a look at
CAEN Linux, a version of Red Hat 6.0 that's customized for University of
Michigan e-school students). These "educational versions" of Linux
will include pre-configured system and network settings that are designed
to work seamlessly and transparently with the campus computing
network, eliminating the need for students to acquire system and network
administration skills.
Perhaps the best argument for moving to the Linux standard, however, comes
from a consideration of what may happen if current trends
continue. Microsoft is making increasing inroads into the academic
computing market, largely on the strength of multi-million dollar deals
that
make Microsoft software available to all registered students. Microsoft
has all but taken over academic computing, save on the server end.
Colleges and universities have become yet another stepping-stone to
Microsoft's stranglehold on the world market for Intel-based operating
systems and application software.
I am well aware that many academics who are sympathetic to Linux are put
off by what they see as "gratuitious Microsoft-bashing" by Linux
advocates, but the bashing is far from gratuitous; indeed, there is ample
evidence--supplied by none other than Microsoft itself--that the firm
is considering measures that would drive Linux out of the marketplace,
just as Microsoft has similarly destroyed earlier competitors. The
so-called Halloween documents (Harmon and Markoff 1998), released to the
Internet by an unknown source within the company, disclose a
plan to counter Linux by "de-commoditizing" the public protocols that
currently form the basis of campus computing networks and the
Internet and will in the future provide the infrastructure for distance
education.
What is meant by "de-commoditizing" public networking protocols?
Currently, such protocols, such as the Domain Name System (DNS), are
"commodities", in Microsoft's terminology, in the sense that they are
standardized and publicly available. By adding proprietary extensions to
these protocols, Microsoft hopes to make the use of non-Microsoft software
more costly to users, even as the use of Microsoft software becomes
more convenient. Microsoft's internal documents make it clear that the
firm intends to introduce such extensions, not because doing so is in
their customer's best interest or would improve their products, but
because such extensions could prove effective in pushing Linux out of the
marketplace.
To be sure, Microsoft disavows these documents and rejects the assertion
that they accurately characterize the firm's intentions. However,
Microsoft's critics argue that the company has played this game for years,
and only the nave would believe that it will no longer continue to do
so. The company stands accused in a U.S. Federal Court of using similar
tactics against its competitors in the past; if it wins, which seems
increasingly likely, the firm's attorneys will no doubt advise the
company's executives that it is free to pursue such tactics against new
competitors as well--and currently, Microsoft's most vigorous competition
stems from the open-source community.
In my opinion, the very fact that someone inside Microsoft considered such
tactics is reason alone to argue that Microsoft software has no place
in academic computing. I realize the software marketplace is a
rough-and-tumble world, and hardball tactics are commonplace. Still,
Microsoft
doesn't seem to know where the line lies between aggressive competition
and reprehensible, potentially illegal actions that result in the
annihilation of anyone with the temerity to compete with the company--and
at incalculable cost to consumers and the general public. For
example, Microsoft is taking the lead to lobby for new legislation that
will rewrite copyright laws--and the results threaten the very existence
of
well-established conceptions of fair use and reverse engineering,
practices on which university research and education are deeply dependent.
Given that Microsoft is involved in a variety of activities that threaten
the very existence of open intellectual exchange in colleges and
universities, they have every reason to do nothing to advance the
interests of Microsoft, but in contrast, to do everything they can to
advance the
development of Linux.
In sum, the survival of open-source software in general, and Linux in
particular, may prove essential to the preservation of the integrity of
science, the effectiveness of computer literacy instruction, and the
reduction of the digital divide. Colleges and universities are under a
positive
obligation, which I believe amounts to a moral imperative, to reject the
growing role of commercial software in academic computing, and to
transform themselves by the thousands, worldwide, into vigorous centers of
open-source software development.
Bryan Pfaffenberger is a professor in the University of Virginia's new
Media Studies program, where his responsibilities include developing and
teaching UVa's new University-wide computer literacy course (Media Studies
110). His works on Linux include Linux Clearly Explained
(Morgan Kaufmann) and Mastering GNOME (Sybex).
How to Get Involved
Mail copies of this article to deans, department chairs and everyone
involved in your campuses' academic computing system
If you know of open-source software that could prove useful to
scientists, share it. The Open Science Project
(http://www.openscience.org)
is a clearinghouse for open-source software in a variety of scientific
and scholarly disciplines, ranging from acoustics and anthropology to
physics and zoology. Also see Scientific Applications on Linux
(http://sal.kachinatech.com/index.shtml).
Support the push to distribute Linux on college and university
campuses. Students at the University of Michigan gave away 2000 copies of
StarOffice and Red Hat 6.1. If you're a student, organize a local
Linux User's Group (LUG) and do the same on your campus.
Work to transform your college or university into a Microsoft-free
environment. Tell fellow students, colleagues and administrators why
the actions of Microsoft in the marketplace are incommensurate with
the ideals and values of higher education, scientific progress, and
social justice on a global scale.
Join organizations fighting for civil liberties in cyberspace,
including Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and the
Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
References
Dean, Katie. 2000. "Open Source Opens Education," Wired News (March 13,
2000). Available on-line at
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,34807,00.html.
Frazer, C., and S.M. Brown. 1999. "The Littlefish Project: Open Source,
Open Health." Available on-line at
http://www.paninfo.com.au/papers/hics%2099%20presentation.htm.
Kahney, Leander. 1998. "Mexican Schools Embrace Linux," Wired News
(November 6, 1998). Available on-line at
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,16107,00.html.
Gazelter, J. Daniel. 1999. "Catalyzing Open Source Development in
Science," paper presented at a conference entitled "Open Source/Open
Science," Brookhaven National Laboratory, October 2, 1999 (slides
available on the Web at http://www.openscience.org/talks/bnl).
Harmon, Amy and John Markoff. 1998. "Internal Memo Shows Microsoft
Executives' Concern over Free Software," New York Times
(November 3, 1998). Available on-line at
http://www10.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/11/biztech/articles/03memo.html
(requires site
registration).
Kiernan, Vincent. 1999. "The `Open Source Movement' Turns Its Eye to
Science," Chronicle of Higher Education (November 5, 1999).
Available on-line at http://www.chronicle.com/free/v46/i11/11a05101.htm.
National Research Council, 1999. Being Fluent with Information Technology.
Report of the Committee on Information technology Literacy,
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, Commission on Physical
Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications. Washington, D.C.:
National Academy Press. Available on-line at
http://books.nap.edu/books/030906399X/html/R1.html.
Noble, David. 1998. "Digital Diploma Mills: the Automation of Higher
Education," First Monday , available on-line at
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_1/noble/index.html.
Prasad, Ganesh C. 1999. "A Practical Manager's Guide to Linux,"
OsOpinion.com. Available on-line at
http://www.li.org/li/resources/papers/1999-pracmgr/Manager's-Guide-to-Linux.html.
Robiette, Alan. 1999. "Value for Money Considerations in Software
Strategies for Higher Education," JISC Technology Applications Program
(JTAP). Available on-line at
http://www.jtap.ac.uk/reports/htm/jtap-029.html.
Vee, Danny. 1999. "Development, Ethical Trading, and Free Software"
(available on-line at
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/freedom/ip/aidfs.html).
Vermeer, Martin. 1998. "Unix as an Element of Literacy," Linux Today.
Available on-line at
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/9032/articles/unixasli.htm.
Watkins, Kevin. 1999. Education Now: Break the Cycle of Poverty. Oxfam
International. Available on-line at
http://www.caa.org.au/oxfam/advocacy/education/report/index.html.
Wilson, Greg. 1999. "A Natural Home for Open Source," Dr. Dobb's (October
8, 1999). Available on-line at
http://www.ddj.com/articles/1999/9975/9975q/9975q.htm.
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