Hello moilami,
To start, thanks a lot for you fast answering :D That really helped me a lot
to see a different point a view from an Engineering Student.
I managed to not use anything than Free Software (except for JavaFX in the
first year.... not very happy with that but what can I do... Because of that
I even created a package in the aur of Arch Linux
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=59005 to help others with the same
problem even knowing that it is free software at all).
The real problem is that I can't transfer credits, and I also can't change
school :S... I can't even choose what courses I want ! (They propose it at
the start of the year but when you choose them they told you that you can't
do them because of have to do all the first years courses before going to
others, so loosing 1 course is the same as saying that you have to do another
year of school).
The credits are counted, for example, each year is 60 credits, for a total of
3 years (180 credits then), but the total of available courses I can do is
exactly 180 credits.... I can't do anything to "compensate" a course and gain
the credits from it which is bad :S..
But as saying to RMS my real problem here is only the money, I already don't
have "Human Power" since if I ask the teacher if I can use Free Software (and
I'm not even interfering with anyone else), everyone start complaining at me
like if I was telling them to start Working for free for the Chinese Mafia
without eating for 3 months (ok... that was a bad example...)...
But yes I have to try to speak with them about selecting the courses for my
curriculum and try to see if together we can find a solution.
They force us to do group work, and since I started telling them that I
wanted to use Free Software, I started to have the feeling that they are
forcing us more to work in groups... Why ? Because like this other people
working with me will have influence on me because they don't want to drop a
course and lose credits... I had the chance to be with someone comprehensive
(an old friend), and even his patience has limits (since he is more of the
opinion that Big Enterprises should close their code and make it proprietary
in order to make money, and that the Free Software movement in general isn't
the solution for the problem), so he lost the same course as me because of
the same problem (since we work in group), and I am really scared to make him
(or another group partner) lose a course because of me.
This is the same for work. I had the chance to start a small company with an
old teacher (that only uses Mac), with this friend (that uses mostly Windows
because of the Games and uses Arch Linux since I show him that it isn't bad
at all), and myself (I'm used to use Arch Linux and Ubuntu but now I'm using
Parabola Gnu/Linux and Trisquel Gnu/Linux), and that allows me win (a small
amount for know but better than nothing) some money doing Free Software,
since this is a somehow "Liberal" organization in terms of Software, around
the idea that anyone inside could use the Software he/she wants, they just
need to have the Software done in the time asked, and this is excellent, but
that doesn't help me pay for my school for know. My parents are paying for
know (when I can I pay myself but I can't do it all the time), and telling
them that I've skipped courses because of ideas that they don't understand
(even if they are very comprehensive) is very difficult :S
(I really need to write less xD).
Thanks in Advance for your help. Really !
I will try to talk with the responsible teachers to see what I can do.
Best Regards,
Luís Da Costa
