Free Curricula, Free other

Jim Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is blogging at Larry Lessig's blog. His theme for the week is "10 Things that will be free." #2 is school curricula, Kindergarten through University. It's a pretty idea, but I think he's wrong when he says

In the long run, it will be very difficult for proprietary textbook publishers to compete with freely licensed alternatives. An open project with dozens of professors adapting and refining a textbook on a particular subject will be a very difficult thing for a proprietary publisher to compete with. The point is: there are a huge number of people who are qualified to write these books, and the tools are being created to leave them to do that.

It won't be difficult for traditional publishers to fight this at all. Textbook publishers are a not-inconsiderable lobby group, and textbooks are, as we see in Japan, a very political question. There's no way they go down without a fight. There's a second question of how to pay "dozens of professors" to adapt and refine textbooks. Presumably, not many are going to do this out of their spare time.

This is unfortunate, because a free curriculum could do a lot of good in the world - something an experiment in Kenya is already showing:

Since the Kenyan government introduced free primary school education two years ago, the resulting influx of kids has meant that resources are spread as thinly as ever.

Classrooms are crowded, and the all-too-familiar scenario of children sharing outdated textbooks is still very much in evidence.

However, in Class Five, things are just a little bit different. Fifty-four 11-year-old students are willing guinea pigs in an extraordinary experiment aimed at using technology to deliver education across the continent.

In the Eduvision pilot project, textbooks are out, customised Pocket PCs, referred to as e-slates, are very much in.

They are wi-fi enabled and run on licence-free open source software to keep costs down.

"The e-slates contain all the sorts of information you'd find in a textbook and a lot more," said Eduvision co-founder Maciej Sudra.

"They contain textual information, visual information and questions. Within visual information we can have audio files, we can have video clips, we can have animations.

I've said it before - the Open Source revolution may have been born in the west, but it's going to mature in the developing world.

On that note, I've recently installed Ubuntu Linux on my computer, and am tinkering with it between blogging and other things. So far it's a pleasant surprise. Very easy to install, and easy to use. Also pleasing for an ideologue like me, Ubuntu still carries the Gnu/Linux banner proudly:

Ubuntu is a community driven project to create an operating system and a full set of applications using free and open source software. At the core of the Ubuntu Philosophy of Software Freedom are these core philosophical ideals:

1. Every computer user should have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees.
2. Every computer user should be able to use their software in the language of their choice.
3. Every computer user should be given every opportunity to use software, even if they work under a disability.

It comes with Firefox and Open Office (using Open Office, I've written all of my papers for three years of university without once having to use the thrice-damned MS Word) and installing new software is pretty easy.

If, like me, most of your computer usage is either reading or writing, Ubuntu might be a good fit. Check it out.