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EC SUPPORTS EUROPEAN EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME ON FREE SOFTWARE
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| A Consortium formed by three universities and led by the Free Knowledge
| Institute (FKI) has received the support from the EC's Lifelong Learning
| Programme to offer an international educational programme on Free Software.
| Following the Open Educational Resources movement, all learning materials
| will be freely available through the Internet. The use of Free Software (also
| referred to as Open Source software or Libre Software) is expanding rapidly
| in governmental and private organisations. However, still only a limited
| number of IT professionals, teachers and decision makers have sufficient
| knowledge and expertise in these new fields. In order to cover this gap, the
| Free Knowledge Institute and three European universities have founded the
| Free Technology Academy. The first course materials will be available after
| this summer.
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http://freeknowledge.eu/FreeTechnologyAcademy-starts-with-EC-support
Microsoft's "Enervate America" Programme
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| Bet there's not much Firefox, Thunderbird of OpenOffice.org in *there*.
|
| It's a clever ploy, because it means that the state and local governments in
| the US don't have to pay to re-train workers made redundant. For Microsoft,
| of course, it's a brilliant way to turn people desperate to improve their
| financial situation into vectors of its threatened techno-orthdoxy.
|
| Sadly, the net result is that people are being trained how to use 20th
| century technology for that 21st-century economy - more "Enervate America"
| than "Elevate America". For a telling contrast, just think of all those
| millions of young Brazilians who are growing up with a real understanding of
| what computers are about and for....
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http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/02/microsofts-enervate-america-programme.html
Recent:
Can we rescue OLPC from Windows?
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| Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Its functioning is
| secret, so it is incompatible with the spirit of learning. Teaching children
| to use a proprietary (non-free) system such as Windows does not make the
| world a better place, because it puts them under the power of the system's
| developer -- perhaps permanently. You might as well introduce the children to
| an addictive drug. If the XO turns out to be a platform for spreading the use
| of proprietary software, its overall effect on the world will be negative.
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http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows/blogentry_view
Related:
Governments Must Reject Gates' $3 Bid to Addict Next Billion PC Users
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| "Microsoft's strategy of getting developing nations hooked on its
| software was clearly outlined by Bill Gates almost a decade ago," said
| Con Zymaris, CEO of long-standing open source firm Cybersource.
|
| Specifically, Bill Gates, citing China as an example, said:
|
| "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but
| people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though.
| As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.
| They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to
| collect sometime in the next decade."[1]
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http://www.cybersource.com.au/press/gates_set_to_addict_next_billion.html
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