The Role of F/OSS
Many attempts have already been made to address the digital divide. Countermeasures are being taken at several levels of education to ensure that students whose digital literacy support network is lacking can learn the skills they need to succeed in the digital world. One such countermeasure is the One Laptop Per Child project, which funds bare-bones laptop PCs and educational software for children in developing countries. These laptops are simple machines that run Linux and feature interactive educational software and creative suites to help children learn and become familiar with computers at the same time. Sugar on a Stick was developed by the OLPC and has since formed its own enterprise to develop and disseminate the Sugar Learning Platform, an interactive learning suite for children that uses Fedora Linux and can fit on a standard-size USB drive, or stick. Libraries, an important part of digital literacy development, are increasingly filling the void in digital literacy education; I will examine one such library in this paper to show what lessons can be learned from its efforts. The primary countermeasure, which is the main emphasis of this text, is the move from proprietary software, which often adds an often undue burden on technology budgets, to free and open source software (F/OSS). Also commonly referred to with the acronym FLOSS, F/OSS is both a practical and a philosophical response to the cost of software acting as a gateway to digital literacy development.
F/OSS has enjoyed greater success in the last decade because of the growth of the World Wide Web and the ability for coders across the world to collaborate on projects. The rapid development of programs has also been aided by the GPL, which allows anyone to download the licensed program's source code or binary executable and change or make derivative works from it as long as those changes or derivative works also fall under the GPL and are not proprietary. Essentially, the source code is free to view so that coders can easily make changes to it, but software users with no interest in or ability to help out with source code improvements can still download the program for use. The language of the GPL is designed to allow unfettered development while preventing any one developer from making their changes to the licensed program proprietary, or charging money for them, or both. Many companies contribute to open source projects. OpenOffice.org, a popular office suite underwritten by Sun Microsystems, continues to receive support from Oracle, which recently acquired Sun. Berry (2008) explains that the F/OSS construct is often viewed as a gift economy, in which goods and services are rendered without market exchange, usually under the auspice of some cultural norm (p.9). Viewed with this idea in mind, the GPL is a means of cementing the status of the digital gift economy. Those who receive the gifts must, in turn, keep the framework in place that allowed the gifts to be given. F/OSS represents a gift that holds the key to addressing the digital divide in the composition classroom.
The argument I make here consists of three points. First, the growing digital literacy gap threatens to render an increasing number of students unable to function in society by leaving them without the tools they need to take advantages of opportunities created by technology. Second, composition classrooms are positioned to help bridge this gap by fulfilling their purpose, which I define as helping students understand how visual and other multimodal aspects influence composition in the digital age and helping students improve their writing through a pedagogy that emphasizes process over product. Finally, F/OSS is a viable solution in composition classrooms because it can address needs without taxing budgets. Additionally, Taylor and Riley (2004) have presented the open source framework as an ideal composition model because of its emphasis on transparency and feedback based on revision. I will expand on their work and show that open source coding is a specialized type of process writing, lending further credence to the idea that the open source model itself can serve as a model for students to develop writing discipline.
Additionally, I will examine specific strategies for setting up adequate digital literacy support networks in secondary and postsecondary education. I will also discuss the history and philosophy of the free and open source movements and the intersection of these ideas with the goals of education. I will present issues relating to visual and textual elements of digital composition; these issues also relate to aspects of functional and critical literacy that students need to understand as part of their digital literacy skill set. My aim is to show that F/OSS can compare to, and even surpass, proprietary software in terms of achieving educational goals, as well as to educate readers on the opportunities of F/OSS by sharing resources about where one might locate and evaluate F/OSS on the Web. If more educators can locate F/OSS resources, then they can determine additional ways in which F/OSS can expand its niche within education.
Previous: Introduction Next: Background I: The Free Software Movement