French Kids Get OSS on USB Sticks

daria42 writes "To help make kids aware of alternatives to proprietary software the Ile-de-France, the political district of greater Paris, will give 175,000 school children and apprentices USB keys loaded with open-source software. With a word-processing program, audio and video playback capabilities, an email client and an IM client, these are essentially computers on a stick. The council touts this as 'represent[ing] for students a tool of freedom and mobility between their school, cybercafes and their home or friends' PCs'." With the prevalence of internet cafes in Europe, that might work better than in the US ... but do you think such a project would work here as well? If so, what software would you want to see loaded up?

Haxxx

[clark0r]

so how long until someone expoits the software on here, loads up their own payload and lets it fly? this many usb sticks with undetected exploit-ware on them would cause a lot of havoc! perhaps i'm wrong, but it would be interesting to see how they've tried to counter this threat.

My USB stick I use at School

[Anonymous Coward]

On my USB stick that I use for school files I have Portable FireFox, GAIM, and VLC media player (our school doesn't allow codecs like DivX), so as long as people know how to use the software, I think it could be well taken.

Re:I bet this USB sticks will be used...

[fyoder]

...to store just music or other files.

Yup. When I was a lad back in elementary school many years ago, they gave us all copies of the New Testament. A friend of mine carved through the pages of his to create a secret compartment.

You can lead a kid to the gospel, be it Christianity or OSS, but you can't make him use it. At least not as you might intend.

Exciting? No, this program teaches kids nothing.

[jackspenn]

I think the overly excited response to a USB drive with some free crap on it, shows how baddly some /.ers misunderstand what "freedom" of choice means.

Freedom to choose means you can pick the best software for your task at hand. This program does not teach the students to think about freedom of software choice, rather it pushes a conclusion on students.

If the French schools were interested in honestly teaching students, they would have a Pro-Software-Choice program built around teaching kids how to make smart choices.

If you only use OSS then you are no freer then the person who only uses Microsoft. (Part of the reason that as a Red Hat guy from 5.2 to Fedora Core 6, I am currently considering switching to another Linux distribution that is built with both OSS and proprietary software packages like mp3 support, JAVA, Adobe, etc. with the base install. So tired of having to go install that after the core Fedora installation is finished.)

To be free you need to use what works best for you.

To be free you need to evaluate pros and cons of your choice, not make a choice because somebody put it on a USB drive for you.

If the French implemented a program to teach students how to make intelligent software decisions for their needs that would be innovative.

Instead the French are giving away software (they didn't even write). It is not innovative, it is tired and sad.

Open Source provides alternatives to everyone, but OSS is tailored to the way the software programmers want things to be. Proprietary software is written to meet the end user demands in the open market. Choice lets users decided when to use the best software for you.

Frances sucks, God Bless Texas!

DISCLOSURE: This was written using an open source web browser on a proprietary source OS.

Boot from USB?

[DavidD_CA]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the point here be to boot fromthe USB to run the OS that is pre-loaded on the stick?

If it's just OSS apps, and you're still requiring Windows OS, then it's not that revolutionary. Why would the user bother with te USB stick if the computer is already booted into Windows and has popular apps loaded?

Not to mention I would suspect that most Net Cafes would prevent booting from a USB device because they want you to run the special "cafe" software they usually have that prompts for your credit card, tracks your time, etc.

Now, if an entire university had a bunch of computer labs with absolutely no pre-installed OS, and gave all their students these USB sticks (with an OS to boot from), then that might be something.

Re:We Hate France

[ChameleonDave]

You're almost right.

But "France" was not more against the war than other countries. In the vast majority of countries of the world, a clear majority was against invasion, particularly invasion without a UN mandate.

The difference in the case of France was that one man, Jacques Chirac, made the democratic and rational decision to go along with what most of the population (especially the Muslim population) wanted. The common folk of France deserve neither condemnation/vilification nor praise/gratitude for the good action of one man.

Re:Exciting? No, this program teaches kids nothing

[penix1]

Open Source provides alternatives to everyone, but OSS is tailored to the way the software programmers want things to be. Proprietary software is written to meet the end user demands in the open market. Choice lets users decided when to use the best software for you.

The problem with your little theory here is that the proprietary world is gaming your little system. Things like patents, copyright term extensions, monopolistic abuse of OEMs, hardware vendor lock-in, and file format lock-in all play their part in destroying your "free market" idea. How free are you when you are forced to accept a proprietary file format that requires a proprietary program to open? How free are you when programmers can't get the specs for hardware to make them work no matter the OS? How free are you when you get slapped with a law suit for simply sharing? There comes a time when one has to say enough is enough and stand up for their values. So you can either fight for your freedom or lie down and have it eroded. I prefer to fight!

B.

France24

[kakofb]

If the French are so enthusiastic about being open source and/or moving away from Microsoft, why is their France24 video stream on their website Microsoft-only?
France24 is supposed to be the bastion of everything French to the rest of the world and you can't watch it online unless you're using IE, running Windows, have WMP, etc.

Re:Egalite is the enemy of Liberte

[makapuf]

You have no idea how French and American visions of state differ. French people have since royal times kept the vision of a powerful and impersonated state, which is trusted and where people expect the state to be a moral person, reponsible and present along everyday life (think welfare state for example). Even since the French revolution has the State kept its (although recent is more geared towards a reduction of role state), even if the economy has always been quite liberal.

Government is as much out of place encouraging Free Software as it is encouraging any philosophy or idea : of course governments should promote ideas (even anarchic ones), that's why it has been chosen over some other one. Even having and enforcing free markets IS an agenda, because sometimes it naturally leads to monopolies which needs state intervention to keep market free.

Besides, what do you mean free software is not Libre ? Aren't you free to use/modify it? Aren't you free NOT to release the software you write under a Free license ?

There, now I feel better.

Re:We Hate France

[tomhudson]

"Hehe .. the French weren't hot about it because it wasn't in their fucking interest."

Maybe the french weren't hot about it because:

1. ... it was contrary to international law ...

2. ... it was stupid even then (but stupid is as stupid does) ...

3. ... not all alternatives had been exhausted (many countries were ready to back the Canadian initiative)

4. ... it was seen as blatantly war-for-oil and a porkbarrel war (Blackwater, etc)

5. ... there was (and still is) no exit strategy ...

6. ... the public pronouncements were already known to be lies (Colin Powell's UN presentation, for example)

7. ... "a quick war" my arse ... only an ID-10-T would say or believe that ...

Or you could look at the latest polls http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cf m?name=mr070122-2topline.pdf&id=3334 [ipsos-na.com]

1. 2/3 of those polled said the country was on the wrong track
2. 65% disapprove of Bush's handling of iraq. Only 17% "strongly approve", compared to 42% who "strongly disapprove"
3. his party is behind the dems on every topic polled as to "who would do a better job"
4. 83% perceive George Bush as stubborn, the majority (54%) also said he wasn't honest

The majority of the US doesn't like Bush. It's not a "French thing." Get over it.

Re:Computers on a stick?

[LawDog]

It's clearly NOT a "computer" but, given that you can have 100Gb in your pocket, in an iPod, how far off are we from leaving the PC model, and just having monitor/RAM stations that we plug our memory/processor units into. This memory stick idea seems just one step off from that.

Re:We Hate France

[Pollardito]

let's be honest though, a large part of France and Russia's vocal objection to the war was that they were making a ton of money brokering oil-for-food [telegraph.co.uk] programs [washtimes.com] that would go away when Saddam went away. they were right for the wrong reasons

Re: There is more....

[Anonymous Coward]

Although there is a world of info available at one's fingertips, there seems to be a trend toward folk spending their time with, and getting their info from, an ever tighter circle of those with like views. A car fan can spend time with others that like the same brand, model and year of car and debate about the best original color. A neo-nazi can read books, find current news, and discuss views, all in a global network of nazi websites. Major american isp's are already steering their users to filtered news laced with paid promotions, to favored sites for special interest, to partner sites and and paid links in searches. Thus, when we don't limit ourselves to a small universe, we are coralled and manipulated much more effectively than could be done with broadcasting and print media.

Our only hope is to consciously look over the walls, break through the barriers, and seek out alternative news, views and communties. We must also work to bring others out of their comfortable chambers as well.