Education, especially higher education (also PhD) is tightly connected to computers and software on them. We need an operating system to use computer with possible peripheral devices, several different applications to work at our everyday academic tasks. For all that, we need software. We can buy it or use free and open source software (hereinafter: FOSS) to save money but not only - also our souls, if I may say so.

1. Why is free software important in
education?
Edmund Laugasson, PhD student from
Tallinn University, Institute of Informatics, Estonia
edmund.laugasson@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/phdedmund/
The Digital Safety Lab is supported by the Tiger
University Program of the Information Technology
Foundation for Education.
This research was supported by the Tiger
University Program of the Information
Technology Foundation for Education.

2. Keywords
● sharing the knowledge
● sharing the tools
● social responsibility
● independence
● learning
● saving costs
● quality
http://bqtglobal.com/W_EU/Images/Photo/Software.jpg

4. Why is FOSS important in education?
FOSS: free and open-source software
● user freedom
– FOSS respects user's freedom and social solidarity
of his community
– proprietary software take away user's freedom,
keeping them divided and helpless
http://www.gnu.org/education/

5. Why is FOSS important in education?
Divided because users are forbidden
from sharing the program, and helpless
because they do not have the source code
of the program.
That is: users cannot change the software, they cannot
find out what the program is really doing, and it can do
very bad things.
So – users cannot share the knowledge and tools in
case of proprietary software but it suppose to not be
so.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

6. Why is FOSS important in education?
Free Software means that the user
has the 4 essential freedoms:
Freedom 0 is the freedom to run
the program for any purpose.
Freedom 1 is the freedom to study the source code
of the program and change it to make it do what
you wish.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

7. Why is FOSS important in education?
Free Software means that the user
has the 4 essential freedoms:
Freedom 2 is the freedom to help
your neighbour; that is, the freedom
to make and distribute exact copies
of the program whenever you want.
Freedom 3 is the freedom to contribute to your
community; that is the freedom to make and distribute
copies of your modified versions of the program.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

8. Why is FOSS important in education?
With these four freedoms a program is
Free Software because the social system
for its use and distribution is an ethical
system that respects everyone's freedom
and the freedom of the community of users.
Software must be Free because we all deserve
freedom, we all deserve to be allowed to participate
in a free community.
Therefore, schools should teach mostly Free
Software. There are four reasons why this is so.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

9. Why is FOSS important in education?
The most shallow reason is to
save money. Schools do not
have enough money, so they
should not waste their money
paying for permission to use
proprietary software.
This is an obvious reason, but some proprietary
software companies usually eliminate this reason by
donating copies of their proprietary programs to the
school at no charge or at a small price.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

10. Why is FOSS important in education?
The reason why they do
so is, that is to get
students addicted.
It is a malicious plan.
This is a plan to use schools
as instruments to impose
a permanent dependence
on students.
If a school teaches how to use
a proprietary program, the student
will be dependent on that program
and after he graduates he will have to pay to use that program. He will
probably work for a company that does not receive copies of the program
free of charge.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

11. Why is FOSS important in education?
Therefore, proprietary software
developers use schools to impose
permanent dependence on the
whole society.
Schools must refuse to participate
in such a malicious plan because
schools have a social mission which is to educate the
next generation to be good citizens of a capable,
strong, independent, cooperating and free society.
This can only be achieved by teaching Free
Software. Schools should mostly use Free Software
and very rare cases proprietary software.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

12. Why is FOSS important in education?
But there is a deeper
reason: to form good
programmers, because
in order to learn good
programming skills
students need to read
lots of code and write
lots of code.
To learn to write good code for big programs students
need to write small changes in the code of big programs.
All this is possible only with Free Software. Only Free
Software allows education in information technology.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

13. Why is FOSS important in education?
But there is still a deeper reason:
to teach good citizenship, because
schools have the mission to teach
not only facts and technical skills,
but above all the spirit of good will,
the habit of helping others.
Therefore, each class should have this rule: student
- if you bring a program to the class, you can not
keep it for yourself, you must share it with the rest of
the class.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

14. Why is FOSS important in education?
The school should practice what it preaches, it
should introduce Free Software in the classroom.
All schools should migrate to Free Software and
teach Free Software
because each
school should
participate in
leading society
towards freedom
and social
solidarity.
http://www.gnu.org/education/
FOSS: free and open-source software

15. What is happening in Estonia?
● World Bank rated Estonia as a high income
country in spring 2011
● Microsoft has increased their prices up to 25 times
since 1st July 2011
● Microsoft offered 3-year contract with old fixed
prices during 1st July 2011 till 1st July 2014 –
these dates may vary in different schools
● it is hard to find more money
for schools
● Estonian Government has
been done 5 state
procurements in FOSS field

16. What is happening in Estonia?
● spring 2013 has started active discussion over it at
schools in Estonia – lost two years
● Microsoft Office will mostly be
abandoned
● Microsoft Windows will remain in some places until
incompatibility issues cannot be solved
Most important incompatibilities are:
● people's attitude toward FOSS
● knowledge – e.g. do not edit and save
OOXML files (docx, xlsx etc) with LibreOffice –
convert to ODF formats (odt, ods etc) and then edit

17. About expenses to switch FOSS
● if to deploy free software
– training about new software
– existing data backup/restore if necessary
– software installation and configuration
– setup domain (OpenLDAP) + filesharing (e.g. NFS)
in case of roaming profiles
– support service
– maintenance service

18. About expenses to stay M$
● if to remain onto proprietary software
– up to 25 times higher licence fees
– possible higher security issues
(old OEM's but also
Microsoft Windows itself)
– support service
– maintenance service
Schools in Estonia are usually using Microsoft School
Agreement (MSA), which requires to licence all computers
in school regardless of their real usage. Also it requires
base licence (OEM ~85€ together when buying new
computer or Get Genuine ~110€ per computer for later
licensing), because MSA is an upgrade licencing type.

19. Rough calculations about transition
● Estonian capital city Tallinn has 204 educational
institutions – schools (~80), kindergartens
● ~7000 computers
● in one school ~80 computers
● in one kindergarten ~5...10
computers
● expenses are increasing from ~20 000 € to
~360 000 €, it means 18 times
roughly (VAT 20% included)

20. Tallinn: installation calculations
● ~80 computer per school and 1 hour per
computer if to clone previously prepared
customized installation media containing all
needed software and updates already
● 35€/hour x 80 computers = 2800 €
per school for software installation
● 80 schools x 2800€ = 224 000 €
for all Tallinn schools (one time expense)
● with same price goes other costs if needed –
backup/restore, setup domain + filesharing, etc.

21. Tallinn: teachers training calculations
● per school: average 3 groups, 15 people per
group
● 35€/h x 3 hours x 3 groups = 315 € per school
● 80 schools x 315€ = 25 200 € for all schools
25 200 € roughly one time expense would be
for teaching the basics of using GNU/Linux
operating system, hereinafter: Linux.

22. Tallinn: IT-specialists training
calculations
● 3 days, á 8 hours = 40 hours
● 15 people in group, ~150 IT-specialists in
Tallinn schools
● 10 groups x 40 hours x 35€/h = 14 000 €
14 000 € roughly would be one time expense
to educate IT-specialists to support free
software at Tallinn schools.

23. Transition costs together
● 80 schools at Tallinn, Estonia
– 224 000 € for installation
– 25 200 € for teachers training
– 14 000 € for IT-specialists training
It makes 263 200 € roughly as one time expense.
Additionally comes setup of domain + possible
filesharing.
Also support and maintenance costs. These are expected
to reduce due to more stable and more resistant against
malware. Plus more valuable community.

24. When to remain to old system...
● 7000 computers in Tallinn
schools, Estonia
● Microsoft School
Agreement requires
o licence all computers
at school
● MS Windows costs 24 €
per year one computer
● MS Office costs 32 €
per year one computer
● 7000 x 24 = 168 000 € for MS Windows per year
● 7000 x 32 = 224 000 € for MS Office per year

25. When to remain to old system...
● MS Windows + MS Office
together:
168 000 + 224 000
= 392 000 €
roughly per year
● Plus support and
maintenance costs.
● Vendor lock-in, malware
and damages from them.

26. Further plans
● create Free Software Competence Centre in Estonia
– offer FOSS support to public
sector
● for IT-specialists (technical)
● for regular users (user-level)
– courses for IT-specialists and
users
– develop FOSS solutions
– promote FOSS in Estonia but not only
– find partners in Estonia and also outside
– etc...
● pilot project in Tallinn: move three schools
and two kinderkartens onto FOSS –
Linux as OS and LibreOffice as office suite

27. Questions?
Edmund Laugasson, PhD student from
Tallinn University, Institute of Informatics, Estonia
edmund.laugasson@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/phdedmund/
The Digital Safety Lab is supported by the Tiger
University Program of the Information Technology
Foundation for Education.
This research was supported by the Tiger
University Program of the Information
Technology Foundation for Education.