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More Than 60 Schools in Kaohsiung City Signed the Software Freedom Manifesto
By HUNG Chao-Kuei on Saturday, September 11 2010, 10:29 - Permalink
Principals from more than 60 elementary, junior high,
and senior high schools of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan,
signed a "Software Freedom Manifesto" at the invitation of the city's
Education Bureau on Sep 9 Thursday morning in a press conference.
Also announced in the conference are the the upcoming events of
International Conference on Open Source (ICOS), and the "mother tongue
tux usb key" workshops designed for the growing population of
Vietnamese mothers in Taiwan.
The manifesto places emphasis on fighting piracy using free software. It also mentions the creative commons license and the national document standard format CNS15251, a translated and re-labeled version of ODF the OASIS standard. Ching-Hwa Tsai, Director-General of the Education Bureau (the speaker in the photo) stresses the importance of the learning opportunities for all children as well as the importance of abiding by the intellectual property laws. He is also the first director of education bureau among those in all cities of Taiwan to recognize the importance of providing a mother tongue-friendly computing environment for the growing number of Vietnamese parents in Taiwan.
In the next couple of weeks, a workshop for teachers will be held,
followed by 4 workshops for Vietnamese parents of school children.
Teachers will learn how to create bootable Linux USB Keys and load them
with the Vietnamese language support. The parents will learn how to
use such "mother tongue tux usb keys" to browse the internet and
to communicate in their own language, even if the computers
accessible to them do not support Vietnamese input,
since the non-mother-tongue operating system will be bypassed altogether.
The four sites for parent workshops are specifically chosen to serve
areas with the largest Vietnamese populations in Kaohsiung City.
Tyng-Ruey Chuang (3rd from right holding "Encourage Creativity"),
chair of Software Liberty Association, Taiwan (SLAT),
encourages principals and other audience to participate in the ICOS event. (Unofficial English Intro)
He emphasizes the educational track of all three tracks and the
participation of speakers in Kaohsiung who have been advocating
the use of free software for a long time.
In the 3-day event there will be booths where staff will help people create
bootable Linux USB Keys from their own blank usb keys. Among all
available versions, there will be ezgo 8, an ubuntu-based distribution
tailored for the Taiwanese educational environment. This is a
grass-root continuation of the work of Open Source Software Application
Consulting Center (OSSACC),
a project once sponsored by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan.
The long term effects of this move remain yet to be seen since the manifesto has no real binding powers. Yet it may very well empower the city government at least on the negotiation tables. It is interesting to note that the Education Bureau chose to hold the press conference in San-Hsin Vocational High School, a Microsoft School of the Future. Consider Microsoft's EDGI program, which has been curiously absent in Taiwan. Freedom and ethical questions of implementing Microsoft solutions aside, Kaohsiung City government can be in a much better position to negotiate for better prices of Microsoft products than any other city governments simply because of this move. In any case, the education bureau seems to be genuinely interested in the idea of the mother tongue tux usb keys. Hopefully the rest of the city government will learn from the education bureau that the mother tongue Tux usb keys has other applications such as Internet Cafe, ethical computer donations, and Computer LOHAS.
The text of the manifesto is available at Kaohsiung Information Technology Education Advisory Group as odf (also in English). Kaohsiung is the 2nd largest city in Taiwan.
Other reports in Chinese:
Please leave a comment and give a link here if you translate this article into other languages.
Comments
OK, I must disclose that SLAT and I, one of the directors of SLAT, have played an important role in all of this. We had a different version of the manifesto, "The Sustainable Information Technology Policy Manifesto". On the one hand, it is weaker in the sense that it was more about open file formats and open interfaces than about FLOSS. On the other hand, it is stronger in the sense that it requires each participating organizating to post a clear policy page (on their website) no weaker than the common page that their organization will adhere to in future IT system procurements and/or implementations. The strong requirement is designed to create a long term effect but apparently has also prevented it from taking off the ground at all. The Education Bureau likes the idea of a manifesto and has drafted their own version. It's not perfect -- it has got certain ideas mixed up -- but clearly the invitation from the Education Bureau is far more effective than that from SLAT :-)
Great! Does this report have a traditional Chinese version? I know the article is for English readers to share this progress in Taiwan. However, such a mile-stone event should be widely reported.
By the way, from the picture, Dr. Chuang has a cute hair-cut.
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