The biggest impediment to getting free software used on campuses (and in
the business world) is the lack of beginner-level support for switching
from Windows or Mac to a free OS. The problem with multiple Linux (and
similar) setups, each adapted for different specific needs, is that the
average Windows user has no idea how to pick one, and installation is often
followed by problems like "this laptop can no longer connect to the
internet until you download a set of drivers for it.... which you'll need
to do on another machine, and then transfer in."

Tech support for newbie problems is often downright hostile. "If you don't
know how to use a command line, just go back to Windows." Alternately, the
solutions offered are couched in technical language that require several
followup questions like "how would I find out if I have that permission?"
and "I don't know what those settings are, where do I find them?"

And if they ask on Stack Exchange or Stack Overflow, newbie questions are
often faced with reactions like "question closed" followed by a link to
another question that they do not understand as similar to theirs. The
reactions to complaints about this are usually "We're not hostile; we just
don't want to waste time. Learn to ask better questions."

That might be fine for beginning coders. It is not fine for high school
students who are just trying to have a functional computer that does web
browsing, document editing, and maybe a bit of gaming. The end result is
not going to be "this person studies the software and comes back with
better questions"; it's going to be "I guess I'll switch back to Windows."
As long as switching to a free OS comes with a 3+ week self-directed
training period of "google for answers to 'why isn't this basic thing
working like I expect it to?'" very few people are going to switch - or at
least, very few of them will switch and stay.

(Insisting "hey you should use duckduckgo or startpage instead of google"
will not result in more people converting to free software.)

And that applies to other free software as well.
The benefits of switching from MS Office to LibreOffice have to be couched
as something other than "you won't be supporting an evil megacorp and you
won't be handing them all your user data." Because for most people, those
are non-issues, and certainly not worth the hassle of relearning office
software and dealing with the lack of features they've come to expect.

(If anyone knows a free-software equivalent of Acrobat Pro or InDesign, I'd
love to hear about it. And every few years, I install LibreOffice and see
if it'll cover how I use Word; it does not.) (It would cover how I use
Excel and PPT, but I don't see the value in using those without switching
the whole suite. Especially since my job insists on the MS Suite.)

If you want schools & businesses to use free software, set up a website
that recommends one OS and has a quick-install bundle of common
student/business software. (PortableApps.com has a terrific setup for this,
but afiak it's Windows-only.) Set up a forum or (sigh) Discord for
questions, and be supportive to clueless people who are trying out what
they think is a new fad. Find volunteers who are happy to answer endless
beginner questions about how the command line works and explain basic
vocabulary, over and over. (There can be a FAQ page. Very few beginners
will read it, and some of the answers are likely to be too technical or too
long or both. And if the point is converting people to free software, "go
away and come back when you understand better" is not going to work.) Offer
bundle deals with tech support for small businesses that want to convert
their whole office to free software. Or to schools that want to equip all
their students with Linux laptops.

Offer to teach online classes to high school students, to explain how
computers work--because we've reached a point where millions of people have
no idea how "saving a file" works.
https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z


The free software movement is not friendly or welcoming to non-coders. As
long as that's true, it's not going to get strong inroads into education or
the business world. Complaining about how we got here won't fix any of the
problems, and only adds to the belief that the free software movement is
for elitist techies, not for everyday users.

On Fri, May 13, 2022 at 10:06 AM Lars Noodén <lars.nooden@gmx.com> wrote:

> I fully support building curricula on Free Software exclusively, or as
> close to that as possible with an eye towards achieving 100% in the near
> future.  RMS wrote an essay around 20 years ago, "Why Schools Should
> Exclusively Use Free Software" [1], which could still serve as a
> signpost for the FSF.  However, the environment has changed and control
> over software has become a fight on many campuses.  Solutions must deal
> with that reality.  It's no longer just a technical question, if indeed
> it ever was.
>
> On 5/12/22 20:45, Thomas Lord wrote:
> [snip]
>  > Similarly, say, a college student not in
>  > computer science or anything close to that?  or a
>  > professor who may be tempted to require students
>  > to use unfree software -- where can they quickly and
>  > easily check for a better option?
>
> That may be a fairly common misunderstanding about the amount of choice
> faculty members are allowed in regards to selection of software, at
> least in recent years.  Yes, it /should/ be quick and easy to choose a
> better option, but in many cases the resellers ensconced in the basement
> call *all* the shots in regards to tools, methods, and (sometimes)
> courses, especially at the smaller or lower-rated institutions.  So
> getting any Free Software into the classroom often means a drawn out
> fight.  I gather the problem is especially prominent at institutions
> where part-time adjunct faculty are used in a more or less disposable
> manner, more on that below.  Furthermore, vendors can exploit that and
> there may even be some staff here and there who will accept ready-made
> sales packets and present them as course material while slapping a
> syllabus of sorts around them.
>
> Many of the teams that actually helped people get their job done went
> away after the 1990s ended, leaving resellers/embedded sales teams in
> their place.  The part-time, temporary, adjunct faculty are just that
> while the resellers tend to be full-time permanent employees, which
> means there are a lot of politics and longer strategies involved in the
> fight that happens when treading on their vendor's toes.  The long
> strategies work against temporary faculty members more so than permanent
> faculty members, as it is easy to run the clock out on either group but
> much easier on the temps.  Because all that fighting and politics takes
> time and energy away from activities more likely to boost a career, it
> may be more common in practice to fold quickly, acquiesce and work or
> pretend to work with the garbage.
>
> Any solution to getting more Free Software onto campuses and into
> classrooms and labs has to address the instability and some of the power
> dynamics of the new work environment.  As was said already about 20
> years ago, "you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you
> alone".
>
> /Lars
>
> [1] https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-schools.en.html
>
>
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