"BIT" Prepared: Boy Scouting and Free Software in Education

> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7533


Bit Prepared: A Missing Link?

by Marco Fioretti
Thursday, April 15, 2004


Building the case for turning the Boy Scouts into a worldwide advocate of
free software.

These days, software and good education cannot live without each other.
Nobody could deny that the two are linked in many ways. To the best of my
knowledge, however, one of those ways, and not the least important one, has
not been officially practiced yet. Everybody knows that many schools and
educators worldwide have to work with a null or tight budget. This forces
them to look for the most cost effective tools. Other selection criteria are
much more important, however. 

Schools should teach students ways of living that benefit society as a
whole. The most fundamental mission of schools is to teach people to be good
citizens and good neighbors--to cooperate with others who need their help
[1].
<i>The real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people.
To leave this world a little better than you found it [2].</i>
Teaching the students to participate in a community, is a hands-on civics
lesson. It also teaches students the role model of public service [1].
<i>Happiness is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of
pleasure [3].</i>
So, let's teach concepts, not applications ... let's try to teach boys how
to use tools to think [4].
<i>The secret of sound education is to get each pupil to learn for himself,
instead of instructing him by driving knowledge into him on a stereotyped
system [5].</i>
When appropriate, it is necessary to give students real skills, not only
"directions for use" [6].
<i>We want to get them all along through cheery self-development from within
and not through the imposition of formal instruction from without [7].</i>
The common thread in each project must be the ability of collaboration, to
greatly enhance learning opportunities [8].
<i>The boy, while working in co-operation with the others, is responsible
for his own separate part of the job [9].</i>

And my point is? Simply put, not one word in the last paragraph is my own.
In my opinion, the several statements prove the unexplored link I
anticipated: they reinforce one another but come from two distinct sets of
sources. Those in plain text were written by several supporters of free
software in education. The first is R. M. Stallman, founder of the GNU
Project, explaining the main reason why schools should use exclusively free
(as in freedom) software. 

All the sentences in italic belong to Robert Baden-Powell, the founder,
almost one century ago, of the Boy Scouts movement. The Boy Scouts has
become one of the most important international youth organizations, with
almost 30 million members in more than 200 countries. 

The purpose of Scouting, bearing the motto "Be Prepared", is to help all
boys become good, active citizens. Scouting achieves this goal by making
Scouts "play the game" in the outdoors--away from TVs, PCs and cell
phones--as often as possible. There is no question that this approach
remains valid and perhaps even more needed in the age of the Internet. Many
members, however, use computers every day outside Scout activities. Nobody
thinks for a moment that they should stop, but it is natural to expect that
basic Scouting principles also be applied to these new tools. The Boy Scout
movement places a lot of importance on self-reliance and not living out of
pre-packaged solutions. The statements pasted above are merely the tip of a
mountain of assertions that support the same thesis made by the founder and
many Scout leaders from all countries: Scouting wants to educate from
within, making the boy know and build his own tools, because that helps him
to build and know his own character. 

After reading this article, please also read the material listed in the
Resources. Our thesis continues to make perfect sense (even more, if you ask
me) if we substitute "schools" with "troops" or "patrols" and "students"
with "Scouts". In the meantime, let's go back for a moment (thanks to Marco
Bravi for pointing this out) to the core of Baden-Powell's Last Message to
all Scouts [2]: "leave this world a little better than you found it". Now,
the modern world also is made of software, which is here to stay. Could a
Scout apply the founder's advice to the software he uses? Leave any program
a bit better than he found it? More to the point, should he? Why, yes! First
of all, it would be a really neat and useful good turn to do so. Secondly,
it would be an excellent way to acquire valuable skills for a qualified job.
Of course, any Scout worth his promise does this only if and when it is
legal to do so. Consequently, this Service (yes, Service) is possible only
with software that is meant from its inception to be improved in this way.
Such software, regardless of its price, legally guarantees: 

     the freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

     the freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs
(freedom 1).

     the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).

     the freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the
public, so the whole community benefits (freedom 3).

Once more, we started at Scouting and ended up at Free Software: the four
lines above are copied word by word from the official Free Software
Definition. 

The direct links between these two partners in education doesn't end here.
Baden-Powell believed "that we were put into this world of wonders and
beauty with a special ability to appreciate them, in some cases to have the
fun of taking a hand in developing them, and also in being able to help
other people instead of over-reaching them and, through it all, to enjoy
life - that is, TO BE HAPPY" . Writing software according to these
guidelines, a Scout then should guarantee all the freedoms above to all
future users of the improved program. "For example, if you distribute copies
of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients
all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or
can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know
their rights". In other words, the Scout should license his software under
the GNU General Public License, from which I copied this clause, or a
similar one. 

Discovering the many other "Free Software is Scouting" connections is left
as an exercise for the reader; please post them below, however). We already
have enough evidence. If, on top of this evidence, we also pair the
thousands of arguments about how free software can save money with the Scout
Law that says "A scout is thrifty", the case seems to be closed. Linux and
the whole FLOSS movement do appear as the soul of Scouting made software:
the first, if not only, kind of IT technology that should be proposed to Boy
Scouts or used by their leaders. 

In spite of this, although many schools have made official endorsements of
Free Software, as far as I know, Scout associations have made none. As of
April 5th, 2004, searching the Web sites of the World Scout Movement, the
International Union of Guides and Scouts of Europe and the Boy Scouts of
America doesn't return anything about Linux and free software. I also asked
for comments, without feedback so far, on the [email protected]
and [email protected] mailing lists. The current requirements of the Computer
and Internet Merit Badges of the Boy Scouts of America do not mention free
software at all. Even a general search on Google didn't return anything
relevant. Why hasn't this affinity been acknowledged before? I've been
wondering for years, since I first realized what free software really was or
could be about. For the record, I've been a Scout since 1977; I am not
mixing random quotes found on-line last week in order to make noise.
Instead, I want to stimulate a constructive discussion. Is it really true
that no Scout association in the world officially uses and recommends free
software? If so, why not, considering the similarities? 

I'm almost sure that, until today, it simply has been a mix of innocent
reasons: the sheer ignorance that there is an alternative; the need to
concentrate on issues perceived as more urgent or closer to the "core
business" (yes, I agree that Baden-Powell himself would pour a mug of cold
water down my sleeve for writing those two words); the existence of parents
enraged because "Junior doesn't get his daily Pizza at Camp!!!!"; and the
need to not irritate them further exactly because Junior sorely needs some
Scouting, any Scouting, to remain sane. 

I've personally been in similar situations as a Scout Master, and I know how
it feels. Still, at least in the medium and long term, none of these
arguments seems valid. There certainly may be other reasons, which escape
me, why a tool that matches the Scout philosophy so well must remain
ignored. If this is true, it would be a good idea to explain why and give
clear directions to all Scouts. If, instead, there is a case to increase the
adoption of free software among Scouts, let's look at some ways to achieve
this goal faster. 

The Eagle Conspiracy

While discussing this article with Linux Journal Editor in Chief, Don Marti,
I learned that we both were Eagle Scouts (or the equivalent title in our
respective Scout association). Alessandro Rubini, co-author of Writing Linux
Device Drivers, and Marco Bravi, a founder of the Rome LUG also have a Scout
master badge in their backpacks. Does all this point to some kind of on-line
conspiracy, a potentially powerful league of Hacker Scouts, still largely
unknown to one another? I'm quite sure this is the case and that such a
league would count many members. Even if it doesn't exist yet, no problem;
it's time to start it. Raise your hands, everybody! 

Patching the Badges

Merit Badges are a good starting point for the project of closing the
Scouting/free software gap. Currently, Software Badges exist in many Scout
associations, which is a good thing. Scouts must be self-sufficient, both in
the wild and in daily city life. Because the latter usually implies working
with computers to some extent, the more they are known the better. It is in
this spirit that I have prepared the short list of requirements below,
applicable to all computer badges. Some of them are inspired directly by the
concepts presented in this article, while others are more basic, aimed at
helping Scouts become good Netizens. Any feedback is welcome. 

     1.Describe the difference between free (as in Freedom) and proprietary
software.

     2.Discuss the differences among free software, shareware and freeware.

     3.Describe the difference between open and proprietary protocols and
file formats. Give at least three examples of each.

     4.Describe the difference between command-line and graphical user
interfaces, pointing out the advantages of each.

     5.Install one or more operating systems on the same computer, starting
from scratch.

     6.Download, compile and install a computer program from source.

     7.Apply a patch to the source code of a computer program.

     8.Install a firewall on a computer, and test it by using an on-line
validating service.

     9.Be prepared to discuss digital signatures and how to exchange them
among different operating systems.

     10.Be prepared to discuss Web site accessibility--why browser-specific
code is counterproductive, how to guarantee that users with handicaps can
use the site and so on.

     11.Describe the correct procedure to ask for support in on-line mailing
lists.

     12.Demonstrate knowledge of proper behavior suitable for public mailing
lists and newsgroups (Netiquette).

Let's Play the Free Software Game!

I hope I have made clear why I think Scouting and free software have a lot
in common, and why the first should use the second. To me, Linux enables me
to continue to be a Scout even when I'm at the keyboard. It also allows me
to try to help others, as in the RULE Project. I'm convinced that if
Baden-Powell was alive today, he'd use Linux. Do you agree? If not, why not?
Let me know your opinions, both on this forum and privately. I'm obviously
eager to help Scouts use free software, and I am available for further
discussion and support. Above all, invite all your Scout friends who don't
know about free software to read this article and act, or at least provide
feedback. Ask them (and yourself) how they would score on the following
test, and, again, let me know: 

     Are you using free software to manage your Scout activities?

     Are you asking that proprietary formats not be used on Scout Web sites
and in official Scouts documents, nor sent as e-mail attachments?

     Are you making sure your Scout Web site is viewable with any browser?

     Are you at least using OpenOffice.org and its open file formats?

     Are you encouraging your Scouts to use free software and to earn their
Merit Badges with it?

     Will you ask your Scout association to do and endorse all of the above?

Judging from what is available on-line, the most likely answer seems to be
No in all cases. On the other hand, this could turn out to be a similar
situation to what happened six or seven years ago, when corporate executives
heard about Linux for the first time. They would call their system
administrators and ask "why aren't we doing this open-source stuff yet?!?",
only to discover that Linux already was on servers all over the place. 

One last word: while talking to him about this article, Alessandro Rubini
pointed out an interesting corollary to these thoughts of mine. Both
Scouting and free software have been accused time and again of extremism.
The first is supposed to be a bit too much on the
right/nationalist/militarist side, while the latter makes the opposite
"mistake". Hopefully, showing their affinities in this manner will help to
demonstrate that neither accusation is well-founded. To me, both movements
seem to arise from such a massive and healthy dose of common sense, a desire
to be active and a love for a job well done as to be simply beyond any label
of this kind. 

Resources

[1] Why schools should use exclusively free software
(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html)

[2] Baden-Powell's Last Message
(http://web.singnet.com.sg/~bgkoh/message.htm)

[3] The Preface of Rovering to Success
(http://www.pinetreeweb.com/canoe.htm)

[4] Open Options Interviews Highlights
(http://www.netc.org/openoptions/examples/interviews.html)

[5] B.-P.'s OUTLOOK
(http://www.usscouts.org/usscouts/history/BPoutlook1.html)

[6] Why give precedence to free software at school?
(http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/education/argumentation.en.html)

[7] Standardization of Badges
(http://www.horseshoetrail.org/advancement.html)

[8] Using Test Driven Development in a Computer Science Classroom: A First
Experience (http://www.elkner.net/jeff/testFirst/)

[9] Aids to Scoutmastership
(http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Scoutmastership/00000036.htm)


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