[Discussion] Lightning Talk Fri @ UDS

Grant Bowman grantbow at partimus.org
Thu May 10 10:41:33 PDT 2012


Please comment on this proposed lightning talk. I need to time it.


I want to thank Ubuntu for choosing this UDS location. It's very exciting to
have you all here. I would like to plug all the wonderful San Francisco Bay
Area groups I am privileged to be involved with but I need to highlight one.

Schools around the world are literally where the minds of the next generation
are shaped. As social networking and new research confirm, human nature is
about fitting in. My colleagues and I have seen this play out time and again
here in California, in Augustown, Jamaica and in Nairobi, Kenya. Highly social
school administrators are not immune. This can work in both directions.

Yet even in times of financial scarcity school administrators still clamour to
allocate a very significant amount of their overall budgets for inferior
software products.  This is directly due to public misconceptions which can be
changed with our continued efforts.

Poor products guarantee an excuse for vendors to demand upgrade money. This
contrasts with how we do things.

Closed source vendor lock in creates a cycle of dependency in hearts and minds
of all ages, just at a time when they are looking to authority figures to show
them how best to move forward in their lives. Free and open source is a game
changer.

The resources closed source vendors direct at our common future are playing a
big role in shaping our shared public and private computing platforms. Now is
always the best time to change that.

Partimus means "we share" in Latin. We need your support to continue to provide
our 8 year program of placing repurposed hardware and Ubuntu Linux in San
Francisco and Oakland schools. Please contact me, Elizabeth Krumbach or
contact at partimus.org if you can help us. Thank you.


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