The Business Model of Free Software: Legal Myths and Real Benefits

International audienceFree Software is the term coined by Richard Stallman in 1983 to denote programs whose sources are available to whoever receives a copy of the software and come with the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.As Richard Stallman’s concept grew in popularity, and with the subsequent advent of GNU/Linux, Free Software has received a great deal of attention and media publicity. With attention and publicity came expectations as well as a number of legal myths and confusions.The objective of this article is to clarify some of these legal misunderstandings while explaining how the legal fundamentals on which Free Software is based allow for a long-lasting business model based on a special kind of expertise-based support that benefits customers and guarantees the creation of a local pool of expertise.This article is based on our experience with GNAT Pro. GNAT Pro is the Free Software development environment for the Ada 95 programming language. It comprises a compiler that is part of GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection), a toolset and graphical Integrated Development Environment, and a set of supporting libraries.Developing, maintaining, and marketing GNAT Pro for ten years have provided significant experience with both technical and non-technical aspects of Free Software. This article summarizes the principal legal and business lessons learned

The Evolution of Wikipedia's Norm Network

Social norms have traditionally been difficult to quantify. In any particular society, their sheer number and complex interdependencies often limit a system-level analysis. One exception is that of the network of norms that sustain the online Wikipedia community. We study the fifteen-year evolution of this network using the interconnected set of pages that establish, describe, and interpret the community's norms. Despite Wikipedia's reputation for \textit{ad hoc} governance, we find that its normative evolution is highly conservative. The earliest users create norms that both dominate the network and persist over time. These core norms govern both content and interpersonal interactions using abstract principles such as neutrality, verifiability, and assume good faith. As the network grows, norm neighborhoods decouple topologically from each other, while increasing in semantic coherence. Taken together, these results suggest that the evolution of Wikipedia's norm network is akin to bureaucratic systems that predate the information age.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. Matches published version. Data available at http://bit.ly/wiki_nor

Leading Turnaround and Improvement in Low Performing Schools in Malaysia and Indonesia

Improving the fortunes of low-performing schools, often in the most challenging circumstances, remains a persistent and pervasive challenge in many education systems (Meyers & Darwin, 2017). This working paper outlines the findings from a small, qualitative comparative research project funded by the Head Foundation. The working paper commences with some explanation and contextualization of the idea of ‘turnaround schools’ from the literature. It presents the research methodology and subsequently outlines the main findings from the research project

Faculty Excellence

Each year, the University of New Hampshire selects a small number of its outstanding faculty for special recognition of their achievements in teaching, scholarship and service. Awards for Excellence in Teaching are given in each college and school, and university-wide awards recognize public service, research, teaching and engagement. This booklet details the year\u27s award winners\u27 accomplishments in short profiles with photographs and text

Technology skills and perceptions of online classes in the Social Studies Department at Merrill Senior High School as a foundation for organizational change

Includes bibliographical references

Philosophy of Computer Science: An Introductory Course

There are many branches of philosophy called “the philosophy of X,” where X = disciplines ranging from history to physics. The philosophy of artificial intelligence has a long history, and there are many courses and texts with that title. Surprisingly, the philosophy of computer science is not nearly as well-developed. This article proposes topics that might constitute the philosophy of computer science and describes a course covering those topics, along with suggested readings and assignments

Zeitgeist: information literacy and educational change

Information literacy is a mosaic of attitudes, understandings, capabilities and knowledge about which there are three myths. The first myth is that it is about the ability to use ICTs to access a wealth of information. The second is that students entering higher education are information literate because student centred, resource based, and ICT focused learning are now pervasive in secondary education. The third myth is that information literacy development can be addressed by library-centric generic approaches. This paper addresses those myths and emphasises the need for information literacy to be recognised as the critical whole of education and societal issue, fundamental to an information-enabled and better world. In formal education, information literacy can only be developed by infusion into curriculum design, pedagogies, and assessment