Comments on: FOSS multimedia authoring doesn’t quite cut it - A view

by: Arin

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:13:54 +0000

Indra,

In the absence of knowing what exactly is involved in CBT (is it computer based training? ), it’s difficult to comment what was the reviewer asked to comment on and why is he or she correct (or not) in the observations made. Even so, in a limited context as an end user the expert may be “technically” correct. But that misses the point about FOSS and its flexibility that no proprietary software can offer. The freedom that FOSS offers its end users must be taken into account in the context of decision making in the education sector.

From the perspective of education and the way of the future directions, I think it’s important that for educators who focus on children’s education (and indeed any education for that matter), it’s important to be flexible and therefore use FOSS is the way to go. It’s happening worldwide, and I see no reason why India should be any different.

At the end of the day, it boils down to a matter of philosophy.

On a personal note, I recently started using Emacs/Org-mode (both in my home linux PC and in my office windows box), and I am rediscovering a whole new way of working. I think the power of simplicity, sharing, innovation, and community that FOSS offers is too strong and important to be dismissed on the grounds of an expert techie’s comfort zone with proprietary sofware.

Sorry for the long post.
/Arin

by: SDG

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:08:34 +0000

For video, I think it may make sense to check Openshot (http://www.openshotvideo.com/)

For Flash replacement - especially in an educational context, it would make much more sense to use Etoys (you can see some examples at http://www.squeakland.org/showcase/featured/)
You may also want to check out the Karma framework (http://lwn.net/Articles/373991/)

by: Weekend Aantel

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:51:43 +0000

@vivek you are right on the money about him looking for exact drop-in replacement of prop. s/w. of course he hasn’t looked for an alternative solution the FOSS way.

However, the proposed CBT program targets approximately some 1 million plus high schoolers in WB. It would also be developed with tax payers’ money. And unless this FUD is challenged, there is risk that this development would end up happening using closed tools. So, my point is, instead of rhetorics, can we come up with alternate workflow for CBT development using FOSS tools, along with actual, existing examples of working prototypes that are demo-able?

by: Vivek Khurana

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:50:51 +0000

Though I ill agree with few points in the report. But this report by any standard is geared to show FOSS in bad light. The expert has not bothered to look around at alternate options and has tried to find exact replacement of closed tools, which is not possible.
Did the expert tried to evaluate OGG codec instead of MP3 ? Did he looked at open shot instead of kino ? Did he look into SVG + HTML5 + JS as a replacement of Flash ? I guess not, else the report would have been quite different.
In short, this is a half cooked report and bad quality work.