❖ Browsing media by libreplanet
How to teach students about free software
William Liggett
As most free software advocates know, it can be very difficult to explain the central concepts to people who have never heard of these ideas before. If you introduce too many things at once, people tend to tune you out from being overwhelmed, and then they don't really appreciate the benefits of free software.
This presentation will explain effective strategies to teach the next generation what free software is, how it differs from proprietary software, and how licenses like the GPL and BSD 3-Clause have similar goals yet different legal implementations. William has been teaching (and grading) his college students on these concepts, and he will show you how to do the same for your students or your friends. Foundational legal concepts like copyright, patents, and trademarks will be clarified, as well as how to break down the main software license categories: copyleft (strong/weak), permissive, and proprietary.