Greetings gentle readers and faithful CLUE members, Forgive this somewhat emotional outburst, but I just can't help myself today. Last night (Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2002) I happened to catch an episode of Studio2 on TVO. The episode was a One on One with John Bernard, CEO of Donna Cona (www.donnacona.com). Briefly, John Bernard is probably the leading advocate for the empowerment of Canada's Aboriginal people through education, in particular, I.T. education. His efforts, in conjunction with Teknowave (www.teknowave.ca) have led to the establishment of a number of programs to educate Aboriginal youth in four specific technology tracks: Security Network Architect; Oracle Information Systems Developer; e-Business Developer; and Multimedia Web Designer. Please see http://www.teknowave.ca/programs/index.htm for descriptions of these programs.
Although this cause is extremely warranted, I'm somewhat dismayed by the obvious (see program descriptions) slant toward proprietary software solutions that these I.T. programs take although Linux is mentioned in the description of the Security Network Architect program. In the Studio2 interview, Mr. Bernard proclaims that one of his longterm goals is to ween the Aboriginal people of Canada off of the social welfare addiction that has been created through years of Federal Government subsidies and make them self sufficient, entrepreneurial and succesful members of the global economy. Well, doesn't the reliance of corporate software giants such as Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia and others sort of defeat that purpose? Perhaps I'm being a wee bit idealistic, but if Aboriginal people are learning anything about I.T. with the expectation that they will be able to empower their own people, communities, etc., don't open source initiatives fit more appropriately with that goal? If CLUE were to form an alliance with the leaders of these efforts, couldn't we demonstrate easily how the "free" aspects of Open Source Software more greatly benefit the rural and/or Aboriginal communities in Canada? Anyway, I'll stop now. Bill P.S. For those wondering, CLUE is not dead, it's merely in it's chrysalis stage of development.
