About FLOSS
Free, Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS) is any software distributed under a licence that allows users to use, modify, share and redistribute it in modified or unmodified format. There is a diversity of licensing schemes. ‘Source’ refers to the code necessary to make a computer carry out tasks and operations. The source code is always compiled to a machine readable format. Open source refers to a source code which is available to users, as opposed to proprietary (i.e. closed source) software whose source code is not disclosed.

By the FLOSS approach, the authors, the Futurelab, refer to the ‘open’ structure of the open source software community where developers share, exchange ideas and code to develop the most accurate and bug-free piece of software.

Open source philosophy and education
The open source philosophy enables the creation of collaborative networks of people working together to solve problems, the authors of the study write. The potential for educators and those working in the education sector is obvious: developing collaborative approaches to learning and seeing how learners might work together.

Three aspects from FLOSS are of particular interest to educators and policy makers: the new approaches to teaching and learning by considering young people as knowledge builders and creators (on the same model as open source developers programming in a community), supporting teachers with a community of practice (FLOSS is characterised by a strong community of developers discussing and providing others with feedback and best practice code), and new models of innovation and software development in education.

The paper also lists the strengths and weaknesses of FLOSS approaches to see how they may apply within education settings:

• Transparency: the transparency of open source software and its accessibility is relative as one needs to have strong computing skills to start developing.

Faced with a very large community of actors the education world needs guidance to identify what direction to take, the methods and the level of skill needed to use FLOSS at its full potential.

Open source software package for schools
Xplora, European Schoolnet’s science portal, offers schools a package of software to make science accessible to schools. A DVD contains software applications that are focused on science teaching and also additional educational material as well as ideas of their use. The DVD and its software can be used on any PC, excluding Apple. As it also includes a Knoppix distribution, once the DVD is inserted it actually runs on its own operating system, thus teachers no longer need to think of any pre-installation of the material. The DVD can be copied freely for any use and further distributed as it is is based on FLOSS.
Link on Xplora and the new DVD:
http://www.xplora.org/ww/en/pub/xplora/library/software/xplora___dvd_knoppix__make_sci.htm

Special Insight Reports on FLOSS
A review of European Educational Authorities actions on open source and open content looks into policy initiatives that a number of European educational authorities have taken in the area of open source and open content.

http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/specialreports/open_content_source.htm

‘Why Europe Needs Free and Open Source Software in Schools’ is a report that suggests four areas where European school communities can make a use of open source, and gives respective examples on them. The four areas are: use of free software for educational purposes; use of GNU/Linux on desktops and servers; common development of Virtual Learning Environment and Content Management Systems, and finally the co-development of open educational content.

http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/specialreports/osseurope.htm

History of FLOSS
To explain the FLOSS movement the discussion paper provides an historical account of the development of open source software and of the internet. The FLOSS movement stems from the early days of computing when software was not considered as a valuable commodity and computers had the size of a room. At that time it was considered natural that source code be a public good. With the advent of the personal computer and the internet, it became obvious for companies pursuing commercial gains, that software could be a valuable commodity. Two different worlds emerged, one governed by the secrecy of proprietary software and the free software community willing to maintain the idea that source code should be free.

Read full report:
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/download/pdfs/research/opening_education/FLOSS_report.pdf