Anais do II Workshop sobre Software Livre – WSL2001 43 FREE SOFTWARE IN SUPERIOR EDUCATION: TALKING ABOUT FREEDOM TO FUTURE PROFESSIONALS Willians Jorge Rodrigues (willians@igbt.sel.eesc.sc.usp.br) Francisco José Monaco Adilson Gonzaga Manoel Luis de Aguiar Departamento de Engenharia Elétrica – EESC – Universidade de São Paulo Av. Trabalhador Sãocarlense, 400 – Centro 13566-590 São Carlos – SP RESUMO Este artigo reporta a experiência de uma iniciativa de disseminação de Software Livre em uma escola de tecnologia, destacando investigações sobre as preocupações de estudantes com relação à sua futura atuação profissional nesse campo. ABSTRACT This paper reports the experience of an initiative to disseminate Free Software in a school of technology and high- lighting investigations on the students’ concerns regarding their future actuation in this field. 1 FREE SOFTWARE IN A SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY The GNUsp Project [1], leaded by an open group of students and researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP), is a volunteer initiative whose aim is to promote the Free Software (FS) movement within the University. This goal is currently seen after through the following main action lines: • to promote the adoption of free software in both education and research activities at the University, by disseminating knowledge on its benefits and offering effective (both on-line and in loco) support to users over the campus; • to encourage both students and researchers to adhere to the FS principles when working on software development within the University, either in academic or scientific projects, by maintaining an infrastructure of communication and mutual cooperation; • to improve software developers’ background on FS utilization and development, by offering a knowledge base and training tutorials at levels that range from basic software utilization to advance programming techniques. From the three-year experience at USP campus in São Carlos, we have learned that providing our community with a suitable support base has been an essential stimulus to novice users. Likewise, in the development field, the interaction be- tween experts and beginners (by means of the GNUsp facilities such as the mailing lists, Web database, software repository mirror, periodic meetings, advisory board etc.) has been highly effective in raising the overall programmers skills. Among other actuation areas, FS believers involved in the GNUsp Project are committed to an orientation program devoted to introduce new users to the elementary FS paradigms, as well as giving them advice on the directions of the free software movement (FSM). In these times of Linux glory, with the open source software under the media’s spotlight (specially the lay media), having a clear view of the ongoing revolution is very important – that’s why GNUsp, rather than a LUG 1 , is formally a GNU User Group (GUG?), since we base our work on the GNU software collection [2]. Nonetheless, while we have reasons to commemorate our success in enlarging the number of GNU users in our community, we have come across several difficulties along the way. Among them, we highlight those arisen from the fact that our activities are carried out within a school of engineering, where people are preparing to become well-succeeded profession- als. We have noticed that, in spite of the enthusiasm that the philosophy of freedom and cooperation raises in the students’ youth spirit, these are subtly challenged by grave concerns which claim for attention when it’s time to consider the future, the “real-life”. The quotes are meaningful: they reflect the way many students do think about the problem when the time is near and they must decide what they will do next: “out there is the market, is the jungle; there is no time for dreams of freedom anymore” – with this belief in mind, many assume that the party is over and that it is time to work seriously. Sadly, we have discovered that working seriously, in this case, means forgetting the student-like hopeful soul, dress- 1 LUG: widespread acronym for “Linux User Group”.