Fergus Cassidy

Blackboard jungle

I LOVE this time of the year. Hearing radio ads for school books or uniforms, reinforced by whopping full page ads in newspapers, never ceases to bring out a smug smile on my face.

I can still remember the freedom of the summer months disappearing before my eyes like the daylight. As the gathering darkness curtailed the epic soccer dramas every night in the local park, the full-time whistle of our parents could be heard loud and clear. The match might have been deadlocked at Manchester United 17 Liverpool 17 but extra time was not an option.

The great three-month festival of freedom was coming to end. Words like school books, alarm clocks and homework crept back into use and we were left in no doubt that the winter of discontent was near.

I imagine it might be different now. My delight at not having to face the gates of the school around the corner is probably based on my memory of it as the educational version of Alcatraz.

So what was I to make of a press release last week about the Irish launch of a school curriculum to "promote good cyber citizenship"? Well firstly shock. Who uses these phrases anymore and what do they mean? That aside, my second reaction was to pity the poor students and make me even more smug that I was, once again, not one of their number.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is the sponsor of this new venture which aims to teach "the value of copyright and creative works on the internet to secondary school pupils nationwide". The curriculum, which is to be mainly web based, will "cover ethics, the value of creative works and the positive impact of copyright and the technology industry on Ireland's economy".

Beth Scott, a BSA vice-president, also added: "with the proliferation of copyrighted works available online, today's cyber-savvy young people need guidance now more than ever, on what constitutes good online behaviour and what doesn't".

My ears immediately stood up on seeing the word copyright cropping up a lot in the press release. That's because the BSA represents the global software industry. It describes itself as "the voice of the world's software and internet industry before governments and with consumers in the international marketplace". That voice is attached to a body that is not afraid to use its muscle and has been widely criticised for its tactics.

These have included sending companies letters threatening jail sentences for directors, even though the organisation has no legal force, and offering Eur10,000 to people to inform on others who are using illegal or pirated software.

And now the BSA is turning its attention to schools and I find it difficult to unfurrow my brow when faced with the definition of "good online behaviour".

As before when it comes to the internet, the fear factor is never absent, as the remarks from the Irish BSA chairman in the Irish Examiner last June would suggest: "There are a large variety of sources where illegal software can be downloaded, but kids should know of how easy it is to be inadvertently involved in crime on the internet". Crime and internet joined at the hip.

In another comment last May, this time in the US, Diane Smiroldo of BSA added an almost Jesuitical symmetry to the mix: "It's never too early to start teaching kids about good behaviour, the right thing to do is to reach out to them while they're very young". In case there's any doubt, Bob Kruger, BSA enforcement vice-president said last week that "we're hopeful we haven't lost this generation".

Lost to what? This kind of stuff makes me cringe and want to lash on Alice Cooper's School's Out (I have the receipt so lay off). There's just something about all this that I don't understand. If students are going to be informed about piracy and software theft isn't that a job for the law? Isn't that what the garda (police) are there for?

If someone breaks into my house and does one with my software discs who am I going to report it to? Somehow, I don't think I'd get much joy from the BSA. The police and the courts uphold and enforce the law in this country. The BSA and the organisations it represents are the victims of software theft, but that doesn't make them judge and jury.

It's the potential for the lack of balance that concerns me here also. Would it be okay for a student road safety scheme to be sponsored by the car manufacturers? Or a fast-food chain supporting a keep fit and healthy living campaign aimed at students? Both might be plausible but would they be comprehensive and balanced? Should they?

Self-policing by an industry is a dangerous road to start going down. What's next: the tyre manufacturing industry going door to door to check for minimum thread depth? The record industry stopping people in the street and checking on pirated or 'burnt' CDs? Or hacking into personal computers?

When a business group sponsors something educational, it has to be hoped that a particular agenda is left outside the classroom and I'm not so sure that this latest initiative is capable of that, though I am open to be proven otherwise.

But on the issue of software and licensing the issue is most certainly not straightforward or simple. Like many of issues that have arisen since the net arrived.

There are many different types and categories of software licence. Not all software is owned by any one person, company or corporation. A lot of software is not only freely available to legally download but some of it can then be fiddled about with, changed and passed on to others. Will these non-proprietary software licence models be discussed openly and objectively in the classrooms?

Apache software, for example, is used by over 60% of the servers on the net. Yet the licence states that "redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted". The html software code used to build the web pages the students will look at is similarly licensed: "permission to copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation, with or without modification, for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted".

The software industry is confronted with the reality of new licensing models, a confrontation that sometimes breaks out into open hostility between the proprietary and the open source/free software methods.

This is likely to escalate even further in the near future as governments (local and national) move to considering open source/free software for the first time.

As I mentioned, not all licensed software is illegal to download or copy. As the representative of the world's software giants (Microsoft is believed to be the biggest contributor), it remains to be seen if the BSA sponsorship can encompass the educational depth and breath for a generation living with innovative realities very different from their predecessors.

Top marks if it does.