Currently, knowledge and the teaching of that knowledge is in the hands of a few, from elementary to high schools to higher education. But why do we need to go through the public or private school system, and why does Harvard and Stanford and MIT control the education of our professionals and academics?
The open-source concept can be applied to higher education: imagine an online school for programmers or accountants or businesspeople, where the real professionals decide the curriculum and teach the classes and give out the certificates. If this alternative grows in acceptance (and this will take a long time to happen), there is no reason why a Harvard business degree would be better than an open-source one, which would also be much less expensive.
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I think the true value of open source is that it democratizes information and skills. The users play a huge part in the development. Everyone who is interested can get involved. Open source thus encourages people to not merely follow the bandwagon, but to think for themselves about what is good, and take action themselves. It puts power back in the hands of the average person, and in doing so, encourages them to take charge and innovate; to not just settle into a status quo set by others. I would love to see open source concepts being applied to the rest of our lives.
