Things change with the adoption of technology and other new inventions. What this means for everyone is that we might have to get used to seeing some new things around, every once in a while.
First, people were boggled by TVs in color, then they were boggled by disc players, then with mobile phones, and then came the internet. In a span of a decade, we went from very slow internet to smartphones which can do in seconds what computers from the past decade struggled to do in hours. Has the world changed, so far that people have started to join the open source movement, from what was once money-driven and everyone held their sercrets and code close to the heart.
In Italy, this manifested in the form of an open source school, called La Scuola Open Source (which literally means Open Source School).
La Scuola Open Source – A Brief History Lesson
Since people have started using open source software, developers have started to take notice, or rather, the investors behind the developers. They also allowed lots of software to become open source, thus making an entire community of people start contributing, as opposed to a set of workers who can only do so much in a limited time. This principle, of sharing, contributing and allowing everyone to see your work and its intestines, is what drives the school in Bari, Italy.
Their idea is to share, work together and use collegialism and a collective mind to better everything, or specifically, art, photography, everything computer related, from hardware to software, including creating stuff by using power tools and by hand. It is all about the process of creation.
How Does the School Work?
The school works on a membership basis. You can pay an annual membership fee, for being either a Pirate or Maker, meaning a hacker or someone who deals with computers, or someone who deals with art and creativity, or creating objects with their hands and tools. The membership gets you access to their facilities in Bari, meaning everything, including the tools, as well as the site and lots of data that is accessible from there. Add to that discounts on all courses which are not free, and you have a solid membership plan. While the facilities in Bari might not be close to everyone, using the data on the site is still great, as well as discussing your idea with people who are on a similar train of thought.
There are online courses and actual courses which take place in Bari. You can sign up for any of the courses, though the minimum number of attendees must be met, in order for a course to start.
How Do You Benefit From It?
You benefit from this school because you get access to top tutors, as well as an interesting facility in an even more interesting part of town in Italy. That aside, you can also start your own projects, research or otherwise, pulling in people who will definitely be able to help you, in one way or another.
The open source movement has claimed another, or rather, it was claimed in 2015, when La Scuola was opened for business and creativity. The Open Source School in Italy is just the start of things, great things.
