[schoolforge] Re: expanding

[David Bucknell <david@members.iteachnet.org>]

Dear Andreas,

This is an interesting point (about expanding to post-secondary.) Thanks for 
making it. I kind of thought it was taken care of at the college/university 
level, but see that I was wrong. We do have a number of 
college/university-level types working on stuff that can be used in k-13 
_and_ post secondary levels though.

I'm posting in a relevant message I received from the developers of Hot 
Potatoes quiz software who work at a university.

David Bucknell
opensourceschools.org
schoolforge member
==
On Saturday 12 January 2002 00:30, you wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> 1. We have very low salaries in our jobs. We can't afford to live without
> making extra income. Would you consider making over an equivalent amount of
> your salary to us, to cover the losses that would make our lives
> unpleasant?
>
> 2. The university, who have part-ownership of the programs, also needs
> money and is not prepared to release the programs for free.
>
> 3. The programs contain code of our own, written for other projects outside
> Hot Potatoes, which are not freely available.
>
> 4. The university and the academic community generally subscribe to certain
> standards of intellectual property which are not compatible with open
> source standards; ownership and control of one's own intellectual property
> is central to academic freedom and independence.

This is the only point I would argue with. I think that open source thinking 
is an extension of existing academic collegiality at its best; that is, where 
complementary ideas are shared in the interest of better results or a 
fuller/truer picture. 

> 5. Technical support would be a nightmare with competing versions out
> there.
>
> 6. Open-source projects have to be properly financed and coordinated, and
> there's no source of labour or income to support that.
>
> We could go on, but we hope that's enough reasons for the moment! People
> with good middle-class salaries (such as university faculty members, or
> school teachers) are often very enthusiastic about open-source, but we're
> paid too poorly in our day jobs to feel that way, unfortunately.
>
> Cheers,
> Martin and Stewart
>
> At 11:47 PM 10/01/2002 -0800, you wrote:
> >Below is the result of your feedback form.  It was submitted by
> >David Bucknell (david@iteachnet.org) on Thursday, January 10, 2002 at
> > 23:47:17
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >--
> >
> >Department: Editorial
> >
> >Interested in: Creating Web pages/Web sites
> >
> >Other details: Hello from Open Source Schools,
> >
> >I'm using and promoting Manhattan Virtual Classroom by Steven Narmontas of
> >Western New England College (USA), and he likes Hot Potatoes. I am editor
> >of Open Source Schools (http://www.opensourceschools.org) and am wondering
> >if you would be willing to talk about why you don't just release your
> >software under the GPL or an OSI approved license? Care to comment? I'd
> >love to hear your reasons.
> >
> >Best wishes,
> >
> >David Bucknell

===On Saturday 12 January 2002 06:34, sunflower wrote:
> i truely wish you would expand this to college level aswell
> i work as a network specialist at a private college and there are 2 of
> us on campus that are advocates of open source software...this is quite
> sad
> i believe if this were expanded to college level we could perhaps
> encourage students to evaluate open source solutions
> there is no down side to this
>
> andrea