[school-core] Re: OLinux Questions

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

I'm CCing this to the schoolforge-core mailing list so that all the
Schoolforge members know what's being said.  If you have any more
explanations that would be useful (schoolforge-core members), please
send them along to Marcos also.

> 1- Who did come up with the Schoolforge idea? Are there a board of
directors?

The idea for Schoolforge was one of those ideas that seemed to be
floating in the air, just waiting to happen.  Back in November,
Microsoft proposed settling some major lawsuits against it by giving

US$1 billion worth of computer hardware and software to the poorest
schools in the US.  RedHat counter-proposed that Microsoft just
donate
US1 billion worth of computer hardware, and RedHat would give its
software free to any school that wanted it.  A number of groups that

have been working to further the use of Linux in schools realized
that
the publicity that RedHat's proposal got in the news media might be
usable to promote Linux in the schools, but none of those groups
were
big enough to do it by themselves.  We all started talking to one
another, saying, "We should work together on this.  We can make a
big
splash if we try!"

Schoolforge is a coalition of groups.  It's run by members of those
groups, one member from each group.  If there's a controversial
question, the members vote on it; but so far we haven't had any
question
come up that we didn't all agree on after a bit of discussion.

> 2- How do you see the Open Source/Free Software inside the
schools?
> Besides economy, what are the main benefits?

Well, economy is a _big_ benefit.  Besides that, we think that the
whole
Open Source/Free software ideal of being able to freely examine,
study,
and modify the tools you use fits very well with academic freedom
and
the concept of academic peer review.  We hope that educators will
see
that they can change these tools to fit their needs better, and then

pass their changes on to others, giving everyone the benefit of
them.
In addition, free software doesn't need regular forced upgrades to
maintain a profit for its manufacturers, so schools can change their

software when they think it's to their benefit to do so rather than
when
someone orders them to.  Finally, since there are in general
numerous
free/open source programs to do a given task, students have a better

chance to learn the concepts behind their actions rather than just
how
to perform those actions with one specific tool.

> 3- How are the members going colaborate with each other?

Initially, through talking to each other on various mailing lists.
We
hope and expect that we'll all find out what each other is doing and

agree to pool our resources with other groups who share our goals.
There are some things that many groups can do simultaneously, in
parallel, like advocacy, while there are other things that are
probably
best done once but with everyone's input, like maintaining a
comprehensive list of educational applications.

> 4- Does the project plan to develop an unified Open
> Source/Free Software package for schools?

Some of our member groups are already developing specialized Linux
distributions for educational use. Others are working on packages to

address specific educational needs.  There's also some talk about
packaging large numbers of educational apps as RPMs and DEBs and
combining them with an installer in an ISO CD-ROM image file.
That's
something for the future, though.

> 5- What are the main dificulties for a massive adoption
> of Open Source/Free Software in the schools? How does
> the project plan to spread the benefits of Open
> Source/Free Software among the scholls?

One of the biggest difficulties in the US and Canada is convincing
the
local school authorities to give it a try.  In these countries such
decisions are made in the local school "district," which usually
covers
just one town (sometimes even only a part of the town).  In other
countries where such decisions are made more centrally, politics
often
becomes a consideration in convincing the administrators to consider

Open Source/Free software.  We plan to develop documents that can be

used to introduce school administrators to the concept of Open
Source/Free software and to show them how it would benefit their
schools.  We also plan to develop materials that LUGs can use to do
the
same thing in their own areas.

> 6- Do you think bringing the Open Source/Free Software
> to schools can acelerate the adoption of these
> technologies in  the domestic field?

It can't hurt.  It would at least stop the argument sometimes made
by businesses as an objection to using anything other than Microsoft
software, that that's what everyone knows how to use and training
them on other programs would cost too much.

> 7- In your opinion, private organizations could be
> interested in sponsor (machines, workforce, financial
> help, etc.) this initiative? Are you looking for
> sponsors?

Many if not most of the Schoolforge member groups are "virtual"
organizations, that exist only over the internet, without any
official legal standing.  Because of that, they can't accept
donations as a group but only as individual people, which many
organizations interested in donating to them may find troublesome.
However, there are definitely some groups in Schoolforge that have
gone to the trouble and expense to incorporate themselves.  These
groups can legitimately receive donations.  They have kindly agreed
to accept donations made on behalf of Schoolforge and to use those
donations in whatever ways the Schoolforge coalition decides.

We always welcome support, as long as it is in accordance with our
stated goals.  Any private organizations that are interested in
sponsoring some activity or donating some resources are invited to
send an email message to info@schoolforge.net.  Although I haven't
talked about it in detail with many of the other group
representatives in Schoolforge, I think we would welcome sponsorship
of our attendance at educational conferences in various parts of the
world.  We know the Linux community understands the points we make,
but we feel the need to reach out to the educational community and
to "educate" them on the benefits of Open Source/Free software.
Unfortunately, the cost of travel, lodging, and conference entrance
fees make it difficult for us to attend very many of these.  This is
one area where sponsorship could be very helpful.

> 8- How can the Open Source/Free Software communities
> colaborate with the Schoolforge?

As I see it, there are two sub-communities within the greater
community that could help us the most: software developers and
LUGs.  There are numerous educational software projects that are the
work on only one or a few developers.  Many of them languish for
long periods or die altogether because other priorities take
precedence in the developers' lives.  It would be nice if developers
looking for a new challenge to take on would take a look at the
educational software projects available and consider helping out on
one or another.  They could go to the SEUL/edu Educational
Applications Index <http://richtech.ca/seul/>, select an interesting
category, look at the entries, and find the ones that appeal to them
the most, then contact the project leaders and ask to help.  If they
find that an interesting type of educational software isn't listed,
they could contact info@schoolforge.net and ask about starting a new
project to develop it.  We have member groups that will provide
hosting services for such new projects.

The people of the various Schoolforge member groups can't possibly
be everywhere there may be interest in Linux in the schools.
However, LUGs are much more widely distributed than we are.  As I
mentioned above, we plan to develop material for LUGs to use to
introduce their local school officials to the idea and benefits of
Open Source/Free software.  We think all LUGs should make contacting
and working with their local schools a priority.  After all, that's
probably where the majority of their new members will come from!

> 9- Here in Brazil, the government is choosing bettween
> Linux and Windows to install in 300 thousand PCs for
> the public primary and secondary schools. One argument
> used by the government to pick Windows is that Linux
> doesn't have educational softwares available. In our
> opinion a project like Schoolforge could change this
> point of view?

We hope we can help you on this.  Some of our groups have Brazilian
members, who are keeping us informed about the situation there.  The
argument about available educational software can be met in a couple
of ways.  The SEUL/edu software index mentioned above has a listing
of nearly 400 educational software packages; that might address the
complaint about the lack of software somewhat.  Linux 4 Education
has an Application Matrix
<http://www.linux4education.org:8080/learn/applications/applications_index_html>
that various types of applications that are used in education and
compares Windows programs to Linux programs that perform similar
functions.  This could help to point out alternatives to specific
programs.

If there's anything else we can do to help persuade Brazil to
consider Linux in addition to or in place of Windows in the schools,
please let us know.  Oh, it might be useful to let the Brazilian
Ministry of Education know that Greece has installed Linux labs in
each high school in the country.

> 10- Send a message for the people who wants to help
> Schoolforge.

Visit the Schoolforge website <http://schoolforge.net>, look at the
various member projects of Schoolforge and what they're doing, pick
the one that interests you the most, and join!  We can always use
the help.  If you're not a programmer, don't worry.  We can always
use writers, translators, and advocates, too!

--
Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant