[school-core] Affero's concept

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

Just so we can continue the discussion on this, I'd like to say
something about where financial support would be very useful.

About a year or so ago we realized at SEUL/edu that we were talking
to people who already understood and agreed with our positions, but
we weren't reaching people outside that group who we needed to
convince.  What we (and all of us here, actually) need to do is to
present the case for free and open resources in education to the
_educational_ community, not to each other.  To do that, we need to
attend educational conferences as exhibitors.

Unfortunately, that's not nearly as easy to do as it is to attend
Linux conferences.  The educational community expects to be marketed
to, but not to be approached by grass-roots organizations.  For that
reason, exhibitor space at its conferences is ofter prohibitively
expensive, precluding participation by any except corporations.
That's a self-fulfilling prophecy situation, but there it is.  Any
funds we could generate should (I think) go toward having a presence
at various technology in education conferences around the world.
That would include exhibitor fees, lodging and travel expenses for
participants, etc.  These things would require not insubstantial
amounts of money, but would have the greatest potential for
broadening the reach of our message.

Outside of finding some well-to-do and generous sponsors, I think
the Affero donation method may be the best way we have of generating
the funds for such things as this.

--
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