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GNUniversity
- To: "'rholbert@colug.net'" <rholbert@colug.net>, "'dloss@suscom.net'" <dloss@suscom.net>, "'holbert.13@osu.edu'" <holbert.13@osu.edu>, "'nicku@vtc.edu.hk'" <nicku@vtc.edu.hk>, "'jacqueline@decisions-and-designs.com.au'" <jacqueline@decisions-and-designs.com.au>, "'mortis@voicenet.com'" <mortis@voicenet.com>, "'trish@thefrasers.org'" <trish@thefrasers.org>, "'computerbank@lists.linux.org.au'" <computerbank@lists.linux.org.au>
- Subject: GNUniversity
- From: "Buddrige, David" <buddriged@wa.switch.aust.com>
- Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 18:21:34 +0800
- Delivery-Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 06:27:59 -0400
- Sender: owner-computerbank@lists.linux.org.au
Hi All,
Thanks to everyone for their responses and suggestions. Sorry it has
taken me so long to draft a reply. Been flat-out busy this last couple
of weeks, but have been thinking about GNUniversity with a view to
putting some flesh around the idea.
Ideally, I'd like to set up a formal project - perhaps through
source-forge or somesuch, bt for the moment, I'll get down the basic
ideas and send it off to everyone who has responded for comment.
Principles of GNUniversity
1. All text books must be freely available and distributable in
electronic form without requirements for royalties. The ideal would be
if they were developed using LaTex - as are most of the LDP documents,
however it isn't essential. Text books to be used by GNUniversity must:
a) Be freely distributable and re-distributable in electronic form.
b) Not require properietary software in order to view or print them.
2. All Lesson Plans, Lecture Notes and Lecture Slides should be licensed
under the GNU Documentation License.
3. All software tools used in the various units - such as operating
systems, compilers, databases, should be freely available as Open Source
or free software. So for example, there might be a unit on how to
program in C++, but not how to program in Visual Basic.
Structure
The way I see it, there are two main components to the GNUniversity.
These are:
a) The text books
b) Units
The Text books would be available for use in any Unit.
The Units would use one ore more Texts and have a series of lesson
plans, Lectures and Lecture Notes developed for them.
Once a project is put together I would envisage having a directory
structure similar to this:
GNUniveresity-+
|
+-Texts-+
| |
| +-Text 1: The Linux Kernel, by David A Rusling
| |
| +-Text 2: Introduction to programming - by
Generous Writer
| |
| +-Text 3: Programming in Emacs Lisp - by Robert J.
Chassell
| |
| +-Text 4: Linux From Scratch - by Gerard Beekmans
| |
| +-Text 5: Introduction to programming - by
Generous Writer
| |
| +...
|
|
+-Units-+
|
+-Introduction to Computers-+
| |
| +-Lesson-Plans
| |
| +-Lecture Slides /
Notes
| |
| +-List of texts
required for Unit
|
|
+-Programming in C -+
| |
| +-Lesson-Plans
| |
| +-Lecture Slides / Notes
| |
| +-List of texts required for
Unit
|
|
+-Introduction to Databases-+
| |
| +-Lesson-Plans
| |
| +-Lecture Slides /
Notes
| |
| +-List of texts
required for Unit
|
|
+-Operating Systems-+
| |
| +-Lesson-Plans
| |
| +-Lecture Slides / Notes
| |
| +-List of texts required for
Unit
Organisation.
Ideally, I'd like to see all of the resources, including the text books,
lesson plans, etc, kept on a single site. This is primarily to stop
parts of it dropping off the net if someone who owns a particular unit
looses their ISP or somesuch. It also makes it easier for mirroring the
whole site.
At the same time, it is important to keep the site up-to-date with the
latest versions of various text books, so there would probably have to
be unit co-ordinators and book-coordinator whose
job it is to make sure that the latest copy of the book is stored on the
main GNUniversity server, and the Unit co-ordinators would ensure that
as units were updated (they may have homepages quite seperate to the
actual GNUniversity website - as do the books produced as part of the
LDP) with the latest versions.
There would probably need to be a version control of some kind put onto
this whole thing, but this is the basic idea. Much of the initial work
would be in gathering together a bunch of resources that could
conceivably be used to run a course - be they texts or training
materials. AT some point however it is almost certain that some course
plans would have to be written from scratch.
Anyway, that's my $0.02 to start off the conversation. I look forward
to your comments and ideas. I have attached my original email to the
end of this one, for reference.
thanks.
David Buddrige. 8-)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Buddrige, David
> Sent: Tuesday, 12 June 2001 14:25
> To: 'computerbank@lists.linux.org.au'
> Subject: Linux Library - and GNUniversity Project
>
> Hi all,
>
> This letter is outlining something I have been thinking about
> for some time now. One of the things I like about Linux -
> and one thing that attracted me to the Computer Bank Project
> in particular - is that it provides open access to knowledge
> - and through that - an opportunity to tackle poverty through
> a cheaply providable - but highly marketable skill. Unlike
> proprietary operating systems everything about GNU/Linux is
> public knowledge - right down to the source-code that makes
> it all happen. What this means is that Linux is know-able -
> limited only by the time and enthusiasm of the enquirer.
>
> To use our favourite example of all that is evil "Windows" -
> is knowable only to a certain extent. You can spend
> thousands of dollars on books about various aspects of the
> Windows family of operating systems, but there comes a point
> at which - the door is closed with a sign in large legal
> letters saying "you may not proceed past this point" (at
> least not without becoming an employee of Microsoft anyway) ;-).
>
> A particular exciting aspect of the GNU/Linux system is that
> not only is the source-code available, but there is a growing
> library of books about the workings of the operating system -
> that are as free as the operating system itself. The Linux
> Documentation project is the most obvious epitome of this
> particular state of affairs, but it is by no means the extent
> of it. Spread across the internet are a host of web-sites,
> how-to's, FAQ's and - as I alluded to breifly before - books,
> ready for downloading and itching to be read.
>
> This is of course, very useful - to a point. I think it is
> fantastic that I can download a 200 page book about the guts
> of how the Linux Kernel works and not have to pay a cent!
> However, reading 200 pages from even big 17" monitor that my
> employer so graciously provided me with - becomes difficult.
>
> Luckily, all is not lost; most of the LDP documents are
> available in postscript and, through my work, I have access
> to fairly fast printers that can output these books into the
> hardcopy format that I find so much more easy to digest.
>
> I think it would be a very good extention of the ComputerBank
> project if we could (in each of the states) obtain 1 fastish
> laser printer and a binding machine which would allow us to
> then provide a hard-copy library (on demand) to each of our
> clients - even if for a small fee (maybe $5 per 250 pages to
> cover costs?). In this way, we could maximise the technical
> information that is available for Linux in a format that is
> genuinely useful to our clients.
>
> Furthermore, a further extention of what I would at some
> point like to see, is for the CB project to offer "packaged
> take-home courses".
>
> I'll explain:
>
> Because of the limited nature of most of the hardware we (in
> WA) have obtained - mostly 486's with the occasional low-end
> pentium), we have produced our own distribution (a hacked
> version of slakware) which is small enough to fit on the 200
> megabyte hard-drives we get and still leave room for
> user-data - but which is nonetheless a responsive, gui-based
> system. We run X with the fvwm window manager which runs
> happlily on a 486 with 16mb of RAM. Gnome or KDE on the
> other hand are grindingly slow on such systems and for that
> reason - until we start (regularly) getting the machines that
> can handle that level of user-interface, we plan to stick
> with software that will run quickly and well on 486 hardware.
>
> However, as part of our trimming down process, we have
> removed some components that would probably be of some use to
> some of our more enthusiastic clients.
>
> For example, we do not have a compiler or any other software
> development tools as part of our bog-standard distribution.
> Our reasoning for this is simple. We have limited space
> available, and so we put onto the distro those items most
> likely to be immeidiately useful to our clients - most of
> whom are beginners.
>
> Having said that, I would like to offer as an extra service -
> when the clients are ready - packages - (on one or three
> floppy disks) which would add extra functioanliaty to their
> GNU system - and perhaps a book or two "How to program" or
> somesuch - to get them started
>
> Suppose for example that one of our clients was interested in
> attaining skills in programming. It would be terrific, I
> think, to be able to hand them two or three floppy disks
> which has the compilers, debuggers, and associated tools that
> were left off in the original distribution. However, what
> would be even better is if we could give them - along with
> the free-software-tools, printed books that would start them
> on their way to their chosen area of inquiry.
>
> All that we would need would be a good fast laser printer,
> and a simple binding machine - to be able to crank out any
> free (as in speech) book that is of use to any one of our clients.
>
> As we speak for example, I am printing out the post-script
> copy of "The Linux Kernel" to take home for bed-time reading.
> Because I work as a softwrae engineer in a biggish software
> house, I have access to both the printer and the binding
> facilities that make this a viable way to get a book. With
> the economy of scale offered by a sufficiently funded
> Computer Bank project, I think we should be able to provide
> this as part of our service to the community.
>
> Long term, other things that I would eventually like to be
> able to do is to put together a "GNUniversity".
>
> By this I mean, a collection of text-books, and ready to go
> lesson plans such that anyone with the technical knowledge
> and a few hours to spare could present a lesson in some
> aspect of computing. The interested clients could then be
> given a free or very cheap text book on which the lesson
> would be based, and the lesson plan's would be already made,
> complete with exercises, discussion questions, and a general
> guide to running the lesson.
>
> By this means we would be able to radically increase the
> amount of Linux knowledge available. It could also be used
> to facilitate training facilities anywhere in the world where
> someone with the knowledge was willing to go to conduct
> classes. No need for months of preperation - all class plans
> ready and waiting to go - just pick them up - perhaps have 30
> minutes to skimm through the lesson plan - and away you go.
>
> Anyway, I look forward to your thoughts, and comments.
>
> David Buddrige.
-
ComputerBank Australia -- http://www.computerbank.org.au/