[school-discuss] Re: New Foundry Request / Educational Computing

[Matt Jezorek <matt@bluelinux.org>]

I think that an educational foundry should be seperate from any other 
foundry. Here is why:

1. There are many non-profit organizations that will be writing code that 
are not based for educational usage that will be in this foundry.

2. There are enough non-profit orgs to justify a foundry of its own too.

3. Educational/Non-Profit foundation will make the waters muddy when it 
comes to teachers/administrators viewing open source application 
information or doing research on the sourceforge site. (Sourceforge will 
play a big role in research and informatino with an educational foundry) 

4. Most educators and administrators are not going to be adept enough in 
technology and the jargon that a lot of projects contain to judge if it is 
an "Educational" or "Non-Profit" this will cause confusion and possibly 
more sceptics and non-belivers that open source can help school systems.

5. There are several educational projects that are going on that are not a 
non-profit and therefore will muddy the waters for those that are doing 
for-profit endeavors. This would not be fair to them.

6. I think a foundry will allow others to recognize that sourceforge does  
recognize educational projects as a valid project and that a spring of new 
projects may come into view. This can only help the both of us. I also 
think that it will be easier for educational projects to attract seasoned 
open source developers as well.

7. I just think it will plain enhance the Open Source movement into the 
educational institutions.


These are a few of the reasons and I could probably write a 15 page email 
on others. I have cc'ed this email to the Schoolforge list 
(http://www.schoolforge.net/) and it is possible that members from there 
will have more ideas and input on these. If so I can get back to you with 
more pro's and con's.

On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, John Mark Walker wrote:

> This is one of those things where our conversion of the foundry system 
> to a new codebase has taken longer than anticipated. Unfortunately, we 
> are unable to introduce any new foundries until the conversion is 
> completed.
> 
> There are 4 specific new foundries I want to introduce - 
> education/nonprofit, scientific computing, XML, and text processing, 
> all of which I've been waiting some time to do, and all of which will 
> have to wait for at least another 2-3 weeks before we begin in earnest.
> 
> An educational foundry is of particular importance to me, because I 
> recognize that putting Open Source in education is something that can 
> keep the Linux/Open Source bandwagon rolling for many years. 
> Additionally, I have personally started a LUG in the past and was 
> appalled at the type of software commonly found in educational 
> institutions. I think it was the class that required that all 
> assignments be compiled with VC++ that really miffed me.
> 
> In any case, there will be a foundry with an educational component. I 
> have debated whether there should be separate educational and nonprofit 
> foundries, or whether these areas would be better served in one 
> combined foundry since both groups seem to have similar goals.
> 
> I'm going to listen to what you guys say. If you want a separate 
> foundry, then it will be so.
> 
> Thanks, and I apologize for taking so long to get this off the ground.
> 
> -John Mark Walker
> Foundry Manager, SourceForge.net
> 
-- 
Matt Jezorek 
Executive Director / Founder 
Blue Linux Group, Inc 
http://www.bluelinux.org 
matt@bluelinux.org 

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