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

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

Nice going, Matt. Good points. Thanks to John for working on this.

David
for http://opensourceschools.org

Quoting 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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