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FW: [school-discuss] Updated Coalition Procedures - Members sign up here
Justin,
In your latest email, you still have not addressed my
earlier concerns mentioned on December 15th, specifically the
following:
1) Who decides to close a current members standing in the
Schoolforge Coalition?
2) Why are previous active members of Schoolforge now
having to "re-apply" for membership?
3) What are the procedures to close / revoke an
organizations membership? How is the organization notified? Is there
a possibility of appeal?
Thank you for your time,
Michael Viron
President & CEO
General Education Online, A Schoolforge Founding
Member
International Education Resources, A General Education
Online organization
Michael, these are good questions.
"I must again mention something regarding
the narrow definition of "FLOSS" on the website which seems to indicate
that "free / open resources" are not welcome as members of schoolforge.
This is in direct contradiction to the founding principles which allowed for
those projects that provide web-based open resources which may or may not
include providing a copy of the underlying "software" that powers the
site."
Actually, there are no contradictions to the founding principles
in this definition. Over the years since the founding principles were laid
out, the 'web services' landscape has made enough ground that we can start to
see what utilities share our view of free and open, and can be used to create
even better resources in the future. A site such as Wikipedia, for example,
serves as an example of a 'web service' that is free and open - and facilitates
the principles of unity and resource building through collaboration that
SchoolForge was founded on.
Free (cost wise) resources are a great
thing, but using that along with SchoolForge principles seems flawed. An
example could be that Mac offered to provide their operating system free to the
OLPC project for free, which was turned down on the basis that it's not open
source. I think Microsoft has offered their OS for free to schools that
were going with open source alternatives. In both of these cases, it's the
licensing of the open source tools that has prompted a response of lower
costs/free resources.
As for SchoolForge Coalition membership, for now
your entries are rejected. I think what you provide are wonderful
resources, and I invite you to resubmit your request when your resources can be
accessed without any question as to whether they meet the definition of "FLOSS"
as provided on the website. I'm willing to work with you towards reaching
that, but if that isn't the direction you want to go - please make this point
clear.
Thanks,
Justin