Re: [school-discuss] ZIS Server Dreams

[Michael Williams <mwilliams@haywood.k12.nc.us>]

Doug Loss wrote:
> 
> Michael Williams wrote:
> 
> > Doug Loss wrote:
> > >
> > >  How about FreeSIF
> > > <http://freesif.org> then?  That domain doesn't seem to be taken.  If we want to go
> > > ahead with this, we can reserve the domain and find hosting space and services for it.
> >
> > Okay, I signed up to get more info and stated I was interested in piloting.
> 
> Signed up with Edustructure?

To send me more info about what they offer and pilot info.

> 
> > I am currently piloting distance learning courses from Apex Learning, We use
> > Follett software district wide and we're in negotiations with Compass Learning for a
> > pilot, all of which are members of SIF. (Why all the pilots? Everybody wants to say that
> > they play with the new buzz word "Linux") :-)
> 
> Ah, but what do they mean by that?

Varies from company to company. Some are just curious, others are serious, some
think it's
a fad.

> 
> > I am uncomfortable with the "free" word, I think it causes more confusion than
> > it's worth. I also don't think open source and commercial should be mutually
> > exclusive.
> 
> Who ever said they should?  While I don't have any problem with "Free," either as a word or
> a concept, I'm not fanatic about its use.  We could call it LibreSIF, or OSSIF (Open Source
> SIF), or whatever else anyone likes.  But I feel strongly that we need to have a
> non-commercial version of the SIF agent and ZIS if we're to play in at least the US market.
> Since the whole idea is interoperability, I don't see any reason why such a ZIS would
> exclude commercial applications' agents (unless those agents made use of some unpublished
> proprietary extensions to lock users into their vendors' versions of ZIS; but that could
> never happen, could it?).

I was talking in generalities, I mistook the open-source,commercial, mis-use
statement you
made earlier.  Sorry.

If used as the primary reason to use open-source free as in $ can be dangerous.
I have had
people with the resources offer to buy the proprietary stuff for the school. If
all you are
selling is "free" then it kind of takes the wind out of your sails and you have
to really
tap dance to get the TCO stuff out there. 
 
> 
> I'm intrigued by Chris Puttick's messages.  We should continue work on this I think, but if
> what they're developing will be able to act as a ZIS server with some fairly minor
> modification it could be a nice quick way to leap ahead.

I'm not familiar with what Chris is working on.

Michael
> 
> --
> 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

-- 
Michael Williams                   Instructional Technology
Haywood County Schools          216 Charles St. Clyde, NC 28721
http://www.k12linux.org                 (828) 627-8314