RE: [school-discuss] Re: Educational/ Open Source Foundries (fwd)

[Matt Jezorek <matt@bluelinux.org>]

> I know there are plenty of good reasons to keep the educational and
> nonprofit foundries separate, but at the core of my thinking is the idea
> that there may not be a critical mass of projects, moderators, and
> participants to sustain separate foundries and make them vibrant,
> compelling online communities... And that might be a reason to start out
> together rather than separate.
> 

I think it all comes down to confusion, and marketing because getting open 
source into schools is A LOT of marketing work. 

I am concerned that by mixing the two which seem to get along just fine 
will confuse and bewilder some. For example there are a lot of open source
educational resources that are run by non-profits so they would fit fine 
into a Educational/Non-Profit Foundry, but what about Schoolmation and 
others who are out to make a dollar they fit into the Educational Foundry 
but what about non-profit? so now people looking for non-profits find 
schoolmation, get confused because hey thats not non-profit. Or for 
example a non-profit org building software that is not for educational use 
they fit into the Non-Profit Foundry but the Educational? 

I think while it might be harder to manage to get them both running, it 
makes more sense to keep these seperate. Otherwise you go against the idea 
of a foundry in my eyes and just turn it into a directory. My thinking is 
a foundry should be specialized. A Non-Profit foundry should be 
specialized from a business aspect anyone in that foundry should be a 
non-profit, while an educational foundry should be specialized as far as 
education, having no concern to the business side.

Just my two cents
 
-- 
Matt Jezorek
Executive Director / Founder
Linux for Education
Blue Linux
http://www.linuxforeducation.com/
http://www.bluelinux.org
matt@bluelinux.org