Re: [seul-edu] [Fwd: Re: [OS:N:] Summing up our discussion so far]

[Doug Loss <drloss@home.com>]

"Drew M. Meeks" wrote:

> Doug Loss wrote:
> >
> > I'm unclear on what you mean here.  We all thank you and RedHat for your
> > support, of course.  Are you saying that RedHat is planning to consolidate a
> > lot of Linux in education stuff on the OSN website?  If so that's the first
> > I've heard that.
>
> Doug, Consolidate might be the wrong word. A primary goal of the OSN web
> site is to facilitate involvement and participation in this effort by
> providing clear and easy access to comprehensive information and
> resources about the groups, projects, schools, and individuals who are
> making this effort happen. This is not a "Red Hat" project, per se, it
> is a community project in the best sense of the word. As you have
> pointed out, there is no comprehensive resource on the web covering the
> activity in this movement. We, too, are hoping to change this.
>

OK, so we're all looking toward the same thing.  As I see it we have two options.
In the best tradition of the internet community, we can divide up onto sides and
subject each other to searing ad hominem attacks (if you'd like to see our warm up
practice for that, take a look at http://www.itsallpetesfault.org/; we're pretty
organized about this sort of thing :-) ), or we can pool our efforts further and
work together even more.  I'm for the second choice; it's too much work to keep a
good righteous rage up for a long time.  Do you see OSN being this site, or would
you be amenable to some other site being the focus point?

>
> > I understand the necessities of commercial competition, but is RedHat
> > interested in sharing support of this coalition with other distributions?
>
> As far as I am know, Red Hat is not involved in promoting Linux and open
> source in schools for any other reason than to help bring educational
> opportunity to our children.
> This is not about market share or profits, it is about the fundamental
> fairness and equality of opportunity that open source can bring to our
> schools. Thus, I see no reason why other distributions should not be
> invited to contribute. Well done!
>

Great!  We haven't actually _heard_ from any of them yet, but it's nice to know
we're in the "big tent."

>
> I'm curious. What what would *you* like see from Red Hat in terms of
> support? Is it hardware and bandwith as BMan suggested? Infrastructure
> and tools? Web design and development? Content? Software? Something
> else?

Hardware and bandwidth wouldn't hurt, although at SEUL we're not hampered by the
scarcity of either.  Infrastructure and tools are arguments waiting to happen (see
above about the grand internet tradition).  Web design, content, software are also
questions for discussion.  I think from my point of view RedHat can best help us
with information and publicity.  Information in that you have a higher profile in
the world than we do and may hear about opportunities or shortcomings that will
affect our efforts before we will.  If so, we'd like to know.  We'd also like to
know about what things we're doing that are helping get Linux into the schools, and
what things aren't.

That glides into publicity.  You definitely can get the attention of the world
better than we can.  It would be nice to have a "press office" that could get the
successes of Linux in education around the world noticed by the general public.

Some long-term goals of SEUL/edu (and of many other groups, I think) are to develop
material to help LUGs set up school support teams and to develop an installable CD
of educational software that could be easily added to a standard installation, be it
of RedHat, SuSE, Debian, whatever.  This would entail RPMs, DEBs, and the
appropriate installation scripts for them.  Once we get to that point, help in
developing those would be very handy.  Even more useful would be an agreement to
ship such a CD with your distro, either as part of the regular package or as a
specialized educational package.

I hope others will chime in here too.  The above is just my viewpoint and not words
graven on stone tablets.

--
Doug Loss                 Always do right.  This
Data Network Coordinator  will gratify some people
Bloomsburg University     and astonish the rest.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Mark Twain