Re: [seul-edu] 2nd draft of letter of invitation

[SteelHead <bill@ries-knight.net>]

On Wednesday 12 December 2001 05:31, Doug Loss wrote:
> This is the second draft of this letter, incorporating
> suggested changes from William Abernathy, Roger
> Dingledine, and Jonathan Opp.
>
> Hello.  My name is Doug Loss, and I'm writing you on
> behalf of Schoolforge, a new organization dedicated to
> putting Linux and free software systems into schools and
> other academic institutions. We at SEUL/edu have noticed
> your efforts to further the use of Linux and 

  ==> free software in general (implied as: free as in OSS)
I think free can be a very ambiguous term to use here. it 
is my humble opinion that we think of the necessity to 
clarify free as used in defining OSS rather than free 
$$$wise  as preferred by the press in general.  I expect 
all of those directly contacted will understand and 
appreciate the difference, but I am not so sure about the 
general public.  


> [this may be replaced by "free
> resources" in the letter to non-software or advocacy
> projects such as open lesson plans, etc.]. We are members
> of groups with similar goals.  Up until now our projects
> have suffered from low visibility, and this lack of
> visibility often meant that our hard work was a waste,
> repeating the efforts of others, and failing to build on
> their successes or to learn from their failures.
>
> When Red Hat made a counter-proposal
> <http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011120/202744_1.html> to
> Microsoft's offer of settling a private, class-action
> antitrust lawsuit by giving US$1 billion to US schools
> (mostly as Windows software), we were galvanized to try
> to take advantage of the sudden publicity this gave the
> use of free software in education.
>
> We have planned a coalition of groups working to increase
> the use of free software and resources in education. 
> You'll find a description of this coalition, called
> Schoolforge, below [insert David Bucknell's mission
> statement below].  We currently have numerous members,
> including Open Source Schools, SEUL/edu, and RedHat [I
> mention only these three because they probably have the
> highest name recognition at the moment].  We'd like to
> invite you to join the coalition and help us advance our
> shared goals of providing free resources to our schools. 
> To join Schoolforge, just reply to this message with the
> name of your group and the contact person.  We'll add you
> to the list.  If you'd like to take part in the
> discussions and work of forming Schoolforge, go to
> <http://www.seul.org/edu/> and join the mailing list. 
> That's where all the organizational work is taking place.
>  We hope to welcome you on board!
>
> --
> 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

SteelHead
bill ries-knight