Re: Seating (was: Re: Gradebook development)

[Micah Yoder <LYoder@cyberis.net>]

Douglas Loss wrote:

> The reason I was mentioning XML is that the gradebook/admin programs seem
> likely to be using it.  I figured that the student's progress in the
> courseware might be something used by those programs, so having it in XML
> form already would save a translation.  I may be wrong that that progress is
> something that is usually kept track of in this sort of admin software; I
> don't really know.  If it isn't, then the info could be in any form that's
> convenient.

If the gradebook and other admin stuff will really use edulp's data,
then the idea should probably be extended significantly.  Should edulp
also store scores/grades for each level?  Up to now, I assumed the
individual programs would worry about retaining that if they needed it
(and that's what created the file permissions questions).  Perhaps we
should just create a libedu that will have many routines used by
educational stuff - talking to the launchpad and gradebook program, for
example.

> Personally, I still prefer GNOME, but I understand what you're saying.  The
> reason I was pushing GNOME is that Scholar Net is committed to it (is that

Yes, they are committed to GNOME.  But is everyone?  Is it OK to lock
everyone into it?  Perhaps so, I don't know.  I think we *could* write
it without GNOME and perhaps have it start when the window manager
starts.  It would still be well integrated into the system.  And even if
it was written without GNOME, there could still be a panel widget that
knows about it, to make it interface with GNOME.

> still the case, Arturo?).  It seemed like we'd need a GNOME system just
> because of that, in addition to anything else we do.  So I figured, why not
> just go GNOME?  And there's still a question about whether you can actually

Reasonable points.  *IF* there is a real advantage to making this GNOME
only, then we should probably do it.  But has anyone pinned down the
advantages?

> have GPLed KDE software (I think it was pretty clear before that you couldn't
>  legitimately, but I don't know now).  Roger, isn't one of SEUL's precepts
> that anything developed under its auspices will be under the GPL?

Yes, I believe we stated that once.  As for legality, I'm under the
impression that it's OK (but I could be wrong).  I think the GPL allows
to linking to things like Motif, XForms, and Win32.  So why would Qt be
any different?

And for that matter, what about the LGPL??????  If everything used by a
GPL program has to be GPL, the LGPL would be out!