Re: [Fwd: Re: [seul-edu] Re: ISO]

[Matt Drew <mdrew@redhat.com>]

Manuel Gutierrez Algaba wrote:
> El Lun 29 Abr 2002 12:41, escribió:
> 
>>Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
>>
>>>At 08:31 AM 4/28/2002, Matt wrote:
>>>
>>>>I am speaking for Red Hat here.  I'm the tech coordinator for an
>>>>education pilot program here in North Carolina.  I was just hired last
>>>>week to fill this role.  I'm a newbie to education, but most
>>>
>>No, I ended up in marketing (wheee!) under Emily Ball.  It isn't
>>education in the sense of Red Hat training classes (although there is
>>some of that) it is education in the sense of K-12 and pre-K schools.
>>Our pilot program is getting some Linux initiatives off the ground here
>>in North Carolina, and we're hoping to expand past that -- we've already
>>been talking with the folks in Oregon about their licensing situation.
>>Essentially, I'm here to learn the tech side of getting Linux into
>>schools and to help with that.
> 
> 
> As a application developer  http://croswords.50g.com and http://vsep.seul.org 
> I can point out some of the biggest problems I can see (in my side):
> 
> 1. Packaging of .rpm's :
> 1.1 Many developers only produce  tar.gz files, and then don't spend time in 
> packaging.

That's what distributors are *for*. :)

> 1.2 Some apps have difficult into get categorized in dirs, sometimes they 
> simply are not runnable, yes, for example, "CrosswordsForLinux" is just
> a html-javascript page.

just straight files can be installed with rpm -- we do it with the 
default Apache page, redhat-logos, etc.  No problem.


> 
> 2 EDUML:
> 2.1 Due to the lack of power/time is still pending a way of exchange info 
> between educational apps. XML may be an add-on on many applications,
> but it's simply essential in educational apps, or at least to create more 
> apps and get more of the existing apps. In this field, data are more 
> important than code, after all, it's the education the end, the means are 
> secondary (javascript, gnomish or kde-ish ). 

I can't speak to this.  However, if the data format was at least 
available, it would help a great deal -- XML or not.  I don't know what 
the status is for many educational apps, but I suspect that it is the 
same as most commercial software, i.e. closed.  Someone who knows more 
speak up;  anyone worked with any educational software before trying to 
modify/expand it?

> 3 Feedback
> The natural reaction of people using free software is to forget that authors 
> would like feedback, me included, I use kmail, for example, and I haven't 
> thanked to them. 
> While this feedback may be nonsense in most fields, in EDU is essential , 
> because again, it's the data what matters, more feedback, supplying data,
> more apps, a kind of cyclic reaction. 
>

Honestly, thinking about this, I think we (the Linux community) have a 
distinct advantage here.  In education, we have a distinct body of 
educated professional users (teachers) who have a deep vested interest 
in good, useful software.  When they find out that their ideas and 
feedback are useful and actually make things happen, getting feedback 
should be much easier than normal.  My theory, any way.

> 4 I'm pessimistic:
> Developers will continue producing propietary data and not spending enough 
> time in their rpm's. And users will continue being users. 

> 5 I'm optimistic:
> Random and stubborness, the only two proven forces of nature, have produced 
> excellences such as emacs, have driven the man to Moon, and have created Java.
> Sooner or later, by chance and stubborness interesting edu apps, forged with 
> the sweat of dedicated and crazy developers will "fill the gap". 
> 
> 6 Don't pay too attention to these points, except to this point. 
> 
> ---
> MGA
> 


-- 
Matt Drew
Red Hat, Inc
Education Pilot Tech Coordinator
(919)754-3700 x44194
(919)880-7736 cell
mdrew@redhat.com