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

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

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
[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