Re: [seul-edu] Third draft of letter of invitation

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

milo wrote:

> >
> >
> > The goals of Schoolforge
> >
> > Members of the Schoolforge Coalition have the common goal of
> > advocating the use of free and open source tools and curricula in
> > education and assisting in their successful use and maintenance.
>
> I think I had assumed that because the name had forge in it that
> schoolforge would become a foundry for software development in the
> educational arena. (as in sourceforge) Looks like I was wrong and that
> the more I read the more it seems to be another advocacy site for linux
> or os in education.  Please correct me if I am wrong.
>

You're not exactly wrong, but I think you've misread the intent of
Schoolforge.  We did talk initially about a software development hosting
site for educational software, but it quickly became apparent that there's
no pressing need for such a thing.  There is already Sourceforge, Savannah,
Berlios, SEUL, and probably numerous other sites offering those services.
If it seems like a good use of resources in the future, Schoolforge could be
extended to become such a site.  At the moment, there are more pressing
things that need doing.

Schoolforge is intended to do advocacy for the use of free resources in
education, yes.  But far from being just another advocacy site, it will be a
unified entry point into the world of free educational resources.  One of
the biggest problems for educators interested in investigating free software
for their schools is finding the proper sites and information.  Schoolforge
will be their method of doing so.  Additionally, Schoolforge will provide a
place where members of the various groups working on advancing free
resources in education can talk to each other, with any luck gaining
valuable insights into the work they're doing and possibly collaborating on
tasks that individual groups wouldn't or couldn't do alone.

>
> >"The road to free and open source technology and curricula is the road
> to effective and sustainable school program development."
>
> I also agree with a previous post that the use of the term free can be
> misleading.  This is because the road to effective and sustainable
> school program development also relies on effective and sustainable
> school  os software. I am doubtful that this can really be maintained on
> a long term basis by developers in just their spare time. I think a
> better approach is just to use the words open - source. I believe an
> inexpensive subscription system is the best way to create good software
> that keeps the developers in the educational open source setting .

Again, this letter isn't intended for the general public, but for the
leaders of prospective member projects.  As such, I think we can expect them
to be familiar with the accepted use of the term "free" in the Linux
community.

--
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