Re: What is it exactly I have to do?? REMEMBER... I am a =volunteer=

[Doug Loss <dloss@csrlink.net>]

On Fri, 02 Jul 1999 12:38:06 -0700, jim@mercury.laney.edu wrote:
>
> Just a minute... Do the rest of the group concur with this? If you do,
> this may be the wrong group for me. I think I made it clear I have my
> hands in many pies, no? 
>
As Roman said, he has strongly held and expressed opinions, but he doesn't speak for seul-edu or SEUL as a group.  If you would read the seul-edu posting guidelines that were mailed out a couple of days ago, you'll see what seul-edu says about itself.

> I need help getting roster to the point where it is useful, that means
> docs and coding. Are there any offers in kind here? 
>
Someone (Bob, was it you?) suggested that each of the project leaders of our 
associated projects give us some more detailed ideas of where they'd like help, 
which we will then put on a webpage listing work that needs doing.  Could you 
(and all the other project leaders) list the specific coding and documenting 
tasks you'd like volunteers to work on?

> I am interested in packaging things SEUL offers for debian.  I have
> already said I am a very new maintainer; I'm not interested in trying
> to get debian policy modified on behalf of anyone besides myself. 
>
I don't think any of us want you to take that task on :-).

> Therefore, I will package relatively easy SEUL offerings PROVIDED:
> they MUST FOLLOW THE DEBIAN POLICY DOCUMENT.
>
This is entirely up to the project leaders, although the requirements seem quite 
easy to meet.

> If not, I have already sent a RTP (request to package) on your behalf
> to one of the debian mailing lists, this request has both the "current
> projects" and "existing software" URLs. Given the apparent request to
> NOT have a man page, which goes contrary to debian policy, I will not
> be packaging anything because I don't have time to try to merge your
> policies with debian's.
>
I think you may have misread Roman's opinion.  Although I'm putting my words in 
his mouth here, I don't think he meant that there shouldn't be a man page but 
that there should be HTML (or something similarly easy-to-use) documentation in 
addition.  At any rate, there is absolutely no mandate for refusing to create man pages for these projects.  Hell, how could we stop people from writing them 
if they want to?

> However, I will continue work on roster; I was going to do that anyway.
> EDUML looks interesting, I think I can at least come up with input and
> output filters for it that work with roster. If that helps it work with
> k12admin, so much the better.
>
We appreciate that, Jim.  I hope you'll continue to contribute to the 
discussions here and to the work that's getting done.

> -Jim, who is now wondering if you think I fit in this project.
>
Well, I certainly think so.  For the record, seul-edu is for fostering Linux applications in education in whatever form those applications take.  There _is_ no required form for these applications; we will accept them however they are brought to us and suggest ways to use them educationally and to improve them to make them more useful.  We will also search out existing applications that might have educational uses and list them.  As some of you know, I've occasionally contacted people with such applications and asked them to join seul-edu for the mutual enrichment of us all.

Further, I'm trying to promote the development of course guides, lesson plans, and texts that use our applications centrally.  Take a look at the OpenBook project for some ideas about that.

Doug Loss            Democracy substitutes election by the
dloss@csrlink.net    incompetent many for appointment by
(570) 326-3987       the corrupt few.
                        George Bernard Shaw