Re: [seul-edu] Getting started: Forming a coalition to promote freeand open toolsand content in education

[Michael Hall <admin@openlearningcommunity.org>]

This `coalition' thread has been one of the most lively and verbose (in
the best sense of course) for a while. There have been several
international contributions.

I wonder if anyone has the time/energy/organisational ability to sum up
where we're at right now? What proposals are on the table?

And while you're at it ... What do we do
next, what are the core tasks to be done, in what order? How are we going
to organise ourselves? Who wants to work on what? :-)

David B has got some good points, in one order, others have other points
in other orders, it would be good to somehow distill this down to as
simple a set of options as we can as a basis for moving on.

Michael

On Tue, 27 Nov 2001, Doug Loss wrote:

> "David M. Bucknell" wrote:
> > 
> > Honestly, I think the tasks are, in something like this order:
> > 
> > 1. to get a name and a logo (again, I suggest that it not say Linux but rather
> > include it)
> > 
> I'd suggest that an earlier step would be to get strong committments
> from some of the major distributions to support the effort.  Since we'll
> likely be trying to convince managerial types to consider our position,
> it will help greatly to have organizations that they will recognize as
> regular forms associated with us.  Otherwise they'll be leery of
> committing to an amorphous (from their point of view) entity that might
> cease to exist at any moment.
> 
> As for a name, how about Coalition for Open Software in Education
> (COSE)?  Or perhaps Coalition for Open/Free Software in Education
> (COFSE).  If we can come up with a word starting with "E" that means
> software, we could get an acronym of COFEE, which could give an obvious
> logo.
> 
> > 2. to form a group of people willing to work on gathering existing docs and
> > writing new ones (or intros to existing ones)
> > 
> I think this will be fairly easy.  Roger, do we still have any contacts
> with that Open Source Writers group?
> 
> > 3. to do the work: gather a list of existing bibliographies of docs and links
> > and to collate and improve them
> > 
> Same as above.
> 
> > 4. present the stuff to this and other lists in the form of individual rfc's.
> > 
> > 5. to set it up so that it can be mirrored
> > 
> > 6. to consider whether to continue
> > 
> Nothing to consider.  We continue as long as there's a need.
> 
> Doug Loss
> drloww@home.com
> 

-- 
################################
Michael Hall
admin@openlearningcommunity.org
m.hall@latis.net.au
http://openlearningcommunity.org