RE: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Open Souce Conference - a way forward ...
Comments in line. -----Original Message----- From: Richard Rothwell To: suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com Sent: 4/7/03 11:06 PM Subject: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Open Souce Conference - a way forward... <snip>
The offer of this technology is computing that is: - low cost - sustainable - ubiquitious - customisable
Socially inclusive is normally a good one for schools; throwing in the phrase "bridging the digital divide" works nicely on council officers. Also with low cost emphasise TCO as well as upfront capital. <snip>
Suggestions: that invitations are put out to get involved with the first wave - this should include:
<snip>
* we share information and thoughts through a Wiki thus allowing any one to get involved * the AFFS is invited to be the front organisation for this group (www.affs.org.uk) * contact is made with organisations in other countries working on similar lines * we look for a major publicity drive in September by when a number of UK schools should be runnning large scale open source solutions.
The Wiki should be part rather than the front; FAQs, PR and advertising material distilled from it and placed within public-facing parts of a site. The AFFS (and related organisations) would not be an appropriate front for this activity as their objectives would be perceived as overtly political, rather than interested in deriving the best benefits for children, schools and local communities. If we are to have a PR drive, the front should be non-political, school management and LEA oriented. Presenting the purist arguments up-front is likely to incur labelling as extremists and the rest of the excellent reasons for schools adopting OSS will be ignored. If individuals manage to arrange meetings with heads/chairs/education officers, then the philosophical reasons can be presented as part of that meeting; it is unlikely to be the deciding factor, but will become important to them in time - remember: softly softly catch'ee monkey... Regards Chris
The Wiki should be part rather than the front; FAQs, PR and advertising material distilled from it and placed within public-facing parts of a site.
ok - this makes sense we need a campaigning wing and a information exchange wing.
The AFFS (and related organisations) would not be an appropriate front for this activity as their objectives would be perceived as overtly political,
fine - do we need to form an association / web site / grouping now? I think so. Sorry to say this on this list but it can't have the name "suse" in it! rgds, Richard Rothwell -------------------------------------------------------------------- "Most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?" Bill Gates 1979 in his "open letter to hobbyists". --------------------------------- Yahoo! Plus - For a better Internet experience
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The AFFS (and related organisations) would not be an appropriate front for this activity as their objectives would be perceived as overtly political,
fine - do we need to form an association / web site / grouping now? I think so. Sorry to say this on this list but it can't have the name "suse" in it!
In fact, I can think of many reasons why AFFS is a good place to take this forwards: - Richard Smedley (current press and education officer) has been involved in this type of project before and knows the history... those who don't learn from history, etc; - MJ Ray (treasurer) is currently an FE lecturer; - Marc Eberhard (chairman) is an HE lecturer; - There are compatible aims of this campaign with the AFFS aims, I think; - AFFS has resources and willing to persue this; - AFFS was designed as a stable organisation to house exactly this sort of campaign; - AFFS provides a link to sympathisers outside of education. I can think of some reasons why you might be concerned: - We are currently at half-strength with 5 on the exec instead of 10; - We are currently distracted, trying to organise a conference and AGM; - We are an associate group of FSF Europe and will not use the phrase "open source". But: - The May AGM should elect enough to bring us up to full strength; - Maybe you'd like to come to another conference? ;-) ; ...and... - "Open Source" is an ambiguous phrase with definitions from OSI, OeE, Becta, Microsoft(!) and many others. One of the original reason for the Open Source Initiative was to remove ambiguity by securing a trademark on the phrase (wishful thinking?) and to clarify things through marketing it. However, they didn't get the trademark and their marketing effort is dwarfed by other people defining "open source" as other things. The Free Software Definition is simpler and the ideas have had 20 years or so to establish themselves. Another reason was to remove the connection with the ideas of sharing and being a good member of the community. From what I heard at the conference, those are still very popular ideas with people working in education. Some people class promotion of these ideas as political. I guess in that case, Chris could call AFFS a political group. Oh well. I'm not sure why it would be less popular with educators or why it should stop us promoting free software for the practical benefits too, though. If you sympathise with the goal of providing effective promotion of our preferred software licensing, please use the older term "Free Software" and do the relatively simple explanation about "free as in freedom." Ambiguity and division never help marketing. The material I consulted for that overlong bullet is mostly drawn from OSI's own site, but I had to dig around in pages not listed on the site index for some of it. The history of OSI and "Notes for translators" are the source for most of it. These are some of the older documents on there, as I remember them from the start of OSI, and quite enlightening about the original purposes of the campaign, instead of what it is today. I now return you to your normal mailing list. MJR
The AFFS (and related organisations) would not be an appropriate front for this activity as their objectives would be perceived as overtly
Just in case it is of any use to you guys this is the contact for Richard
Stallman rms@gnu.org a leading light in the free software movement....I
organised for him to speak in the Uk at DFID last year and put an invite on
this mail list...but without response.....he is a very engaging and
enthusiastic speaker...totally sold on Open software and with many years of
experience in starting/supporting associations....
rgds Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: MJ Ray [mailto:markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 11:49
To: suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com
Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Open Souce Conference - a way
forward ...
=?iso-8859-1?q?Richard=20Rothwell?=
fine - do we need to form an association / web site / grouping now? I think so. Sorry to say this on this list but it can't have the name "suse" in it!
In fact, I can think of many reasons why AFFS is a good place to take this forwards: - Richard Smedley (current press and education officer) has been involved in this type of project before and knows the history... those who don't learn from history, etc; - MJ Ray (treasurer) is currently an FE lecturer; - Marc Eberhard (chairman) is an HE lecturer; - There are compatible aims of this campaign with the AFFS aims, I think; - AFFS has resources and willing to persue this; - AFFS was designed as a stable organisation to house exactly this sort of campaign; - AFFS provides a link to sympathisers outside of education. I can think of some reasons why you might be concerned: - We are currently at half-strength with 5 on the exec instead of 10; - We are currently distracted, trying to organise a conference and AGM; - We are an associate group of FSF Europe and will not use the phrase "open source". But: - The May AGM should elect enough to bring us up to full strength; - Maybe you'd like to come to another conference? ;-) ; ...and... - "Open Source" is an ambiguous phrase with definitions from OSI, OeE, Becta, Microsoft(!) and many others. One of the original reason for the Open Source Initiative was to remove ambiguity by securing a trademark on the phrase (wishful thinking?) and to clarify things through marketing it. However, they didn't get the trademark and their marketing effort is dwarfed by other people defining "open source" as other things. The Free Software Definition is simpler and the ideas have had 20 years or so to establish themselves. Another reason was to remove the connection with the ideas of sharing and being a good member of the community. From what I heard at the conference, those are still very popular ideas with people working in education. Some people class promotion of these ideas as political. I guess in that case, Chris could call AFFS a political group. Oh well. I'm not sure why it would be less popular with educators or why it should stop us promoting free software for the practical benefits too, though. If you sympathise with the goal of providing effective promotion of our preferred software licensing, please use the older term "Free Software" and do the relatively simple explanation about "free as in freedom." Ambiguity and division never help marketing. The material I consulted for that overlong bullet is mostly drawn from OSI's own site, but I had to dig around in pages not listed on the site index for some of it. The history of OSI and "Notes for translators" are the source for most of it. These are some of the older documents on there, as I remember them from the start of OSI, and quite enlightening about the original purposes of the campaign, instead of what it is today. I now return you to your normal mailing list. MJR -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help@suse.com
Chris Puttick
The AFFS (and related organisations) would not be an appropriate front for this activity as their objectives would be perceived as overtly political, rather than interested in deriving the best benefits for children, schools and local communities. If we are to have a PR drive, the front should be non-political, school management and LEA oriented. Presenting the purist arguments up-front is likely to incur labelling as extremists and the rest of the excellent reasons for schools adopting OSS will be ignored. If individuals manage to arrange meetings with heads/chairs/education officers, then the philosophical reasons can be presented as part of that meeting; it is unlikely to be the deciding factor, but will become important to them in time - remember: softly softly catch'ee monkey...
I really disagree with this, but you would expect that! First off, let me correct one point: although AFFS is regarded as having a political aim by charity law, we are not a political group and have members of all political colours and hues. The education campaign is concerned about getting the best software for education at the best value. I don't think anyone in their right minds would argue that the large amounts of money being spent on proprietary software licensing couldn't be better spent on other things, would they? The *only* way to do that is to start replacing proprietary software with software under licences that meet the Free Software Definition. Allow the educators to be focused on education, rather than worrying about doing bookkeeping for the proprietarists. As for "presenting the purist arguments up-front..." I'm not sure what you're getting at. AFFS reps may speak primarily about ethics and collaboration when speaking at developer/technical events, but that is because they are unifying topics in a very diverse audience, which contains embedded systems programmers as much as education-related professionals. It's hard to go into particular topics in a general way. When talking to a more specific audience, like those interested in education, it is easier to point to specific benefits and practical reasons. Yes, the education campaign needs more involvement from LEAs, school management *and especially technicians*, which is why I put my head above the parapet on Friday and invited everyone to assist us. It is why I am now spending more time on this issue than anything else for AFFS. It's why four of the five current AFFS exec are connected with education in some way. This is a big issue for the UK. Please let's work together to tackle it, not create the overhead of yet another organisation to support it. AFFS is supposed to be an umbrella for a number of campaigns because there was no suitable viable group before. Yes, there are many reasons for UK education to embrace free software. I know the AFFS site is rather lacking in description of them. Help us to create the material, build the directories of case studies and lists of experts needed to support implementors, catalogue the tools and customise them to the UK education programmes where needed. There's a lot that could be done now. As soon as I've got our material together for the CD, I'll make sure I start addressing the other suggestions. I agree with you about the wiki/formal maintained site thing, though. ;-) -- MJR http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ IM: slef@jabber.at This is my home web site. This for Jabber Messaging. How's my writing? Let me know via any of my contact details.
participants (4)
-
Chris Puttick -
ChrisH -
MJ Ray -
Richard Rothwell