In December, HP announced that it would release a new desktop offering along
with Novell[1] targeted at education customers. Part of the announcement is a
repository of education applications "including math, art and word games, to
improve student learning," which were based on work by the openSUSE Education
project[2].
Novell and HP would like to formally acknowledge the community's contribution
to HP's education repository and thank the openSUSE Education community for
the work they have done to package and make available additional programs for
open source education efforts.
The openSUSE Education project provides an add-on CD for openSUSE so that
schools will have the benefit of educational packages not shipped by default
with openSUSE. The fact that HP has sought to include work from the Education
project is testament to the outstanding quality of their work and the demand
for open source education solutions.
The additional repository was created for HP to provide a subset of the
packages of those offered by the openSUSE Education project. HP and Novell
chose to do this to limit any maintenance issues for the subset of packages
offered commercially.
We'd like to thank the Education project for its patience with Novell and HP
while we establish a way to work on community repositories with commercial
partners. As a first-time effort, there have been a few bumps and we've found
a few areas where we can improve communication with openSUSE projects like the
Education Project.
This cooperation is particularly important as we all continue to push Linux
and open source on the desktop and into "consumer" solutions. We need to work
together as effectively as possible to offer well-polished open source
applications that will appeal to end users who are new to Linux.
Going forward, HP and Novell will work to collaborate more closely with the
openSUSE Education project and support their efforts to deliver solutions for
schools and provide the best experience for educational use.
We'd also like to thank HP for offering open source to its educational
customers. This is another small step towards world domination for Linux.
Thanks again to the openSUSE Education Project for their hard work and
patience!
[1]: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/081210a.html
[2]: http://en.opensuse.org/Education
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Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier