Re: Edu-EU digest, Vol 1 #94 - 2 msgs

[Ian Lynch]

On Thursday 09 May 2002 17:00, address@hidden wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: Education strategy (Nick Hockings)
>    2. brief mention Re: Education strategy (Karl)
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 1
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Education strategy
> Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 00:16:06 +0200 (SAST)
> From: Nick Hockings <address@hidden>
>
> > From: Ian Lynch <address@hidden>
> > Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 08:48:30 +0100
> >
> > Has anyone else got a strategy for developing the use of free software
> > in education in their country?
>
> I am pulling together a team of volunteers to distribute DemoLinux CDs with
> OpenOffice 6.0 to MPs and others. The point is to raise the profile and
> demonstrate the functionality of free software to decision makers. I think
> we should consider some collaboration here.
>
> E.G. If you are sincerely promoting the pinciples of free software (ie the
> Four Freedoms, copy left licencing etc) then I would list your company, its
> www site and existing projects as contacts/resources.

We are promoting free software, but not exclusively because we have to get 
enough income to support the company overheads and that is currently not 
possible without selling other products. We sell technological solutions to 
schools and the first priority is to give them what they need/want which is 
often a combination of free and proprietary products. If it was possible to 
give them everything with free software we would but they often have specific 
requirements tha tmake the ideal unattainable.

> You might consider
> sponsoring a set of such CDs to be sent to schools around England.

We are a small company and sponsoring a set of CDs for 30,000 schools is 
beyond out means. Personally, I don't think that is the best use of the 
investment resources we have. What is needed is identification of a few 
movers and shapers and get them to drive a wedge into the system that can 
then spread further. So we put additional resources into the initial sites we 
have to make sure that they have a good experience with free software. There 
is a dnager that giving clueless people resources too early will be 
counter-productive. If it doesn't work perfectly first time they will use 
this to justify why they should maintain the status quo.

> Technical note: DemoLinux is a variant of Debian Potato produced charitably
> by a small group of accademics in Paris, http://www.demolinux.org/  . IT
> RUNS FROM CD WITHOUT INSTALLATION.

> > In England, there are government targeted
> > funding initiatives involving ICT that we can use to get some significant
> > presence. So far we have two 30 station networks ...
> >...Without a number of successful and working desktop sites, few people
> > are going to take the risk.
>
> I take it you have some expertise/experience wrt raising govt funds.

Yes, but it is complex - to the extent that I'm swamped with consultancy work 
but it is very difficult to train others to help me. If I could do it easily 
I could make a lot of money by expanding that side of the business. One of 
the reasons I set up the technology supply company was that I could expand it 
whereas with the consultancy work it all depends on me and is difficult to 
expand. Its 20 years of accumulated knowledge, personal contacts and 
constantly shifting sand.
 
> would be great if you could share this. The ideal place to post info wrt UK
> govt funding would be   address@hidden  . (That's the Association For Free
> Sofftware (AFFS) mailing list.

Yes I have made contact and I will keep them informed. The main lines of 
attack are Education Action Zones which get matched funding for sponsorship 
and the specialist schools programme which is similar but the rules on 
sponsorship are more severe. We have several EAZs prepared to install 
substantial Free Software networks - 2 completed and 4 sites in the piple 
line with groundwork done on several more. I also help specialist schools 
write their applications and its possible to build free software solutions 
into these. If successfull it gets them about 500,000 GBP further funding 
over 4 years. The applications are 70 pages of complex forms so its not easy 
to delegate this work - but if I get a school this money they tend to be open 
to ideas about spending it.

> They will one day become FSF-UK when the FSF
> aproves.) More general or EU funding info would be great to put on
> address@hidden   . But please do keep this list alivee too!
>
>
> wrt raising profiles/show sites:  if you can ideaologically convert the
> schools you work with to support the principles of free software, then
> their www sites/contacts can be included in any DemoLinux CD we distribute.
> That means schools can call/visit other schools who already have working
> free software. Ideally we should start a chain training system where by
> each school trains staff from other schools to spread the skills. (This is
> a "Big Cake" strategy for your business whereby you get a small slice of an
> expanding market.)

We have some plans for training and I have already put a proposition to one of 
the UKs largest education training companies which should result in getting 
kicked off next spring. The key is that they have a high profile brand name 
and put a lot of resources into promoting their traing courses. I already run 
some very successful courses for them so this should trigger wider 
dissemination. Peer training has a place but teachers are already swamped 
with initiatives so most won't see free software as the highest priority. 
They also have training budgets so to reach large numbers using a mainstream 
commercial training provider that is well-established in the market is likely 
to be more effective in the over-arching goal.

> > The main problem is inability to run Windows
> > based education software - WINE is a possibility but we have to get hold
> > of the software to test and testing takes time. For the time being we are
> > concentrating on low cost thin clients
>
> There is a lot of free educational software that could be substituted.

With respect, they want specific applications, they and their staff are used 
to using. This is a chicken and egg issue and in order to get acceptance we 
need volume presence.

> There is also the important task of getting teachers to contribute GPL'ed
> content for new free educational e-books etc.  Keep it free and maximise
> cooperation => productivity & efficiency. If you are being ordered to buy a
> particular proprietary product then blow the whistle here and in the TES
> etc..

I think this will happen but at the moment teachers haven't the time to get 
large volumes of content into a system they don't understand. Once a critical 
mass of desktop Linux users is established some of these other things will 
follow. 

> > Getting education titles to run under WINE
> > is a high priority but difficult for a small company.
>
> WINE is said to be very good now but most free software was written to run
> on GNU and BSD. (BSD licening is to be avioded due to propritization, vis
> Mac OS X.)

Linux is the way forward. Problem is getting the software to test, the time to 
test it and then time/expertise to fix problems. We are workingon it but we 
have very limited resources.

> > In broad strategic terms, getting a good presence for free software in a
> > market sector such as education provides a profile to show others. I
> > believe that critical mass will be achieved by getting focus in a
> > particular sector rather than a scattergun approach.
>
> It has taken time to develop the GUIs and then the GUI based apps for lay
> users, now we are ready. We don't have big budgets so our publicity must
> exploit our freedom not our wallets. DemoLinux will help us get attention
> and prove the functionality, utility and quality of free software for lay
> users.

But don't under-estimate the need for focus. Better to spend your enery on say 
40 or 50 good quality advocates than 400,000 who don't even bother to install 
- or worse, install find a few snags and then discredit.

> wrt scatter guns, in a free society each individual follows their own
> interests. No "great leap forward" has matched the prodcutive genius of
> liberty.

Nice philosohy :-). However marketing is also to do with strategy and 
optimising sparse resource in the most effective way. 

> > Once established in one sector the methods can be repeated in others.
> >...(Scotland has a completely different system so its not sensible to talk
> > about UK education)
>
> Do you have any contacts in Scotland or Ireland?

No, only England and the Scottish system and Eire are substantially different. 
We aren't really big enough to take all of England on never mind the rest. My 
business plan makes us all multimillionaires of 20% of the English market so 
better to concentrate on what we know.

> Don't forget to write up what you learn from your projects and publish it
> in the Free Software Magazine  (see fsf-china). And put the Magazine on the
> desktops of your LANs for the users to read.

We will publicise in the national press etc but only when I am sure we have 
the timing right. We will only get one shot at that so it has to be  at the 
right time with the right backing.

Regards,

-- 
Ian Lynch


> Nick Hockings
>
> <address@hidden>,
> <address@hidden>,
> <address@hidden>
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 18:36:14 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Karl <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> cc: Nick Hockings <address@hidden>
> Subject: brief mention Re: Education strategy
>
> I do not want to take any momentum away from Nick's email below.
>
> But I do not not think that I have mentioned to this list (at least not in
> a long time) that we have an international GNU/Linux in Education Case
> Studies Repository project.
>
> Please feel free to contact the schools listed in our repository at
> http://casestudy.seul.org/ for your efforts advocating free software in
> education.
>
> If you are with (or know of) an educational institution that is not yet
> listed in the repository, please click on "Enter a new case study".
>
> Raphael Cavelli (mea culpa: spelling?) was kind enough to email with me
> about some of the work that has been done in the past, separately, in
> Europe; and to update everybody, I'd like all to know that we are trying
> to offer the European listings that Raphael offered us as well (it may be
> a few more months still).
>
> My most humble and greatest intent is to provide a suitable webpage, and
> materials to aid anyone performing advocacy or academic research, for
> adding listings and viewing listings of the GNU/Linux in Education Case
> Studies Repository.
>
>
> Thanks for your comments, and help,
> and best of luck to Nick and his team of DemoGNU/Linux volunteers!
>
>  -Karl
>
> On Thu, 9 May 2002, Nick Hockings wrote:
> > Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 00:16:06 +0200 (SAST)
> > From: Nick Hockings <address@hidden>
> > To: address@hidden
> > Subject: Re: Education strategy
> >
> > > From: Ian Lynch <address@hidden>
> > > Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 08:48:30 +0100
> > >
> > > Has anyone else got a strategy for developing the use of free software
> > > in education in their country?
> >
> > I am pulling together a team of volunteers to distribute DemoLinux CDs
> > with OpenOffice 6.0 to MPs and others. The point is to raise the profile
> > and demonstrate the functionality of free software to decision makers. I
> > think we should consider some collaboration here.
> >
> > E.G. If you are sincerely promoting the pinciples of free software (ie
> > the Four Freedoms, copy left licencing etc) then I would list your
> > company, its www site and existing projects as contacts/resources. You
> > might consider sponsoring a set of such CDs to be sent to schools around
> > England.
> >
> > Technical note: DemoLinux is a variant of Debian Potato produced
> > charitably by a small group of accademics in Paris,
> > http://www.demolinux.org/  . IT RUNS FROM CD WITHOUT INSTALLATION.
> >
> > > In England, there are government targeted
> > > funding initiatives involving ICT that we can use to get some
> > > significant presence. So far we have two 30 station networks ...
> > >...Without a number of successful and working desktop sites, few people
> > > are going to take the risk.
> >
> > I take it you have some expertise/experience wrt raising govt funds. It
> > would be great if you could share this. The ideal place to post info wrt
> > UK govt funding would be   address@hidden  . (That's the Association For
> > Free Sofftware (AFFS) mailing list. They will one day become FSF-UK when
> > the FSF aproves.) More general or EU funding info would be great to put
> > on address@hidden   . But please do keep this list alivee too!
> >
> >
> > wrt raising profiles/show sites:  if you can ideaologically convert the
> > schools you work with to support the principles of free software, then
> > their www sites/contacts can be included in any DemoLinux CD we
> > distribute. That means schools can call/visit other schools who already
> > have working free software. Ideally we should start a chain training
> > system where by each school trains staff from other schools to spread the
> > skills. (This is a "Big Cake" strategy for your business whereby you get
> > a small slice of an expanding market.)
> >
> > > The main problem is inability to run Windows
> > > based education software - WINE is a possibility but we have to get
> > > hold of the software to test and testing takes time. For the time being
> > > we are concentrating on low cost thin clients
> >
> > There is a lot of free educational software that could be substituted.
> > There is also the important task of getting teachers to contribute GPL'ed
> > content for new free educational e-books etc..  Keep it free and maximise
> > cooperation => productivity & efficiency. If you are being ordered to buy
> > a particular proprietary product then blow the whistle here and in the
> > TES etc..
> >
> > > Getting education titles to run under WINE
> > > is a high priority but difficult for a small company.
> >
> > WINE is said to be very good now but most free software was written to
> > run on GNU and BSD. (BSD licening is to be avioded due to propritization,
> > vis Mac OS X.)
> >
> > > In broad strategic terms, getting a good presence for free software in
> > > a market sector such as education provides a profile to show others. I
> > > believe that critical mass will be achieved by getting focus in a
> > > particular sector rather than a scattergun approach.
> >
> > It has taken time to develop the GUIs and then the GUI based apps for lay
> > users, now we are ready. We don't have big budgets so our publicity must
> > exploit our freedom not our wallets. DemoLinux will help us get attention
> > and prove the functionality, utility and quality of free software for lay
> > users.
> >
> > wrt scatter guns, in a free society each individual follows their own
> > interests. No "great leap forward" has matched the prodcutive genius of
> > liberty.
> >
> > > Once established in one sector the methods can be repeated in others.
> > >...(Scotland has a completely different system so its not sensible to
> > > talk about UK education)
> >
> > Do you have any contacts in Scotland or Ireland?
> >
> > Don't forget to write up what you learn from your projects and publish it
> > in the Free Software Magazine  (see fsf-china). And put the Magazine on
> > the desktops of your LANs for the users to read.
> >
> >
> > Nick Hockings
> >
> > <address@hidden>,
> > <address@hidden>,
> > <address@hidden>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > European "Free Software in Education" mailing list
> > address@hidden
> > http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-eu
>
> --__--__--
>
> _______________________________________________
> European "Free Software in Education" mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-eu
>
>
> End of Edu-EU Digest