Re: Education strategy

[Hilaire Fernandes]

> > 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.)


I agree. In term of freedom it may not be a good idea to promote the use of 
Windows software
under a GNU system. Althougth such Windows may be free it may not be easy to 
modify such
software under a GNU system. What if the free education software was developped 
with VB, 
Delphi or any other non free development tool? Instead we could look at porting 
such
software or write new one from the ground.
This is what we are doing at OFSET. GCompris was written in the idea to replace 
software as
ASIBOU (quite famous software in France) and DrGenius to replace Geometer's 
Sketchpad or Cabri.
Of course more need to be done and we are always looking for new volunteers.


> > 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.


If the target is the education sector, a distribution like DemoLinux
does not help at all. Teacher will wonder what they can do with that kind
of distribution. Such a distribution should be completed
with a maximum of professionnal tool. Tool the teacher can fell 
there are very helpfull.
What make the system usefull is not the system itself but the tool you can
run on the system. 


Hilaire