Free Software Academy

Thought this would get some ideas flowing

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: Free Software Academy
Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 17:49:25 +0100
From: Peter Minten <peter.minten@wanadoo.nl>
To: James Michael DuPont <mdupont777@yahoo.com>, Adam
<minddog@cannibutter.com>
Cc: Gopal <gopalv82@symonds.net>, Chris <chris@nfluid.com>

Hi guys,

here's what I cooked up in a few hours about FSA:

-- organization --

Though it's to early to do a large amount of organization planning I highly
suggest creating a steering committee as highest authority within FSA. The SC
system worked great in DotGNU (well until about everybody on the SC became to
busy to actually do something (except Rhys) :-).

-- time plan --

As decided on the meeting the timeplan of FSA will be divided into
milestones. While most of the waves are still invisible I can see the zeroth
and the first one.

We're currently in the zeroth wave. In this wave the focus of FSA is mainly
getting up and running, I think we can all agree on that statement. This wave
will last t/m (Dutch for until but including) the chat-a-thon.

It's very important not to end the zeroth wave too soon since we first need
to get all basic stuff online. In the first wave expansion will be the main
goal. Expansion will crash FSA however if we aren't prepared for it. The
idea of putting the chat-a-thon away 2 months therefore seems highly
recommendable.

-- declarations --

We will need a number of different declarations and papers, each aimed at a
specific target group except the first.

The first declaration is the 'declaration of software freedom in schools' (if
anybody knows a more elegant name please say it).

We also need plain declarations for schools (why free software is good for
you), for existing student groups (why to join the FSA) and for students
(why should you care about free software).

I recommend creating a working group to produce these declarations and
translate them into different languages.

-- packages --

The FSA (or more exactly the package working group of the FSA) will produce
packages. The packages will contain (free and open source) software,
reasonably complete documentation (tutorial + reference manual) and tips on
how the software can be used in a learning enviroment.

-- teacher assist system --

We should assist teachers in developing courses based on free software. For
this purpose one or more mailing lists and irc channels should be used. A
wiki system is also very good for this. Good support will bring satisfied
schools that won't switch back very fast and that will be positive about
free software to other schools (peer advertisment is always very effective).

Greetings,

Peter

-------------------------------------------------------

--
--minddog( Adam Ballai )

"I try to take it one day at a time, but several of them attack me at once."
-mistyflip