Re: [LibrePlanet-US-MA] Lets start something! Introductions and planning

[Wesley Hirsch]

First off, introduction:

I'm Wesley, known as Shishire on irc.
I've
 been an computer guy all my life, and an open source fan as soon as I 
found out such a thing existed.
I tried a similar tactic with my high
 school, but was blocked by what for lack of a better word would be a M$
 fanboy of an IT director.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy as a person, but he also decided 
that what the school needed was to upgrade every computer to Vista the 
instant it was released.  Suffice it to say that didn't go so well.

Second off, I'm available to help with a project like this.  Something 
like this excites me.
I'm willing to be an in-person representative, 
as well as a technical contact and support person.  I'm a web developer 
who does everything from programming, to configuration, to system 
building.  Most of my current knowledge is about Ubuntu, but I'm 
familiar with a number of systems, and am willing to learn more as 
necessary.

I've managed to convince a number of people to switch to open source
 systems, but more importantly to open source ideals.  I'd love to see 
it be widely embraced in a system which really can't afford to spend 
superfluous amounts of money on software licenses, like our public 
schools.  I think the first step is to get them interested, and get 
ourselves known as people who can bring about such a change.  Secondly, 
getting some open-source software on their current systems, so that they
 have a good reference point before they switch ( to ubuntu? something 
else? ).  I'd suggest openoffice, firefox, gimp, inkscape, audacity, and
 vlc, as a start.  Thirdly, if we're going to do this a serious venture,
 we may need to build an actual support "company" so that 
schools/corporations can contract out support to us officially (plus, it
 looks better on paper to the superintendent and such if it's a company 
doing it, not some random people the tech guy knows).  Lastly, we can go
 about, probably over a summer, and convert all the computers to 
whichever open source system we're offering them.

We'd want something like this highly publicized.  The more we can 
spread the word about it, the better.  It does us no good to just 
convert one system and leave it at that, we need to have a greater 
effect.  In 5 years time, I'd be thrilled to see 50% of the public 
school systems in the greater boston area using open-source operating 
systems.  You know the corny saying they always use at graduations about
 the seniors being handed the keys to the world, and that they're the 
ones who will make a difference in it?  In some ways, it's true.  If we 
can get a large number of high school students aware of the 
existence/awesomeness of freedom, it will change the way they think 
about such things in the future.  We currently live in a culture where 
people are starting to get antsy about being locked into systems.  Lets 
show them freedom.

--Wesley

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Danny Piccirillo <address@hidden> wrote:

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 15:06, will kahn-greene <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 06/16/2010 10:32 AM, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
>>
>> An idea raised on irc by John was to do something about this:
>> http://www.salemnews.com/local/x1910032546/In-Beverly-laptops-all-around-but-parents-have-to-pay
>> A massachusetts school disctrict is requiring each student to own a
>> macbook, and buy one if they don't have one. We should draft an open
>> letter on the wiki and if we have anyone in the area, an in-person
>> contact would be even more effective.
>>
>> As part of the local ubuntu team a while ago, i had the idea of
>> starting an education-conversion task force which would go from one
>> public school system to another to encourage and assist them in
>> adopting free software. There weren't enough people who could dedicate
>> the time, but if we can get enough people here who could commit, i
>> know my old public school system has been broken in to free software
>> quite a bit (has had some ubuntu machines and lots of openoffice). The
>> tech director of the public schools has gotten very excited about
>> "open source" but she actually isn't very technical and seems to only
>> appreciate it as a buzz word. Still, it's a a decent start.
>>
>> Do we have enough ideas to want to start organizing a team meeting (on
>> IRC), or should we wait until we've gathered more members?
>
> I think this is a great idea.  The constant barrage of Microsoft and
> Apple software in school systems is both irritating as well as
> debilitating for students.  However it's a really hard mission that will
> take years to work through.

Within one year, was able to, as just a student who dedicated just a
little time to this, was able to have a very significant influence on
the tech staff at my high school, and even the people in charge of
technology for the entire public school system which overs over 11,500
students. In my high school, all of the publicly available computers
in the library had openoffice installed, and two computers running
Ubuntu were made available. All this took was getting to know a couple
of the computer lab people and offering to help out. As for the IT
department head for the entire public school system, all it took was
one meeting where myself and the leader of the local Ubuntu team
showed up. At the time, it felt like no progress was made, but half a
year later i'd heard that since the idea had been planted, it had
grown enough to start using Moodle in the effort to bring the schools
up to date with current technology. Many schools are trying to get up
to date with current technology as well, and this is a very good area
where we can help. After all, we have the best and most affordable
tools!

> What existing initiatives are there that are doing this kind of work at
> a public school/college level already?  Does any of the OLPC-related
> groups do something along these lines?

I'm not sure about current initiatives, but it's a very good question.
I'm not super familiar with all the work OLPC is doing but i suspect
they're not nearly wasteful enough to meet the expectations of local
schools. I think to start out, this team would only need a handful of
people, and we could pick up where i left off in Newton. Last i
checked, without me there, they're leaning very much towards buying
more and more Apple products. I can be our gateway to reach out to
people in the school, but we'll also need people with expertise on the
specifics of what schools need.

> It might make sense to start working on a FLOSSManual focusing on the
> issues that face school district admin and how those issues are
> addressed with Free Software.

Yes, i think such a manual would be useful, or rather absolutely
necessary, to create on the LibrePlanet wiki so that we (and other
teams) can refer to it for talking points, but in-person meetings and
getting involved is the only way to make real progress. I also did my
senior project on free software, and my paper was titled, "Academia's
Obligation to Software Freedom"
[http://blog.thesilentnumber.me/2010/04/academias-obligation-to-software.html].
It ended up mostly being a primer about free software, but this paper
is also available on LP:
http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Why_Public_Education_Must_Use_Public_Software
and of course Stallman's essay:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html

We should compile a list of what we would need and compile a timeline
to keep us on track, converting the majority of the newton public
school system doesn't seem too farfetched. If we can be at least
somewhat successful there, talking to other schools will be much
easier, not only because we've done it once before and learned what to
watch out for, but also because we can go back and tell them to look
at what we've done already.

--
.danny

☮♥Ⓐ - http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo
Every (in)decision matters.

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