[TOS] Scribd

MJ Ray mjr at phonecoop.coop
Sat Jun 26 15:46:45 UTC 2010


Karsten Wade wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 08:21:23AM +0200, adam wrote: [...]
> > Now I see there is a discussion about 'acquiring' materials
> 
> The discussion around Scribd was because a new contributor asked about
> how useful that was as a resource.  [...]

First of all on this question, I'm yet another person who hates scribd
because I can't download from it for similar-but-different reasons to
Shlomi Fish.

scribd occupies a similar pretend-open-but-really-restrictive space
in my mind to slideshare.  Neither site should be given much by free
and open source software projects.

Contributors who ask about sites maybe should be suggested to draft a
first review of the openness of the site, including its terms of use,
rather than distracting overworked existing contributors?

> > I am finding out slowly I think that you guys are building a little
> > empire and seem to have no interest in collaboration with people in your
> > sector,who have offered tools and help, who have been on this list since
> > day one, and who have material that you explicitly say you need. [...]
>  
> I take some issue with your conclusion.  I see some complements
> between projects such as FLOSSManuals and Teaching Open Source, but
> our missions are completely orthogonal.  If you think they are that
> closely related, perhaps that misunderstanding is one of the roots of
> our miscommunication?
> 
> To understand why we are building the Teaching Open Source brand as a
> stand-alone brand and entity, imagine this:
[...example...]
> First of all, giving one name to work with is going to be easier, no
> matter what.  Second, we're talking about teaching open source, not
> writing free and open content, so a jump to FLOSSManuals.net is
> disruptive and confusing.  Third, FLOSS is an acronym that suffers
> from the usual problem of excluding non-insiders.  In other words,
> every teacer I tell to visit FLOSSManuals.net is likely to not know
> the acronym FLOSS and feel immediately outside of what I'm telling
> them is a welcoming community!  I'd be lucky if people didn't think I
> suddenly got confused and started talking about dental hygiene.

Well, this reasoning amazes me.  I hope most of us would agree that
education is one of the most acronym- and jargon-laden fields there is
(people are just expected to know their QCDA from their AQA from their
GCE) and most of the people working in education are pretty smart, so
can we please credit teachers with enough intelligence to spot and
handle a new acronym?  If indeed it is new to them - there's been a
good series of FLOSSiE (FLOSS in Education) conferences in the UK.

If TOS is going to assume that teachers are thick, a lot will stop
listening to TOS and similar projects.

Working backwards to cover the other points:

"open source" is a general phrase which was overloaded by the failed
Open Source Initiative to try to give it a lengthy and
hard-to-remember stack of special meanings which most people still
don't associate with it after a decade or so (try a survey at one
of those education conferences?); and

You could give out TeachingOpenSource.org if you wanted because
VirtualHosts and even web links could do the rest.

Using FLOSSmanuals tools need not mean giving two names.  I think
people can accept one organisation using multiple domains - again,
using my locality as an example, our Department of Education uses
tons of domains for hosting its content.

Using The Open Source Way as an example, I see it appears to host some
material on tools at fedorahosted.org instead of theopensourceway.org.
Why is that a problem for TOS but not The Open Source Way?

Moreover, why can't TOS use difference toolchains?  Why did using
MediaWiki + python-mwlib + DocBook + XML + Publican to meet some
target mean that FM is ditched for the forseeable?


Finally, on the branding and mission, I feel that some participants
are being a bit extreme about building Teaching Open Source as a
stand-alone brand and it looks like it's because of a mix of Not
Invented Here, fear of fellow travellers (such as adam and others) and
prioritising the brand above the mission.  (This is why I'm still
only lurking here, while contributing to other projects.)

The TOS mission says it is "to serve as a neutral collaboration point
for everyone involved in Teaching Open Source, where we can:

    * Work out Open Source educational models, support and funding
      schemes, community relationships, and other issues.
    
    * Advocate for the changes that are necessary to further the goal
      of teaching Open Source."

If anyone can't see where a project whose mission is "a collection of
manuals about free and open source software together with the tools
used to create them and the community that uses those tools" can fit
in with the "neutral collaboration point" mission, then I think
there's some fundamental problem.  Maybe TOS should either remove
"neutral" from its mission, or alter its actions to achieve its
mission more fully?

Hope that develops things,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)  Webmaster and LMS developer at     | software
www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk        |  .... co
IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html |  .... op



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