[TOS] Fwd: [EXT] Greetings to the GNU Education Project from the TOS community!

[Don Davis]

Well, that seems unfortunately typical for the FSF. (I'm a dues paying
member, but...) I don't know that they have a real interested in education.
Responses I've received from FSF members and representatives before
included: (1) making source code available is how we'll improve "Free"
software education and (2) join Debian-edu. [1 won't change things
systemically and 2 - the Skole-Linux fellows seem to be great guys but I
don't know that stalking a Scandinavian/German list will help bring about
wide spread changes.]

Her response is snippity and shows that she and similarly the FSF are more
interested in semantic (here completely unjustified) quibbling rather than
affecting change.



On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 4:58 PM, Mel Chua <mel at purdue.edu> wrote:

> Passing on the email I got back from the GNU Education Project, which made
> me sigh a bit, but... ok, I understand that GNU takes the terminology thing
> very seriously (even if I explained that TOS does include Free/Libre
> software in the first sentence of my email, which is included below for
> context since it's been a while).
>
> I' not sure that this actually tells us anything more about what they're
> doing or how we might be able to join forces, so I'm putting this
> conversation down for now because I've got a few classes to pass at the
> moment, but wanted to do so publicly in case someone else wants to pick up
> the thread.
>
> ----------------------
>
> Hi Mel,
>
> Thanks for your note and sorry for the delay. I have no doubts we have
> a lot of things in common, except we can't help it to feel excluded in
> a name like TOS. Let me know when your group will decide it's worth
> looking back to the old days when the US was proud and not afraid to
> talk about freedom.
>
> We don't have a public mailing list but just a small list we use to
> coordinate the various tasks, the results of which can be seen in
> gnu.org/education.
>
>
> Best!
>
> --
> Dora Scilipoti
> GNU Education Team
> www.gnu.org/education
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [EXT] Greetings to the GNU Education Project from the TOS
> community!
> Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:48:46 +0100
> From: GNU Education Team <education at gnu.org>
> Organization: www.gnu.org
> To: Mel Chua <mel at purdue.edu>
> CC: Education Discuss List <education at gnu.org>
>
>
> Hello, Dora --
>
> My name is Mel Chua, and I'm one of the members of the Teaching Open
> Source community. Although the group name says "open source," we explain
> in the introduction that it's meant to encompass free/libre/open-source
> software and content in all its forms, it's mostly that "TFLOSSAC" is a
> little awkward to pronounce.
>
> We're a little community of practice primarily composed of college-level
> faculty and others interested in getting students *contributing* to Free
> Software projects and communities as part of their coursework -- moving
> beyond simply using Free Software to actually making it, adding to it,
> giving back, and becoming active participants in the Free Software
> movement.
>
> We come from all over the world, from all sorts of disciplines (from
> journalism to electrical engineering), and from all different sorts of
> schools (from small liberal arts colleges to huge public universities),
> and mostly keep in touch via a mailing list but occasionally meet up at
> academic conferences.
>
> One of the things we've done for a while is teach a summer workshop for
> faculty (http://teachingopensource.**org/index.php/POSSE<http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE>)
> who are
> interested in designing their courses to include FOSS contribution as a
> component -- instead of working through a "pretend" textbook problem, why
> not have students contribute directly to a living, breathing project?
>
> I'm writing independently (we don't have an elected leadership or
> anything, but I told the list I'd take the initiative to send this
> email) and therefore can only speak for myself, but I would love to hear
> more about your plans for the GNU Education project. I think the other
> folks at TOS would also be curious. And it may be that we have some
> common goals and projects that it might make sense to partner up on --
> for instance, perhaps teaching those faculty workshops together.
>
> Our mailing list is at
> http://lists.**teachingopensource.org/**mailman/listinfo/tos<http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos>,
> which is the
> best place to follow the conversation and ask questions if you'd like to
> earn more about us. What's the best way for us to follow along with
> what you're doing?
>
> Best,
> --Mel
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> tos mailing list
> tos at teachingopensource.org
> http://lists.**teachingopensource.org/**mailman/listinfo/tos<http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos>
>
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