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

Thu Mar 22 22:11:01 UTC 2012

A long time ago, some enthusiasts in Belgium planned a cool meeting for Open Source developers and called it OSDEM - Open Source Developers European Meeting. It was a cool and nice event. 

The next year they thought "hey, let's invite Richard Stallman!" and sent him an email. 

He replied in his usual way. "I will not come to your event if it uses the wrong word - Open Source - when in reality you are talking about free software."

The boys (at that time it really were only boys) sat together over a few beer and decided in true WTF way to add the Free to their name. 

Guess what, FOSDEM is a huge success since some +10 years. 

What I am trying to say is that even when Open Source is somehow the logical thing, in reality TOS is far closer to the ideals and philosophy of Free Software. Hence I understand and support the FSF people in their request to add the Freedom thingy. 

BTW - it is just a rumour that Stallman refers to FOSDEM as GNU/FOSDEM ;-)

Jan

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Am 22.03.2012 um 22:58 schrieb Mel Chua <mel at purdue.edu>:

> 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) 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, 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
> 
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