Hi Sven, at least me and Jonathan from the Edubuntu community will be at UDS. Let's see what happens there, so together we can decide on a good plan of action. Ok? :)
Cheers, M. On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 21:54, Sven-Hendrik Haase <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everybody, > > in case there actually is somebody left to read this message. I think it > is finally time to act. On IRC, we agree a lot that Edubuntu is > definitely going the wrong direction, which right now would be 'none'. > We all know that Canonical has largely lost interest in developing, > maintaining and caring for Edubuntu in general. > Some weeks ago, some people set out to get an official answer from > Canonical so that some light be shed on Edubuntu's current point of > existence but so far no answer has appeared and I doubt it will any time > soon. > > I think Edubuntu's fate is now entirely in our capable hands. I suggest > we either have a live meeting on IRC at some point in the near future or > just keep discussing in this thread what is going to happen to Edubuntu. > > To be more precise what I think Edubuntu is lacking currently (so we > agree about the short-comings): > > 1) Direction. I think Edubuntu has been without actual vision for some > time now. I don't mean to say that Edubuntu is a piece of crap, I mean > to say that currently it serves neither groups' interests to the point > which would be required to make it outstanding. The groups, as I see it, > would be: > 1.1) Schools that want to deploy LTSP clients _EASILY_ > 1.2) Workstations at schools (for example a physics workstation in the > physics rooms) > 1.3) Private users at home (for children, obviously) > > 2) Documentation. Currently, if you want to deploy LTSP clients and you > want to be informed about LTSP 5 (assuming you even know what that is, > imagine you are teacher trying out Edubuntu!), you will have to search > the official LTSP documentation, the Ubuntu LTSP documentation, the > Edubuntu cookbook, the Edubuntu handbook, the Edubuntu wiki. You WILL > find conflicting material and most of the stuff you find doesn't even > apply anymore (LTSP 4.2 anyone?). The user wants ONE definitive resource > for looking up things, to get going, for tips, to look for help. So**many** > scattered and contradicting resources are not very reassuring for > a school's IT admin to say it mildly. > Personally, I'm still a student but I serve as my school's primary IT > administrator and I would rate myself as quite Linux literate, maybe > even 'expert' (from a user's and administrator's point of view, that > is). I was not able to gather a definitive set of resources that would > always apply to what I wanted LTSP/Edubuntu to do. Maybe I'm just > incompetent but I imagine a natural sciences teacher with mere Windows > user experience wouldn't perform any better, if at all. > > 3) Split distribution. It seems that the Edubuntu-Addon itself is a > major problem for people wanting to try out Edubuntu. People want to TRY > Edubuntu. Most schools are completely Windows dependent and teachers are > afraid of installing anything they would not be able to get rid of > themselves. Edubuntu NEEDS to be able to showcase all its features from > a live system or many people will be afraid of even trying it out in a > running infrastructure (for a good reason). This will probably mean that > a LTSP environment will have to fit the live medium, which will make it > grow beyond CD size at any rate which on the other hand wouldn't matter > all that much judging by how popular DVD/USB is nowadays. Edubuntu > should NOT be restricted to fit onto a CD, that would be totally > unnecessary. > > Those are my main three gripes. There are some minor ones but I won't go > over those now because it would probably make this mail lose direction. > > I suggest completely revising Edubuntu and maybe even consider changing > the name. I thought about forking Ubuntu to Schoolbuntu but I'd rather > continue working under 'Edubuntu'. In case Canonical has other plans > with that name, though, I see nothing wrong with starting a separate > project forked from Ubuntu itself. > > A few straight goals need to be set out for Edubuntu (or whatever the > name is going to be). We need to think about the target group. Currently > Edubuntu is just an Ubuntu with a couple of fancy educations in it that > match the tag 'education' and a LTSP server sitting beside. General > purpose is great for general stuff but in this case we're dealing with a > quite specialized use case and therefore Edubuntu might as well > specialize. For general purpose stuff, the is Ubuntu Alternate with LTSP. > > A lot of the previous efforts will have to be discarded in order to make > place for something new and consistent. A "revolution" is needed, in my > opinion. > > What we need is a dedicated bunch of a few people that are willing and > knowledgeable enough to help out to get things rolling. This would > require a great deal of spare time which I have but I assume others do not. > > Let's hope somebody sees this. > > -- Sven-Hendrik Haase > > > -- > edubuntu-devel mailing list > [email protected] > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-devel > >
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