Let's get serious about Edubuntu's future

[Sven-Hendrik Haase]

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

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/edubuntu-devel/attachments/20090519/8c9b30dd/attachment.html>