Leaving Edubuntu

[R. Scott Belford]

David, I could not care less about being "appreciated."  The problem
with Edubuntu has been the void the community was left with following
some strategic Canonical decisions.  I was in contact with the
Canonical guys, they dropped the ball, and actually, we don't "all
know the story."  I don't see what is any more important to the
community right now.  The code base is now debian-edu, and I am
Vagrant Cascadian's #1 fan.  Edubuntu seems to be branding only, and
we need to be clear about it.  Are we submitting bugs to debian-edu,
or are we repeating their efforts, re-tracking bugs at Launchpad, and
calling it Edubuntu?

--scott

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 2:44 AM, David Van Assche <dvanassche at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was actually looking for real items you are tackling within our community
> (Edubuntu) right now! Outside that, yes your list of good deeds is
> impressive and wonderful (Most of the so called leadership can probably
> write a good couple pages on their good deeds too...) We all know the story
> of how you couldn't get in contact with the Canonical guys, and how this has
> made you feel unappreciated.  But I think there's been enough repetition of
> that story for now, surely we can find more interesting things to talk about
> than the failure of communication during a meeting at one of the UDSes...
> (spilled milk comes to mind...)
>
> Anyway, this doesnt' really have much to do with giving perspective... it
> has to do with getting things done... all the perspective in the world is
> not gonna make any difference if it isnt followed by coding, documentation,
> bug squashing or the hundreds of other tasks open to volunteers...
>
> kind regards,
> David Van Assche
> www.nubae.com
>
> On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 2:08 PM, R. Scott Belford <scott at hosef.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 8:56 PM, David Van Assche <dvanassche at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Anyway, people like Scott (-not- sbalneaves) would do well to involve
>> > themselves in 'fixing' the problem, rather than spewing destructive
>> > criticism at every possible turn of events. All I've ever seen from your
>> > emails is reasons as to why the people who really are working on things
>> > (the
>> > leadership you call them, though non would consider themselves that) are
>> > doing it wrong. If that's the case, why don't YOU show us how its done?
>>
>> With the greatest of respect, please allow me to clarify why I feel
>> that I have invested enough by now to have a valid, experienced, and
>> urgent perspective.  I am an advocate for users.  I am one who sews
>> seeds in my community in hopes of inspiring tomorrow's engineers and
>> software developers.  I am not a software developer, but I am a
>> community developer.  I am the one, and HOSEF is the charity, that has
>> sent pre-installed Edubuntu computers to Western Samoa, American
>> Samoa, San Manuel, Manila, and Isabela in the Philippines, orphans and
>> women rescued from the sex trade in Cambodia, and given thousands of
>> gnu/linux computers to individuals and schools here in Hawaii.
>>
>> When you are a foster child in Hawaii, or you have aged out of the
>> system, you have possibly come across me indirectly when seeking a
>> computer or a laptop.  You got one that was tested and pre-installed
>> with Debian Sarge, then it was Mandrake, then it became Edubuntu.  If
>> you have been lucky enough to go through my Computer Guts class, then
>> you are likely a foster child who learned how to build your own
>> computer, install software, and type a one page essay, 12-point font,
>> no skipping lines, on what you learned.  Chances are you were a 10-12
>> year old girl, and you are now only a few years away from having these
>> gifts blossom for you.  For about 5 years, twice a week, if you wanted
>> hands-on help with open source software, you wanted to donate a
>> computer, or you wanted to see what this 'linux thing' was all about,
>> you found me waiting on you at a local school or business.
>>
>> If you are transitionally homeless, then you possibly got exposed to
>> the K12LTSP at the Next Step homeless shelter.  If you are homeless
>> and on our beaches, as many are, then perhaps you have access to the
>> Edubuntu (now Debian) computers, with a printer and scanner and
>> covered by a free but filtered wifi cloud, that I manage in 4 City and
>> County Park recreation centers.  If you owe the State community
>> service time, then you can serve our 501(c)(3) mission to promote and
>> sustain FOSS by helping to set up our Free, donated, Gnu Linux
>> Edutainment Learning centers.  You can help to pick up or to deliver
>> donations.  Along the way you learn how kind and sharing those of us
>> who care of FOSS can be.
>>
>> If you are one of our 300 schools in Hawaii without enough
>> computers,or without enough knowledge, to bring the enterprise down to
>> your size, for free, then you have been helped by me and the HOSEF
>> volunteers.  The school project that gave birth to Fedora, now
>> K12Linux, is maintained to this day by me for the sole reason of
>> perpetuating the shining legacy that it should be.   In 2005 Hawaii
>> became the first K12 school system in the US to offer Linux+
>> certification to its students, and if you were in school then, you had
>> access to manuals and training due to the relationships I forged with
>> Novell and our DOE.  Lately, if you were Microsoft and you thought you
>> were going to get America's only centralized DOE to use MS Office
>> Live, then you were blindsided by how well-briefed and connected the
>> Google Apps Education Team was when they swept in out of nowhere with
>> a timely proposal.  You see, I am the 'linux guy' or 'that open source
>> guy' that all of these people turn to for help, for answers, for
>> support, and more, for free.
>>
>> If you are Richard Stallman, John Terpstra, Bruce Perens, Jon "maddog"
>> Hall, Larry Rosen, Allen Gunn, or Aaron Seigo, among others, then I or
>> someone kind to HOSEF has paid for you to come to Hawaii and join
>> guests like Andre Hill, CJ Coppersmith, Dave Pickens, Barton George,
>> Horst Herb, Jim Thompson, our City CIO, Hawaii Legislators, and
>> others, for our annual conference.  While here you might have joined
>> me at the Hilton Hawaiian Village where the world's A-List of Telecom
>> Executives - Boeing, France Telecom, ATT, Verizon, Rogers, China
>> Telcom, Korean Telcom, Orange, etc., etc., checked email and did their
>> conference web-browsing on an "e-waste" 30-station thin-client email
>> garden that I set up and supported for three years as a ubiquity test.
>>  FOSS passed in flying colors.  I did, and do, all this as a volunteer
>> service in reciprocity for the great software you help me use for
>> free.  I am hoping to inspire more creators with, and less users of,
>> Free and Open Source Software.  If I cannot pick up the developers
>> torch, then maybe they can.
>>
>> The projects I am working on now are bigger than any of this other
>> stuff.  I am disappointed, David, that you would personally pile on
>> like this without any awareness of or respect for the greater good
>> that I am working for.  I have admired your work using Opensuse and,
>> in particular, your indexing and compiling efforts of late.  I am
>> friend to all, and I am a defender of the newcomer, the newbie, the
>> person who wants to feel the vibe of Egoboo, and those who wish
>> someone was here to help.  Oh, and if you look at our website to find
>> most of this, you won't find it because I hate, no, I HATE, no,
>> actually, I kind of *HATE* the tedium of doing that kind of stuff and
>> have long wished for a Bard and a Scribe.
>>
>> I am not sure if this is "how its done", but it's what I do.  Last
>> year, in August, during Linuxworld 2008, I addressed my Edubuntu
>> issues with the most senior Canonical employees available at IBM's
>> reception at The W.  I set up meetings for Canonical/Ubuntu with the
>> University of Hawaii's CIO and the City and County of Honolulu's CIO
>> to catalyze a support-oriented relationship.  Canonical failed to
>> follow through.  Wherever you are, seriously, go get the CIO of your
>> State or your Country's leading University, and the CIO of America's
>> 11th largest City, to agree to meet with people from Canonical about
>> supporting a Desktop rollout only to get blown off.  Do this while
>> being the volunteer marketing and support department for Edubuntu and
>> FOSS in general, and do it for about 8 years straight, and you'll
>> appreciate why I find great offense that a volunteer in Ace came and
>> left and all I see, again, is the circling of the developer clique.
>>
>> With Aloha
>>
>> --scott
>
>
>
> --
>
> Stephen Leacock  - "I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I
> shall some day die, which is not so."