[Marketing] A letter to the governor of CA

[Bryan Berry]

On Wed, 2009-06-10 at 09:12 +0200, Sean DALY wrote:
> Yes, I want to be opportunistic about this.
> 
> At the very least we can raise visibility for Sugar.
> 
> Our reading offer is a little fragmented (Read, Read ETexts, FBReader?
> InfoSlicer for assembling content) but that's not really a problem.
> 
> Where we might hit a bump is publishers insisting on DRM schemes or suchlike.
> 
> Sean

Then don't accept their DRM code into the Sugar tree. Make them maintain
their own branch or write their freedom-hating code on top of Sugar. 

We have to be agnostic on letting people or companies use Sugar for
their own purposes, whether learning physics or worshipping the devil.
The core first step to advancing Open-Source is getting people to use
it. Only once they are using it can we help them understand the
open-source philosophy, before then it is likely to fall on deaf ears.

The key to selling Sugar and Open-Source in general to the private
sector -- the guys who __will__ win these contracts, is to convince them
they need to move from selling education products to selling education
services. If they still have the mindset of selling "textbooks" digital
or otherwise, it will be impossible to sell them on open-source. But if
we sell them providing educational services to states and counties,
open-source will be an asset to them. 

OK, I have to get back to QA now


-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Technology Director
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org