[Marketing] A letter to the governor of CA

[David Farning]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 2:28 AM, Bryan Berry<bryan at olenepal.org> wrote:
> 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.

Yep, anyone can use Sugar for anything!  The GPL will protect the code
and the Sugar Labs community will protect our values

> 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.

Yep again.

> OK, I have to get back to QA now

I am rather hesitant for Sugar Labs to directly engage in the textbook battle.

My first concern is that it is going to be a hot button issue with
several stakeholders with very strong interests in protecting the
status quo.  Rather than engage them directly, I think we want to
continue to focus on uniting partners and providing them with a great
learning platform.

Continue existing focus.  There are millions of things that _should_
be done.  As an organization, Sugar Labs only has so many resources.
Sometime the hardest things we can do both personally and
professional, as an organization, is to say, 'No, I don't have the
resources to take that on right now.'

There are other organizations working on this.  Let's help them where
we can can by providing them a good open source platform on which to
build.

david

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