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Re: RFA: The Debian Jr. project





On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 10:30 AM, Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> wrote:
Hi Ben,

On Monday 25 August 2008 11:38, Ben Armstrong wrote:
> Thanks.  It's hard to let go, but it's really for the best if someone
> else will carry on.

Yup. Has something happened on this in the last month?

> > Is that vision written down somewhere?
> It is probably best expressed on http://wiki.debian.org/DebianJr quoted
> below:

Sounds good and compatible :)

> > Because I often think, that Debian Jr. could be(come a) part of Debian
> > Edu. In Etch Debian Edu came with one preconfigured desktop (which is KDE
> > and rather aimed at older students), but now we are in the process of
> > merging with Linex and they have used three (iirc) different gnome
> > desktops (configurations), one for 1st+2nd grade, one for 3rd+4th grade
> > and another one for older students. I'd say that Debian Jr fits in the
> > 0th+1st grade "category" ;-)
> >
> > What do you think?
>
> While I would not have any problem with that if Edu cared for the
> project and preserved the vision I described above, I have always
> felt my own ideas for Jr had nothing to do with school and might indeed
> by swallowed up by school concerns if we were an arm of the Debian Edu
> project.  That is why I kept it a distinct project.

/me nods.

That said, I dont see much of a problem here, or maybe rather, an easy way
out: Debian Edu provides two key features: customisation of the desktop for
pupils/schools and providing a network infrastructure for schools. Debian Jr.
doesnt need the latter at all (or? kindergarten network seems a bit far out
to me atm, maybe its not), but thats no issue, as Debian Edu also already has
standalone installs.

And we even have different desktop profiles for standalone installs now: kde,
gnome and sugar. And I would love to extend this to "kde for primary school,
kde for middle classes, kde for high school and university" and the same with
gnome. And then also kde & gnome for kids.

I'd think this would boil down to provide a different installer image or
installation type with the existing image. So basically, a Debian Edu install
with "less overhead", which is not needed for a single^wstandalone kids
machine.

> But we're in poor
> shape right now, and the most important thing is that the project go
> forward.  How would you propose the distinctiveness of Jr be kept?

See above :)

> How
> do you think children would view Jr if it were an arm of the Edu
> project?  In Debian Jr, our focus is the child and the fun of
> discovery.  While some progressive educationists claim to hold to these
> values, I worry about how kids would view the Jr project if it were
> absorbed into Edu.

Hm. Honestly, I have no idea how kids see Debian Jr. now, maybe I wonder if
they can see it, as currently afaik its "only" a packaging effort within
Debian, so I dont think it's visible to them. Do you agree? ;)

Basically, to keep Debian Jr. distinct, I would suggest branding :)


regards,
       Holger

So, Debian Jr will be included into Debian Edu?

--
Atte,
Maximiliano Marin
http://blogs.opensur.org/maximilinux
 

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