Re: RFA: The Debian Jr. project
On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:15:39 +0200
Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> wrote:
> thanks for your work on Debian Jr. and for acknowledging that you don't have
> time/a heart for it anymore!
Thanks. It's hard to let go, but it's really for the best if someone
else will carry on.
> Is that vision written down somewhere?
It is probably best expressed on http://wiki.debian.org/DebianJr quoted
below:
Guiding Principles
We aim to help children and those who care for them to get the most use
and enjoyment out of their Debian systems; to help them acquire some of
the skills and experiences we have as adults; and to convey to them our
values: our love of freedom, our appreciation for software that works
well, and our strong sense of community.
That is to say, we do not aim to diminish or limit Debian to
"domesticate" it for little people, but to give them the best of what
Debian has to offer so they will grow to the point where they no longer
need our help.
Behind every child user of Debian, we assume there is at least one
older person who uses Debian and helps them with it: a guide, a mentor,
a parent, a relative, a friend. So these people are our users too. It
would be too easy to treat them as our primary audience. After all,
they are the ones reading this web page. They are the ones installing
and maintaining the system. However, they also have other places to get
support in the broader community of Debian and free software. In
thinking about where our energies should be focused, then, we place
children first and their guides second.
> 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. 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? 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.
Ben
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