Commercial involvement of SLX Debian Labs in Debian Edu market (was: Re: Week 30 report of Knut Yrvin. Week 31 plans)
Today there has been a thread on the mailing lists about various
projects and tasks that it seems SLX Debian Labs is involved in, and
that some of the project developers and others might get involved with
as well. I am not impressed by the lack of answers to explicit questions
that have been asked.
It seems that SLX Debian Labs, which is a foundation funded by another
foundation as far as I understand, and which has paid the lions share of
the money spent on the project so far, is about to get or already has an
agreement with "a large private Application Service Provider" which is
setting up a "day-to-day operation center of operating many
Skolelinux-installations at schools in different municipalities".
If this is correct, then I think SLX Debian Labs should come clean about
this and explain what this agreement really is, and with which company.
There has always been pressure from people in the core of the Debian Edu
project to keep information in the open, also when this information is
commercial. There are several companies that have contributed either
directly, or through their employees, to the development and spreading
of the solution, in various stages of the project. There is also an
option to become a support member of the Skolelinux organisation, which,
to my knowledge, is necessary in order to use the Skolelinux name and
logo commercially.
My own employer has a number of customers that we support on Debian Edu.
Others are in the same situation. This means there is a market for
providing various solutions, products and services based on Debian Edu.
SLX Debian Labs should acknowledge this and explain what is going on. As
things now stand there is considerable uncertainty, and should SLX
Debian Labs become involved with a single large ASP this will tilt the
level playing field considerably.
--
Med vennlig hilsen
Ragnar Wisløff
LinuxLabs AS
Tlf 90 89 41 52
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