[Glastonbury] meeting tomorrow

[Martin WHEELER]

On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, s~TV wrote:

> i have sent in a general blurb about the use of linux and open source at
> school as well as LUGOG. anything else you may want to add needs to be
> said tomorrow eveening to the reporter.
> let's be "OPEN"
> what does this group mean to you?

Quite a lot.  The chance to meet and exchange experiences with
like-minded folks; a physical venue where there are the facilities to do
things I might not attempt elsewhere.

> anyway below is the .txt of what was sent.

Ummm.  Only comments I have to make are the techie ones -- principally
that Linux is a _kernel_, not a whole operating system.  (Much of the
GNU applications software was already out there and developed before
Linus ever started trying to do something a little better than minix --
it just didn't have a free kernel to run on at the time.  The Hurd was
also just a theoretical idea at that point.  And yes, I'm very aware
that the general public can't grasp the difference, and probably doesn't
give two hoots anyway, and that journos are even less disposed to
technical exactitude; but still, I think it behoves us as a group to be
as precise as we can, whatever the popular misconceptions and
generalisations may be.)
Also I think the difference between 'free' and 'open source' has been
blurred more than it should, which is a shame.  (The term 'open source'
hadn't even been coined when Linus first released any code -- he was
quite adamant that he was producing 'free' code.)

Nevertheless, thanks for getting out any text at all for the Garotte to
mangle -- presumably we can corner Christian tomorrow night, and educate
him proper?

> i expect they will chop and change.

I expect they will convert into total garbage (but then I'm a gross
cynic where the press is concerned :)


You haven't any figures have you Steve on how many teachers' salaries
the County's annual spend on M$ licences would cover?  *That*'s the
sort of thing that grabs a journo's sense of the dramatic and the
over-exaggerated -- shall we just feed him the information that if
Somerset stopped paying the annual American Computer Tax to Microsoft,
they would be able to employ another *seventy* teachers?
(I don't care if the figures are made up -- he's a journo, he'll publish
it :)


[ Oh -- and I pronounce it 'Linn-uks' myself.  Like Linus. ]


> In September an evening course all about Linux is due to run as part of
> the Adult Education programme at the school. Get in touch with the
> Leisure Centre if you are interested.

? Got any further details?

[ Andy has just sent me a reply to your posting Steve, so I'll bang it
off to the group along with this one. ]
-- 
Martin Wheeler   -   StarTEXT / AVALONIX - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
mwheeler@startext.co.uk                http://www.startext.co.uk/mwheeler/
GPG pub key : 01269BEB  6CAD BFFB DB11 653E B1B7 C62B  AC93 0ED8 0126 9BEB
      - Share your knowledge. It's a way of achieving immortality. -