Urgent: Fedora Electronic Lab + Educational SW

[Sebastian Dziallas]

Danishka Navin wrote:
> Chitlesh GOORAH wrote:
>> Let's use the Fedora education mailing list, instead of cross posting.

+1 :)

>> On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 8:54 PM, Danishka Navin < danishka gmail com > 
>> wrote:
>>  
>>>>> Math, Arts, Science, Language/English, Computer, Geography, Accounts,
>>>>> Electronics, etc
>>>>> for age range of 6 to 18 students and teachers of them.
>>>>>         
>>>> Okey dokey, this sounds really like a beginning. I think we should also
>>>> evaluate, which applications we're going to include, since it 
>>>> doesn't really
>>>> make sense to flood the spin with e.g. three geometry programs, right?
>>>>
>>>>       
>>> for the Fedora Edu Spin single geometry program is enough but for a
>>> 'geometry' spin we can add all geometry programs.
>>> That's what Chitlesh doing  for the FEL.
>>> He is selecting all Electronic programs, but we can select only best 
>>> suited
>>> program(s).

Yep! "Best suited programs" sounds good to me. Unfortunately, somebody 
needs to define, what is best suited. But this sounds again like a 
beginning... ;)

>> Well it is not exactly what I am doing for electronics.
>> For electronics, I'm focussing on bringing opensource electronics
>> simulation software from the "geek planet" to the more industrial or
>> university level.
>> Thereby there are some set of rules of maintenance of the FEL Livedvd.
>> Example: ST Microelectronics is using Fedora in its design centres.
>> That is why I'm pushing the mindset of FEL contributors to a more
>> professional orientation.
>> In other words, we are not packagers anymore but CAD engineers for
>> fedora. Since big EDA vendors are on the edge of opensourcing some of
>> their tools (read my blog for more details). I'm hoping that with FEL
>> established ground we can help them opt for an opensource license.
>> Just a win-win situation for the global opensource communities.
>>
>> Hence FEL's roadmap is to reduce the gap of data exchange and tools
>> from the commercial and open source environment. Unfortunately there
>> is no perfect EDA tool. But having concrete and latest research data
>> on silicon, we can improve our ASIC tools. If FEL ships outdated tools
>> with respect to the technological race and not to package versions,
>> then FEL has missed its goals.
>>
>>   
> 
> Thanks for your  update.
>> I hope I didn't lose you. I believe that a single Fedora Edu Spin
>> should be more educational oriented (8-18 years).
>>
>> I guess for edu-spin one has to establish or Identify the real needs
>> (in the real world, not on 'geek planet') and ways to solve/satisfy
>> that need. We need a leader for the edu-spin who has "education" in
>> mind.
>>   
> Recently I had a descution with Chief Project Officer of the National 
> Institute of Education Sri Lanka.
> He is very much interest on Fedora as it a FOSS product.
> He asked about availability of all kind educational software for school 
> students and teachers.
> I can get their support for the userTesting/ feedback but this is from a 
> specific region.

That would be great! I think any kind of feedback would be helpful, 
since it would aid to get an idea of what is really needed.

> Apart from education software itself we have to add localization effort 
> to make it more convenient for all regions.
> I think more than 70 languages working for the Fedora l10n.
> 
> Danishka

Well, I think we need to have a concept of what to include and what not 
to include. We need to be kind of careful about selecting applications.

But nevertheless, I think you're right: We also need to offer some kind 
of localization, since we don't want to exclude non-English-speaking 
countries, right?

On the other hand, we also need to think about the size: Do we really 
want a DVD image? In some places, DVDs might be too expensive to use.

I've still some stuff around here from the days of Fedora 8, when I 
started working on such a spin. It might be worth looking at over the 
holidays. I'll dig into this and hopefully come up with some ideas.

Happy holidays everyone and have a merry Christmas!

--Sebastian