[Savannah-hackers] Educational textbook projects

[Richard Stallman]

It is ok to host free educational textbook projects
on Savannah under nongnu.org, just like free software projects.
In particular, it is ok to host this project, if you have
resources to do so.


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Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 19:45:42 +0200
From: atmk <address@hidden>
To: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: Request for hosting  "Free Education - Mathematics - Cyprus" 
project!
Reply-To: atmk <address@hidden>
Content-Description: Re: Request for hosting  "Free Education - Mathematics - 
Cyprus" project!
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On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 09:57:44AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
>    > For a long time i have been considering launching a
>    > *free educational project* in order to expose to the *gnu philosophy*,
> 
> If you do this, I hope you will say "free" in Greek, and use the word
> that means free as in freedom.  Since English is more vague here than
> other languages, it is generally better use the clearer words that
> other languages have.

Sure, its my intention to make it clear that we mean "free as in freedom"
and its easy to state this in Greek since there are 2 different words
one that clearly means "free as in free beer" (dwrean) and one that states
"free as in freedom" (eleutheria) which i will use.
 


> Could you tell me more about the practical scope of the project?  Are
> you planning to develop free course materials for academic subjects?

Yes *free curriculum* + *free textbooks* for mathematics at the level of
Cyprus high school in Greek. I am teaching it at a public (government) school.
To give you the general idea here i paste my submission to savannah:

 ----- begin-quote -----
 Sat, 23 Nov 2002 15:59:43 -0500
 A package was submitted to savannah.nongnu.org
 atmk <address@hidden> described the package as follows:

 License: fdl
 Other License:
 Package: Free-Education-Mathematics-Cyprus
 System name: mathcy
 Type: non-GNU

 A *free education non-profit project* promotimg the idea of *free
 curriculum* and *free textbooks* for Mathematics in Cyprus secondary
 education. It will consist of analytic modularized components +
 quality textbooks containing related theory, examples, figures,
 exercises, etc. It will be using *TeX/LateX* for text/math and
 *Metapost* for diagrams/graphs/figures. It will create content with
 the aims to help students practice self-studying and most importanly
 promote *freedom in education in the GNU spirit*. It will be under the
 *gfdl* (gnu free documentation licence) and will be using the Greek
 language for the free curriculum and textbooks. Home-page will provide
 a summary in English.
 It does not exist yet but I\'m working on it.
 Other Software Required:
 Other Comments:
 ----- end-quote -----



>
> I think we are now hosting another project on Savannah to do just that.
>

a) I know, it was submitted about the same time as my project and in fact
   the guys at savvannah sent me a message that my project was approved
   confusing your approval of the other similar project some days before. :-)
   But now they told me to ask you if you would host it as a special case,
   which i do.

b) the 2 projects are similar but they serve different needs. My project
   will be aiming a specific subject (math) which i know better and will
   produce content that will be best for Greek students to understand in their
   native language. The other project is trying to play all roles if i got it
   right.

c) it's my feeling that would be better if there were specific projects that
   would do a better job and be unified through a web page at www.gnu.org
   (like www.gnu.org/education) giving a more international/global trend to
   the whole thing.

d) of course similar projects can co-operate in many ways to avoid redanduncy.



> 
>     Please refer to
>     http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/savannah-hackers/2002-November/013363.html
>     http://mail.gnu.org/pipermail/savannah-hackers/2002-November/013545.html
>     threads for the details.
> 
> I could send mail to fetch those specific URLs, but how about if
> you email me directly the text you think I should read?
> 
 
the quote above and ps below are the most important. ;-)

ps: it would be an *honour* to have the project on savannah.
    As a second alternative i consider sourceforge.net but been
    a supporter of the *free software movement* and not opensource
    one, i wonder if i can trust them and their legal stuff
    (changing all the time ...). If your answer is negative can
    you please suggest a better place to host my project?


-- 
--
"He who gives up *freedom*
 for *ease of use* loses
 both and deserves neither."
           -- www.gnu.org --
--