NYC LOCAL: Friday through Sunday 6-8 February 2009 FLOSSify: Freeing up the Digital Foundations textbook

[secretary]

<blockquote
  what="official FLOSSify announcement"
  via="Fred Benenson of Free Culture"
  where="http://eyebeam.org
         540 W. 21st Street,
         New York, NY 10011
         between 10th and 11th Avenues,
         on the Island of the Manahattoes,
         Tel. 212.937.6580 Fax: 212.937.6582"
  when="three days starting Friday 6 February 2009,
        at 10:00 am"
  on-facebook="If you do not wish to use Facebook,
               write directly to
               Michael Mandiberg <mandiberg@gmail.com>"
  exhortation="Come one down and help!"
  observation="There will be food and drink."
  note="This front is important.
        The Englobulators occupy many classrooms today
        without serious opposition.
        Every free textbook is, in the hands of
        our fighters, a weapon."
  edits="one typo fixed">

 Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 15:35:54 -0500
 Subject: FLOSSify NYC
 From: Fred Benenson <fred.benenson@gmail.com>

 Hi free software friends,
   My friend Michael is organizing an event this weekend to help
 "port" his newly published book from proprietary systems like
 Adobe to FLOSS tools like GIMP. He wants a strong turnout from
 the NYC Linux crowd, so I figured I'd forward it to you in case
 you knew of people in NYC who might be interested in
 attending. Feel free to drop him a line, I've CC'd him above.

 More information & fwd below ...

 F


 ---

 Hello all

 We are FLOSSing Digital Foundations next weekend.  We need help, and we want
 to do it *together.*  We need people of all levels, from the GIMP guru, to
 the Ubuntu n00b to test it all.

 Digital Foundations uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach design
 software.  It was written for the Adobe Creative Suite, but on Feb 6, 7, 8
 we are going to translate it to FLOSS apps with FLOSSmanuals.  For more on
 the book, and why this translation is so important, see the description
 below.

 We are trying to get people to register via FB:

 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=56609462816

 And to sign up on the wiki with their potential role

 http://wiki.digital-foundations.net/index.php?title=February_FLOSS_Registration

 I hope to see you there.  And I hope you can spread the word.  By the end of
 the weekend, we'll have the first decent primer in FLOSS software!

 please forward widely

 m


 FULL EXPLANATION:

 FLOSSIFY 1 : Digital Foundations

 For a long time educational courses have been cheap marketing
 for proprietary software companies. Can a student really afford all
 those expensive softwares required by the courses? No. Ever hear of a
 software company kicking up a fuss because students are using
 'unofficial' versions?  Well, it does happen but not often. And why not?
 Because proprietary software companies know, as the universities know,
 that once the students leave their training they will be indoctrinated
 with those tools and simply slipstream into being paid up proprietary
 software citizens. Simply put, unlicensed software used in education is
 tolerated because it is cheap marketing.

 This is how tools become 'industry standards'.

 FLOSS Manuals is fighting this flow by converting textbooks that
 use proprietary software to using free software in their examples.

 We call this process "FLOSSify". We convert the book from
 closed software to Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) hence we
 'FLOSSify' the book.

 Our first text book is the wonderful Digital Foundations book
 produced by Michael Mandiberg and xtine
 burrough (http://digital-foundations.net/). Its a text book designed to
 teach software by teaching design. The current toolset it uses is the
 Adobe Creative Suite and we will convert these examples entirely to
 using free software.

 Not only have the authors given the kind permission to go ahead with
 this, they originated the idea and approached FLOSS Manuals to be
 involved. We are very happy to get behind this initiative and work with
 the authors to create a fantastic text book promoting the use of Free
 and Open Source Software within design courses.

 FLOSSIFY 1 : Digital Foundations will focus on a fun 3 day event at
 Eyebeam, NYC. Anyone is welcome to attend and some food and beer will be
 provided. Come and meet some of your old geek friends, make some new,
 and help make a step towards unshackling education from proprietary
 software.

 FLOSSIFY 1 : Digital Foundations
 Eyebeam, NYC
 RSVP here http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=56609462816
 Feb 6-8
 starts 10ish
 finishes when we are done
 fast connection, a table, some chairs, and beer and food provided



 http://eyebeam.org/
 540 W. 21st Street, (between 10th and 11th Avenues)
 New York, NY 10011
 Tel. 212.937.6580 Fax: 212.937.6582


 ~ ~ ~
 thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog
 work / http://creativecommons.org
 sights / http://flickr.com/fcb
 sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis
 status / http://twitter.com/mecredis

</blockquote>


Distributed poC TINC:

Jay Sulzberger <secretary@lxny.org>
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York's Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org