[02:25] <bkerensa> pleia2: ahh really? it would be cool if you guys got the venue
[03:43] <pleia2> bkerensa: they have the date available, I sent off the details last night so we'll see if it'll work out :)
[03:44] <bkerensa> pleia2: :P did u tell them you will requiree artisan pizza and a keg? :D
[03:47] <pleia2> hah, no, I need a projector and the ability to eat in the space we're using (I am planning on buying)
[03:47] <pleia2> so that's all I asked for ;)
[17:33] <akk> Oh no, another anti charter school person (on bay area LUG lists) ... is there some rabid anti charter school NRA-style lobbying group I hadn't heard of?
[17:33] <akk> (re partimus)
[17:34] <pleia2> people who dislike charter schools do tend to be pretty opinionated
[17:34] <pleia2> so I'd say yes
[17:35] <pleia2> I try not to get involved with the conversation :)
[17:35] <akk> I don't get it. I can understand disliking religious charter schools that get public money and then don't teach academic subjects.
[17:35] <akk> But that's obviously not what schools like KIPP do.
[17:35] <akk> I WANT my tax money going to schools that take disadvantaged kids and help them academically (and let folks like you and Christian give them Linux boxes!)
[17:36] <pleia2> they would rather see all schools be uniform and money used to improve all of them, not do experiments in non-profit organized charter schools that are more loosely organized
[17:37] <pleia2> I understand their viewpoint, but we've tried to improve public schools for years, it didn't work, experiments at charter schools are an interesting approach in our imperfect world
[17:37] <akk> I can see wanting all schools to improve (of course we all want that).
[17:38] <akk> But a small volunteer group can only help one school at a time.
[17:38] <pleia2> and partimus can't get into proper public schools, no one can, they have too much red tape and bureaucratic and funding bickering :\
[17:38] <akk> I'm not going to rail against Partimus because they're helping schools in SF and not schools in SJ, or whatever.
[17:39] <akk> Yeah :(
[17:39] <akk> It's sad how resistant most schools are to accepting help.
[17:39] <pleia2> and so people end up getting cranky at partimus because we're supporting these charter schools, when clearly we should actually be spending all our time lobbying to fix real public schools
[17:39] <pleia2> "you first" I say :)
[17:40] <akk> I was going to say, don't hear THEM doing that lobbying. :)
[17:40] <pleia2> I'll do what I am good at and am passionate about
[17:40] <pleia2> it's not like we reject helping proper public schools, we are in a library of one
[17:40] <pleia2> would be great to do more
[17:40] <akk> Your time is far better spent actually putting computers in schools that will accept them than it would be lobbying for other schools to accept help.
[17:41] <pleia2> agreed
[17:41] <akk> Rick & co never bring up these issues that could be rebutted, they just get all hung up on the word "public" and stop there.
[17:42] <akk> I guess Christian could stop pushing that hot button if he wanted to by saying "a free charter school" instead of "a public charter school".
[17:42] <pleia2> I learned pretty quick not to ever argue with Rick :)
[17:43] <akk> Yeah, me too.
[17:43] <pleia2> yeah, I mentioned that to Christian a couple weeks ago, he was non-commital in his reply (he did drop "public" from the subject line at least this time)
[17:56] <bkerensa> akk: idk I think lobbying is the only way we will get other schools interested into opening up to FOSS.... I know a teacher who recently had trouble with printing on Windows and I helped her and then suggested she get some Edubuntu workstations in her classroom
[17:57] <bkerensa> and now she is looking into it
[17:59] <akk> bkerensa: I'd love to see people who are good at lobbying doing that to improve all schools ... but I don't think Pleia and Christian should stop doing Partimus to go do lobbying instead. :)
[18:00] <bkerensa> akk: Likely not... I also don't think Ubuntu or most distros have any platform for lobbying anyways :)
[18:00] <akk> It takes so much time, money and political savvy to get anything done through lobbying. :(
[18:00] <bkerensa> I however did talk to our likely mayoral candidate here in Portland who has assured everyone if he goes into office he would bring more Open Source to city agencies
[18:01] <akk> Nice!
[18:01] <bkerensa> and one of our Secretary of State Candidates said he would eliminate Microsoft from all SOS functions
[18:01] <pleia2> Christian is the talker who gets us into schools at all, and he's attended some political things from time to time, but it's very much not something I'm skilled at :)
[18:01] <bkerensa> all propritary software in fact
[18:02] <akk> pleia2: I'm in awe of Christian's ability to get these computers into any schools, even charter ones.
[18:02] <pleia2> there is an open source policy here in California, but I haven't seen it make change in schools yet (schools are complicated)
[18:02] <akk> What is the CA open source policy?
[18:03] <bkerensa> http://www.cio.ca.gov/Government/IT_Policy/pdf/IT_Policy_Letter_10-01_Open_Source_Software.pdf
[18:03] <darthrobot> Content type: [application/pdf] Size: [86446]
[18:03] <pleia2> yeah, that one
[18:03] <bkerensa> Aside from the Datacenters
[18:03] <pleia2> http://opensource.org/node/497 is tl;dr :)
[18:03] <darthrobot> Title: [California's new Open Source policy rings in the New Year | Open Source Initiative]
[18:03] <bkerensa> I can say with confidence that not a single state agency uses open source on any workstations
[18:04] <bkerensa> they mostly run Windows 2000 or XP with Novell GroupWare
[18:04] <bkerensa> highly outdated IE
[18:04] <bkerensa> =/
[18:04] <akk> So it's really only permitted as an acceptable practice, not encouraged.
[18:04] <pleia2> federal agencies are much better at adopting open source than local and state, but there are some pretty major people pushing it in several federal agencies
[18:04] <bkerensa> But you can use personal laptops with Ubuntu for work
[18:04] <akk> (But that's a start, anyway!)
[18:05] <bkerensa> my cousin brought her netbook up which I put 12.04 on and she might start using in the field
[18:05] <pleia2> we have a NASA guy coming to our SF Ubuntu Hour next month, and they've host an open source summit the past few years
[18:05] <bkerensa> she works for Fish and Game as a Biologist
[18:05] <pleia2> and it's well known that the NSA uses linux all over the place
[18:05] <akk> Yeah, NASA uses some open source sw
[18:05] <akk> though mostly they don't opensource stuff they do themselves (some groups do).
[18:06] <bkerensa> Yeah my friend was on the team that built curiosity and he said they use 90% open source in the labs
[18:06] <bkerensa> they have their own distro
[18:06] <akk> It seems to be by group -- they allow it if people in the group push for it
[18:06] <pleia2> https://sites.google.com/site/openmct/ is the software our visitor from NASA open sourced
[18:06] <darthrobot> Title: [Open Mission Control Technologies]
[18:06] <akk> but a lot of the JPL groups are very proprietary-minded.
[18:07] <bkerensa> fortunately JPL hasn't sent anything to space in recent years
[18:07] <bkerensa> :P
[18:08] <pleia2> (the "contact us" on that site goes to a nasa address)
[18:09] <pleia2> so some of their groups are trying to release too :)
[18:09] <bkerensa> I thought it was funny the news media made so much chatter about the people in the NASA control room and the guy with the mohawk
[18:09] <bkerensa> my friend was like... "They do pretty much nothing"
[18:10] <akk> I guess because they're the people you can see doing work on NASA TV?
[18:10] <akk> NASA TV probably doesn't show programmers writing the code years the launch. :)
[18:11] <akk> There was a fun LA Times article a week or so ago about the teams who (write the code to) drive the rover.
[18:11] <bkerensa> akk: yeah
[18:11] <bkerensa> it also doesn't show the actual MSL Team that built Curiosity
[18:11] <bkerensa> :)
[18:12] <bkerensa> people like this https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/311706_10151165761545609_804757913_n.jpg
[18:12] <darthrobot> Content type: [image/jpeg] Size: [62417]
[18:12] <bkerensa> ;p