Thanks for answering the roll call. And now, a question.

[Paul Nelson]

On 4/17/07, Greg Dekoenigsberg <gdk at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007, Steve Hargadon wrote:
>
> snip......
>
> * Red Hat's ability to deliver.  Frankly, we're better able to deliver a
> thick client right now from a technology perspective.  Packaging and
> supporting K12LTSP is not our strength... at least not yet.


The plan for K12LTSP, from its inception, was to have it folded into  Red
Hat. At one time there was a channel in Red Hat Network for K12LTSP. Eric
Harrison has been working for a long time, releasing update after update of
K12LTSP based on first RH, then Fedora (as well as RHEL and CENTOS). He's
configured packaging to comply with RH standards so that whenever RH decides
it wants to make billions by distributing a viable thin-client to the world,
LTSP will be there, ready to go. (Don't forget Jim McQuillen's hard work
too.)

I think though that Eric is getting tired. You can only volunteer so much
time over so many years and then you start to get tired. He's not
complaining or saying it, but I see it. He has every right to be.

I have to give credit where it's due. RH helped send me and several groups
of high school kids to various conferences to show folks how K12LTSP worked.
We setup the first big FOSS/K12LTSP lab at NECC with RH's help. Now the open
source events at NECC are so large and so popular that vendors who have to
pay for their space are complaining. ;-^)  (Way to go Steve!!!)

Does RH support sendmail or do they rely on the sendmail user community to
support the product? They should just go ahead and include that "Terminal
Server" button in the normal Fedora and RHEL install and go for it. They
already host the K12OSN listserv. Put a couple of people on the payroll to
help flush out the K12LTSP support wiki and answer questions on the list.
Rebrand the product RH DesktopTerminalServer and combine it with
thick-client deployment and imaging support and just watch it take off.

There is a HUGE market waiting for the first Linux distributor who can bring
a viable desktop to the masses. Red Hat has navigated a clear path AWAY from
the desktop so far. They've even gone as far as to distance the desktop
product from their branded name by spawning off the Fedora project. Reading
tea leaves here but in doing this, they have a solid track record of
profitability with their server products and they have avoided making the
800lb. gorilla angry.

We need to have RH grow some cojones
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cojones>and find a way to address the
protocols issues (for sound and video over the
web) and deliver a product.

BTW, OLPC workstations would sell like hotcakes in US schools at $200 a pop.
Every household in the country would be buying them to use at home too. What
do you think would happen to the protocol standards if there were millions
of clients that were configured to use open standards in homes all over the
world?

One final note to the folks at RH... Don't underestimate the value of having
a loyal base of users in the education market. It saved Apple from certain
ruin during their dark years. You have a chance here to make huge inroads in
US and international markets by putting out a solid suite of desktop
solutions aimed at the K12 market.

;-) Paul
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