[K12OSN] SchoolTool Installation/Possible Inclusion with K12LTSP

[Tom Hoffman]

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:46:33 -0600, Greg Hovland
<greg.hovland at hopelhs.org> wrote:
> > First off, I should explain that "SchoolBell" is essentially
> > SchoolTool's group/organization calendaring functionality without any
> > school-specific references.  All subsequent versions of SchoolTool
> > will be based on the SchoolBell 1.0 code.  The SchoolTool 0.x line is
> > an evolutionary dead end, so I strongly urge you to download
> > SchoolBell 1.0 from http://schooltool.org/schoolbell  We hope to have
> > ported our school-specific calendaring functionality to the new
> > platform in about six weeks.
> 
> Will SchoolTool continue to do all the administrative/database/gradebook
> things besides the calendar?

Actually, SchoolTool 0.x didn't do a heck of a lot beyond calendar and
schedule related functionality anyhow.  After SchoolTool Calendar
later in the spring, we're shooting for a September release of
SchoolTool 1.0, which will include more student information system
functionality, and then a full SchoolTool SIS release in about a year.

If it seems like this project is moving slowly, it is because much
depends on our getting the basic architecture right.  One reason that
no open source SIS's have taken hold on a significant scale is that it
is often easier to just write your own SIS that fits your school's
needs exactly with LAMP, Filemaker, FoxPro, etc. that in is to figure
out someone else's system, decide that it is actually trustworthy, and
learn how to reliably modify it to fit your needs.  If we don't have a
very carefully designed and documented foundation, nobody will want to
bother building other stuff on it.

--Tom