USF St. Petersburg Linux Users Group

Fall 2008: Computing with a Porpoise

where: TBA

when: Monday, September 15

The theme for this year is set up with the intention of involving the Group in an effort to promote FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) on campus as part of a broad-based multidisciplinary initiative towards shifting to a more sustainable educational computing paradigm. The group will provide submissions to the University's Science & Tech and Sustainability committees, and interface actively with the student body at large to promote open source as a viable solution to many of the economic, technological,and even environmental challenges facing the University community today.

“Computing with a Porpoise” begins from this premise: by taking advantage of the new resources available to us we can make a real difference on our campus. We can contribute to the development of a computer policy that is sane, sustainable, and unfettered by vendor lock-in and site license restrictions. Our new Terminal Server Lab in Davis 280 allows us a venue to pilot open source software, an opportunity that will eventually lead to broader deployment of open source machines across campus. Students in Special Topics classes and First Year Composition classes  will beta test applications for potential wider use.

This change in direction is ultimately a request for help from the local Linux community, and in this spirit, we would like each of you to find a piece of software that would be useful to the school and let us know with a quick email what it is and where to download it so that we can put our student beta testers to work sooner rather than later.