[Savannah-register-public] [task #7027] Submission of Learn GNU/Linux Shell Online

[TinkerTim]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/task/?7027>

                 Summary: Submission of Learn GNU/Linux Shell Online
                 Project: Savannah Administration
            Submitted by: e2point71828
            Submitted on: Saturday 06/23/2007 at 09:56
         Should Start On: Saturday 06/23/2007 at 00:00
   Should be Finished on: Tuesday 07/03/2007 at 00:00
                Category: Project Approval
                Priority: 5 - Normal
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
        Percent Complete: 0%
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                  Effort: 0.00

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Details:

A new project has been registered at Savannah 
This project account will remain inactive until a site admin approves or
discards the registration.


= Registration Administration =

While this item will be useful to track the registration process, *approving
or discarding the registration must be done using the specific Group
Administration
<https://savannah.gnu.org/siteadmin/groupedit.php?group_id=9352> page*,
accessible only to site administrators, effectively *logged as site
administrators* (superuser):

* Group Administration
<https://savannah.gnu.org/siteadmin/groupedit.php?group_id=9352>


= Registration Details =

* Name: *Learn GNU/Linux Shell Online*
* System Name:  *lglso*
* Type: non-GNU software & documentation
* License: GNU Free Documentation License (This document is licensed under
the GNU Free Documentation License Version 1.2, available at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt, OR, AT YOUR (EACH INDIVIDUAL USER)
OPTION, ANY LATER VERSION OF THE SAME LICENSE.)

----

==== Description: ====
Hi GNUs,

LICENSE:

This document is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License Version
1.2, available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt, OR AT YOUR (EACH
INDIVIDUAL USER) OPTION ANY LATER VERSION OF THE SAME LICENSE.

TEXT:

Informally,
we probably need to make learning shell commands possible without even having
to install it. People don't want the hassle of backing up, installing and then
learning GL (=GNU/Linux). Also, we need to remove the "download" burden so
that people having low-speed internet access also are able to learn shell
also without going through the hassle of getting a CD/DVD and again the
tedium.
As everyone likes to say these days, learning shell commands should "work out
of the box".

Another term would be On-Demand GL Shell Learning (odglsl?)

Short and sweet: Gnu/Linux Online Learning (glol?)

Formally,
The "Gnu/Linux Online Learning" Project Idea Document.

Purpose:
1. To reclaim the desktop from a poorly designed, deliberately
malfunctioning, incorrigible Operating System from a commercial-minded
monopoly-loving ruthless corporation.

2. To that end, this document aims to elaborate the possible paths that can
be chosen to make (fake) replicas of shells of Operating systems like 
(a)Gnu/Linux 
(b)Gnu-Hurd 
(c)Derivative OSes based on these two
available to everyone through the internet/world wide web mechanism for
teaching everyone shell command syntax. 

This list of OSes does not yet (23-June-2007) include GNU-Darwin since the
author knows very little about the Apple(TM) point of view and the extent of
its monopolistic inclinations.

Details:

Technology:

The best technology to be used to achieve this end is a collection of
tool-chains, libraries, languages and platforms used by what is commonly
referred to as Web2.0, which includes HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX. 
The caveat is that Microsoft(TM) Corporation, some people claim, invented
AJAX technology by means of XML HTTP Request mechanism. If that be true,
(I)frames or Mozilla XUL can be used for this purpose - evolving new
*completely free (freedom)* standards, proof-of-concept programs and
implementing them can be done very quickly by the participation of the global
free software community.

People participation:

The best people to refine this document are (in correct order)

(a) those that lead the Free Software Foundation and Movement, namely RMS,
Eben Moglen and others, 

(b) those who have helped bring this wonderful technology to the masses -
Linus, his team, everyone who sent a patch, Michael Tiemann (and his
organization, RedHat Linux) who is the commercial entity behind making Linux
heard through the otherwise biased global media, 

(c) those that have made it attractive to everyone without falling to lowly
"patent agreements" - Ubuntu, Mandriva

(d) those who have decided to spread GL's knowledge although while doing
business - owners of all GNU/Linux-related websites, authors of blogs that
support Free Software and use alternative media to make GL popular by beating
the traditional mean media at their game,

(e) the friendly neighbourhood youngsters who help GL adoption by taking time
off from their studies, play or girlfriends/boyfriends and help more and more
people use GL on the desktop thus contributing in small part their share to
alleviation of poverty and illiteracy, thus bringing the power of knowledge
to the masses.

All of these people are invited to shape this document and the possible
resultant multitude of projects.

Everyone is invited, except anybody who wants to and tries to strike down
this Project by using misleading people using terms like "Software Patents"
and "Intellectual Property" as a weapon to protect their _unreasonable_
monopolistic commercial interests.

Economics:

To ensure that nobody who earns his livelihood from teaching GL shell to the
public (with ot without a fee) is harmed by this project,  more than one
"business models" need to be studied.
One addition that comes to mind straightaway is the use of VOIP and
video-chat technology in conjunction with such a web application. Even
telephone support while simultaneously working on the shell training at
hand.

The commercial angle could be handled by a micropayments system. The
all-important currency exchange rate determination is crucial to this system.

The two options that follow are: 

(1) allow each country to host its own version of this system, charging at
rates that are consistent with local lifestyle. This will mean that no single
global player should try to wrest users from all countries. This prevents
"outsourcing problems" and "too expensive services" for poorer countries.

So, even though some of today's strong corporations that provide paid support
services for GL could create portals of this kind that work across many
regions, it is politely but firmly requsted of them to restrain their urge to
spread globally so that local entities get a chance to serve their markets. 

Shareholders can and do often wait, hungry children cannot, they leave very
soon.

(2) a few global portals with continuously updated cost-of-living indices,
calculated using the entire gamut of economics and statistics-based formulae,
to guarantee that a person living in Africa, and a person living in Canada,
both get to learn shell programming, *online*, at exactly the same effective
cost - maybe a third of a month's salary, one-time.
No fixed rates in fixed currencies should be allowed.
Today's computers have more than enough computing power to re-calculate
within a fraction of a second the real cost of any product or service
purchased relative to the local economy.
This will also serve as a model for industries to follow, IF they wish to do
so.

Clearly, the second model borders on being utopian and is therefore
impractical.

Having a real shell account run and allowing users to interact with it has
some drawbacks: 

1. Servers must be robust. Often they are too expensive for small startups in
developing countries. On the other hand, a web application is easily setup. 

2. Such servers need extremely high quality system administrators. Apart from
the few highly skilled ones, others will inevitably face crack attacks like
DDoS or infections or plain destruction of file systems. To prevent those
possibilities from creating a *wrong* bad image, it is far better to have a
dummy web application that can run on a standard shared web hosting account.

3. Grid computing systems are already present that satisfy this kind of need
for any other purpose than learning.

Some more points:

VNC, Telnet are for technically minded people or programmers. VNC is not well
known outside FOSS development circles. Beginners will find those difficult.
Notice how Java(TM) applets, being far superior in features and versatility
still fare poorly compared to Web2.0 interfaces. 
Sure there is Cygwin, but it needs a lot of other work like downloading,
updating setting environment variables, etc., which is too much for a novice
user.

Some more user-interface technicalities:

We could provide a lot of other features on this Web UI like a small button
panel to hold buttons for help, faq, locate in kernel, locate in man, browse
docs sites, etc
If we give auto-completing command help or descriptions, it makes it a sure
success. We could also provide all the commands categorized in a tree view.

So, in summary, the idea is to make a complete fake Shell atop a web
application - there are no real filesystems - the whole thing is a
database-driven web application like any other and can be hosted ona shared
hosting server as well at a cost of around USD $5.00 per month.

Footnotes:
1. This project involves *lots* of coding. And therefore can be handled
*only* by opensourcing it. A commercial organization simply cannot do it
because it is effectively writing a huge chunk of a shell from scratch in
PHP/Perl/Python/Ruby with Javascript/AJAX.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Development

2. Additonally, we are not harming any established businesses or markets,
including Microsoft(R) Windows(TM), since the people who will switch to GL
are those who anyway pirate Windows(TM). So the Microsoft(R) ecosystem is
largely not affected. 
That probably means that there will not be criminal attempts to undermine
this project. I may be wrong here.

I think that my job of suggesting the idea and the caveats is done decently
enough. I really cannot add much more than this. 

"PATENTS" AND "IP":
This idea and the document originated inside my personal brain. There should
not be any "IP" crap in it - I don't know if there is, since this a proper
"clean-room" design. 
I will obviously not claim IP violation for if I wished to, I would first go
to the USPTO and not come here :) :)

In fact, it would be nice to Patent-Vaccinate or IP-Sterilize this idea -
much like Copyleft.

This document is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License Version
1.2, available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt, OR AT YOUR (EACH
INDIVIDUAL USER) OPTION ANY LATER VERSION OF THE SAME LICENSE.




==== Other Software Required: ====
This document has no dependencies. The resulting project will, obviously. 
This idea and the document originated inside my personal brain. There should
not be any "IP" crap in it - I don't know if there is, since this a proper
"clean-room" design. 

But all can be resolved since there are ample GPL-licensed libraries
available.


==== Other Comments: ====
If you like the idea or think that some other *free* thinker will, please
start the associated software project. It is beyond my skills in programming
and team-management(=0.0) to undertake any significant task in this project.
As mentioned above, and as done with GPLv3, I suggest an open discussion to
finalize the entire project making it inclusive for everyone ( all five
categories of people related to free software ).
Now is the time that GL should take charge, before a few monopolists can
create problems again.






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