Tim's Doyen concept (and what quantian.org have done) are quite cool. In my travels to australia I just discovered a National Data Network project that is going to make a raft of data available via and to all sorts of OSS software. See http://blogs.redhat.com/executive/archives/000171.html M On Wed, 2004-11-17 at 12:38, Tim Daly wrote: > Sean, > > I believe that an open science platform is the kind of killer app > you're looking for which will, gradually, convince a fair sized > group of people to use linux. > > First, since is an open enterprise by philosophy (if not in fact). > > Second, there are a large number of freely available scientific apps > > Third, a LiveCD kind of platform can introduce a science platform to > students and professors at minimal impact and cost (Quantian is an > example). > > Fourth, introducing students to these science apps creates a growing > pool of people who learn and learn to need linux to support their skills. > > It will take time but there has already been some discussion of the > concept with RedHat. It would be of interest to them because it opens > up the educational market at minimal cost. It also opens up the science > conference market at the same minimal cost (distribution of LiveCDs). > > It is also of interest to developers of these packages because they > have the "leverage" of being included in these distributions and a > common method of sharing code and research work. > > Such systems we've termed "Doyen systems" (a doyen is the senior or > most experienced person in a group). An effort is underway to build > such a science platform using a LiveCD for distribution and a Wiki > for the host portion of the system. > > This won't attract everyone but it has the key aspect of attracting > students, similar to the advantage Unix had in its early life. > > Tim Daly
