Sun Founders' Push For Open Source Education

theodp writes "Unfortunately for textbook publishers, Scott McNealy has some extra time on his hands since Oracle acquired Sun and put him out of a job. The Sun co-founder has turned his attention to the problem of math textbooks, the price of which keeps rising while the core information inside of them stays the same. 'Ten plus 10 has been 20 for a long time,' McNealy quips. 'We are spending $8 billion to $15 billion per year on textbooks' in the US, he adds. 'It seems to me we could put that all online for free.' McNealy's Curriki is an online hub for free textbooks and other course material. Others hoping to bring elements of the Open Source model to the school textbook world include Vinod Khosla (who co-founded Sun with McNealy), whose wife Neeru heads up the CK-12 Foundation, which has already developed nine of the core textbooks for high school."

Comments

Re:Build the new and they will come

[blair1q]

So he spends a minute changing the name of the base font and the whole book becomes redlines.

Trust me, every kid sees every book as "new", and every school has to buy books continuously as they wear out, get lost, etc. Adding information isn't the reason textbooks are expensive. Politicizing the purchasing process is.

Re:theodp

[Hognoxious]

he is not the only founder involved.

Fail. From TFBCA: "Scott McNealy [and, according to some cunt called "Anonymous Coward", the invisible bastard man and an entire legion of undetectable phantom asshats who are not mentioned anyflappingwhere] has some extra time on his hands since Oracle acquired Sun and put him out of a job. The Sun co-founder[<-- look, no "s" you twerp] has turned his attention to the problem of math textbooks"

Singular for the win.

So perhaps instead of inviting him to die in a fire you could, ya know, just admit your mistake.

And you could just eat donkey bollock curry on a bed of shit-smeared samphire. Which do you think is more likely?