learning-pod

Status: pre-alpha — no working code yet. Repo scaffold only.

A Podman-native launcher for Open edX, aimed at public K–12 schools and small colleges that can't use Docker Desktop under its government-entity licensing terms.

A clean-room Rust alternative to Tutor. See PROVENANCE.md for the clean-room boundary.

Why

• Docker Desktop's subscription terms exclude public schools from free use.
• Tutor is excellent but Docker-centric and AGPL-3.0; schools deploying it touch AGPL obligations when they customize.
• Podman is free for everyone, rootless, and daemonless.
• A single static Windows .exe lowers the install bar below "know what pip is."

Goals

• One binary. No Python, no pip, no PATH surgery.
• Detect Podman in WSL2, bootstrap a tutor-root, generate compose YAML, launch.
• learning-pod launch → browser opens to Studio. That's the bar.
• Apache-2.0 throughout, so schools can adopt and modify freely.

Non-goals (for v1)

• Plugin system
• Theme pipeline
• Upgrade/migration between Open edX releases
• Kubernetes support
• Production hosting (Caddy/443) — dev use on localhost first

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.

Contributing

Read PROVENANCE.md before touching any code.