On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 9:26 AM, Walter Bender <walter.ben...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:04 PM, David Farning > <dfarn...@activitycentral.com> wrote: >> I just wanted to bump this line of questions as, it is the critical >> set of questions which will determine the future viability of Sugar. >> >> If anyone as more informed, please correct me if I am sharing >> incorrect information: >> 1. The Association has dropped future development of XO laptops and >> Sugar as part of their long term strategy. I base this on the >> reduction of hardware and software personal employed by the >> Association. >> 2. The Association is reducing its roll within the engineering and >> development side of the ecosystem. I base this on the shift toward >> integrating existing technology, software, and content from other >> vendors on the XO tablet. >> 3. The Association is shifting away from its initial roll as a >> technical philanthropy to a revenue generating organization structured >> as a association. I base this on the general shift in conversations >> and decisions from public to private channels. >> > > I don't speak on behalf of the Association, but I think your positions > are overstated.
I hope to be proven wrong and the laptop side of the Association regains momentum. > As far as I know, the Association is still pursing > sales of XO laptops and is still supporting XO laptops in the field. > Granted the pace of development is slowed and there is -- to my > knowledge -- no team in place to develop an follow up to the XO 4.0. I > don't have a clue as to what you mean by a "technical philanthropy" > but it remains a non-profit associated dedicated to enhancing learning > opportunities through one-to-one computing. The fact that the > Association has private-sector partners is nothing new. It has had > such partners since its founding in 2006. > >> Given financial constraints, these are reasonable shifts. While >> painful, the world is better of with a leaner (and meaner) OLPC >> Association which lives to fight another day. The challenge moving >> forward is how to develop and maintain the Sugar platform, the >> universe of activities, and the supporting distributions given the >> reduction in patronage from the OLPC Association. >> >> I, and AC, would be happy to work more closely with Sugar Labs if >> there are ways to establish publicly disclosed and mutually beneficial >> relationships. In the meantime we are happy to provide deployments >> support while seeding and supporting projects we feel are beneficial >> to deployments such as School Server Community Edition and Sugar on >> Ubuntu. > > I don't understand what you are asking. Sugar Labs has always had a > policy of working in the open. The degree of openness and transparency is our fundamental disagreement. Best case is that the status quo works, Sugar Labs thrives, and I am proven wrong. Worst case is that Sugar adopts to the changing environment. > That said, Sugar Labs volunteers (yes, > we are all volunteers), have on occasion done consulting for OLPC, AC, > deployments, and other third parties. Nothing new or unusual about > that either. > > The future of Sugar is incumbant upon its remaining relevant to > learning and its maintaining a vibrant upstream community. If you (and > AC) want to contribute to the future of Sugar, please work with us > upstream, e.g. report bugs upstream, submit patches upstream, test > code originating upstream, mentor newbies, etc. Par for the course for > any FOSS project. > >> >> On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 6:11 AM, David Farning >> <dfarn...@activitycentral.com> wrote: >>> On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 2:43 PM, Gonzalo Odiard <gonz...@laptop.org> wrote: >>>> I agree with your analysis about slow deployment updates versus fast >>>> community cycles. >>>> >>>> In my view, there are two alternatives: >>>> >>>> * We can slow down a little the Sugar cycle, may be doing one release by >>>> year, >>>> but I am not sure if will help. The changes will take more time to go to >>>> the >>>> users? >>>> If a deployment miss a update, will need wait a entire year? >>>> * Someone can work in a LTS Sugar. That should be good if they can push >>>> the fixes they work upstream while they are working in their own project. >>> >>> If someone, individuals or a third party, were willing and able to >>> provide LTS support for a version of Sugar, how would you recommend >>> they go about doing it? >>> >>> With the recent changes to the ecosystem, I am unclear about the >>> current structure, culture, and politics of Sugar Labs. My concern is >>> that in that past several years a number of organization who have >>> participated in Sugar development have left or reduced their >>> participation. When asking them why they left, the most common >>> response is that that they didn't feel they were able to establish or >>> sustain mutually beneficial relationships within the ecosystem. >>> >>> Would you be interesting in looking at cultural, political, and >>> procedural traits which have enabled other free and opensource >>> projects to foster thriving ecosystems? Are these traits present in >>> Sugar Labs? >>> >>> While, I understand it is frustrating for an upstream software >>> developer. A primary tenet of free and open sources software is that >>> then anyone can use and distribute the software as they see fit.... as >>> long as the source code is made available. The challenge for an >>> upstream is to create an environment where it is more beneficial for >>> individuals and organizations to work together than it is to work >>> independently. >>> >>> To make things more concrete, three areas of concern are Control, Credit, >>> Money: >>> -- Control -- Are there mechanism for publicly making and >>> communicating project direction in a productive manner? Is >>> disagreement accepted and encouraged? >>> >>> -- Credit -- Are there mechanism for publicly acknowledging who >>> participates and adds value to the ecosystem? Is credit shared freely >>> and fairly? >>> >>> -- Money -- Are there mechanisms in place for publicly acknowledge >>> that money pays a role in the ecosystem? Is Sugar Labs able to >>> maintain a neutral base around which people and organizations can >>> collaborate? >>> >>> From my limited experience, I don't believe there is an single holy >>> grail type answer to any of these questions. Instead, the answers tend >>> to evolve as situations change and participants come and go. >>> >>>> On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 9:46 AM, David Farning >>>> <dfarn...@activitycentral.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> For phase one this openness in communication, I would like to open the >>>>> discussion to strategies for working together. My interest is how to >>>>> deal with the notion of overlapping yet non-identical goals. >>>>> >>>>> As a case study, let's look at deployment and developer preferences >>>>> for stability and innovation. >>>>> >>>>> The roll out pipeline for a deployment can be long: >>>>> 1. Core development. >>>>> 2. Core validation.. >>>>> 3. Activity development. >>>>> 4. Activity validation. >>>>> 5. Update documentation. >>>>> 6. Update training materials. >>>>> 7. Pilot. >>>>> 8. Roll-out. >>>>> >>>>> This can take months, even years. >>>>> >>>>> This directly conflicts with the rapid innovation cycle of development >>>>> used by effective up streams. Good projects constantly improve and >>>>> refine their speed of innovation. >>>>> >>>>> Is is desirable, or even possible, to create a project where these two >>>>> overlapping yet non-identical needs can be balanced? As a concrete >>>>> example we could look at the pros and cons of a stable long term >>>>> support sugar release lead by quick, leading edge releases. >>>>> >>>>> For full disclosure, I tried to start this same conversation several >>>>> years ago. I failed: >>>>> 1. I did not have the credibility to be take seriously. >>>>> 2. I did not have the political, social, and technical experience to >>>>> understand the nuances of engaging with the various parties in the >>>>> ecosystem. >>>>> 3. I did not have the emotional control to assertively advocate ideas >>>>> without aggressively advocating opinions. >>>>> >>>>> Has enough changed in the past several years to make it valuable to >>>>> revisit this conversation publicly? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 12:43 AM, Gonzalo Odiard <gonz...@laptop.org> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> > David, >>>>> > Certainly is good know plans, and started a interesting discussion. >>>>> > In eduJam and in Montevideo, I was talking with the new AC hackers, >>>>> > and tried to convince them to work on sugar 0.100 instead of sugar 0.98. >>>>> > Have a lot of sense try to work in the same code if possible, >>>>> > and will be good for your plans of work on web activities. >>>>> > May be we can look at the details, but I agree with you, we should try >>>>> > avoid >>>>> > fragmentation. >>>>> > >>>>> > Gonzalo >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 2:56 PM, David Farning >>>>> > <dfarn...@activitycentral.com> wrote: >>>>> >> >>>>> >> Over the past couple of weeks there has been an interesting thread >>>>> >> which started from AC's attempt to clarify our priorities for the next >>>>> >> couple of months. One of the most interesting aspects has been the >>>>> >> interplay between private/political vs. public/vision discussions. >>>>> >> >>>>> >> There seem to be several people and organizations with overlapping yet >>>>> >> slightly different goals. Is there interest in seeing how these people >>>>> >> and organizations can work together towards a common goal? Are we >>>>> >> happy with the current degree of fragmentation? >>>>> >> >>>>> >> I fully admit my role in the current fragmentation. One of the reasons >>>>> >> I started AC was KARMA. At the time I was frustrated because I felt >>>>> >> that ideas such as karma were being judged on who controlled or >>>>> >> received credit for them instead of their value to deployments. We >>>>> >> hired several key sugar hackers and forked Sugar to work on the >>>>> >> problem. >>>>> >> >>>>> >> While effective at creating a third voice in the ecosystem, (The >>>>> >> association has shifted more effort towards supporting deployments and >>>>> >> Sugar Labs via OLPC-AU is up streaming many of our deployment specific >>>>> >> patches) my approach was heavy handed and indulgent... and I apologize >>>>> >> for that. >>>>> >> >>>>> >> -- >>>>> >> David Farning >>>>> >> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com >>>>> >> _______________________________________________ >>>>> >> Sugar-devel mailing list >>>>> >> sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org >>>>> >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> David Farning >>>>> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> David Farning >>> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com >> >> >> >> -- >> David Farning >> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com >> _______________________________________________ >> Sugar-devel mailing list >> sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > > -walter > > -- > Walter Bender > Sugar Labs > http://www.sugarlabs.org -- David Farning Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel