I personally am excited to see new architectures that change the face of a familiar system. That said, I also believe the new architecture must benefit the end user either equal to or greater than the benefit of the original architecture. I also believe the support for those users should not deteriorate, meaning folks like the OLPC Support Gang need to learn the new system (assuming troubleshooting beneath the interface changes as system-level features change) without sacrificing their dedication to the existing system. For every 100 units with the "new and improved" Sugar that roll out (assuming it reached production), how many units out there still would require support by experts in the old architecture? Do you even "train" the existing support volunteers or reach out for a whole new batch of hackers who have expertise in the technology the new architecture is based upon? I know Linux and Python, and I love Sugar as it exists now. I love all the effort going into improving the system and I am excited when I see some of the projects out there rooted in the existing technology. As I become more involved in OLPC, I intend to take on more difficult support questions that come from a technical place I'm familiar with. Android and Lively Kernel are definitely cool and being able to run Sugar activities anywhere is a great goal, but let's not do it for the sake of doing it. Does it benefit the end user (students, teachers)? Do we have enough understanding of what future deployments may require that we're prepared to divert valuable effort from current tech to bright and shiny tech? Does it contribute to the greater goal of educating people who otherwise might not have the opportunity? And, forgive me on this one because I realize Sugar and OLPC are not necessarily tied at the hip, but what happens if Sugar moves too far from the OLPC's five core principles? Will that necessitate an "OLPC Sugar" and a "Sugar Free", developed with no XO-specific code or even OLPC-oriented goals? Just wondering where OLPC ends and Sugar begins...
Cheers, Christian Bryant, One Laptop Per Child Support Volunteer #262 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/user:christianabryant _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
