Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Pia Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That'd be cool. It'd be great to have the latest post of community news and this regular update on the front page with a link to the subscriptions. Why don't you blog the updates so people can subscribe to the rss feed (and it can be aggregated OLPCnews.com for instance). +1 - community news has some fantastic stuff, but suffers from very low visibility. cheers, m -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
Hi SJ, quote who=Samuel Klein We don't have to frame it as us vs. them. We can just announce the state of current deployments, and discuss plans for future deployments and G1G1, including whatever can be said in public about the Microsoft trials. Everybody wants to know what's up with the Amazon deal, too. We could have a formulaic please check out our latest public announcements email, and a list that media orgs can sign up to to receive regular pointers to longer announcements. Something between the sporadic Press Release and the detailed weekly community-news blurbs. Yes, that'd be awesome. Perhaps a monthly digest with highlights from the community news, and anything that OLPC wants to communicate to the wide world. It was mentioned the community news has only 2000 subscribers. I didn't even know it was public although I've heard about it, and I've had people be tentative about forwarding it thinking it was an internal resource, so it probably needs to be promoted more as an open public resource, if that is it's purpose. I believe there is an internal newsletter, why doesn't OLPC have a monthly public news feed that is on the main website that talks about stuff happening which would give the world (and community trying to support OLPC) the information we all need :) The amount of times I've had people both from the FOSS community and the general community ask me what is going on is crazy, and damaging. And I'm not even on the inside, I'm just involved with some regional projects! As mentioned elsewhere, we have a community-news list (http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/community-news), but it only goes out to some 2000 people. It might be valuable to have a list for shorter, more specific announcements that includes a regular link to the community-news archive, and any major essays or press pieces, which we can broadcast to a much larger audience. Definitely. An in which you can carefully message around the the successes and taboo topics to help people get it right. I think most of the problem at the moment is simply that people don't know what's going on half the time. If it is any help, Im sure there are many people in the community who would be happy to help (including me) with something like this, with keeping the general public and community informed in a more public fashion. There is generally a lot of good will towards the project around the world but real and positive public information is key to maintaining that good will. This is a good point. For instance, it would be useful to post and wikify the community-news archives on the wiki (this would both give them much higher google rank and help highlight red-links for a number of efforts, deployments, or concepts that deserve public descriptions but don't have their own page yet on our wiki). That'd be cool. It'd be great to have the latest post of community news and this regular update on the front page with a link to the subscriptions. Why don't you blog the updates so people can subscribe to the rss feed (and it can be aggregated OLPCnews.com for instance). Cheers, Pia -- OLPC Australia http://olpc.org.au/ Linux Australia http://linux.org.au/ Open Source Industry Australia http://osia.net.au/ Software Freedom Day http://softwarefreedomday.org/ Women hold up half the sky. - Mao Tse Tung ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
Folks - Thanks for the comments and input on how to communicate OLPC activities better to our various audiences. I want to mention a few things in general and also look at this specific situation. I am happy to help better communicate software development activities to the broader community. It is particularly easy to coordinate information with Jim Gettys for community-news as we happen to share a rather small office right now so we really can't avoid each other! If possible I will try to help existing efforts and vehicles succeed rather than attempting to invent new things. I'm not, however, signing up to be OLPC's PR agency to communicate everything we do, and I'm going to remain focused on software development activities. I agree that proactive announcements and taking the lead on communications are good things. However, I don't think that's really applicable in this Microsoft case since, from an OLPC perspective, nothing happened. Microsoft made an announcement about the next stage in their deployment of machines they're purchasing. They don't need to tell us when that's happening - they're not our machines (i.e. we don't own or control them - they're XOs of course) and we're not involved in that deployment. Nothing happened other than a natural consequence of what was announced in May. OLPC can't announce things we're not involved in. And it's hard to get much press coverage out of a release announcing that Microsoft's about to announce something that's not news g. So in this particular case there's nothing (coming internally from OLPC) that I think would have been appropriate or helpful before the announcement (especially since I can't think of any way we could or should have known in advance). What can happen, however, is an effort from the community to avoid reading between the lines and attempting to speculate about what's happening - especially when reading a press release that contains both the words Microsoft and OLPC. There will be inevitable fire-fighting, but let's not try to light the fires ourselves. I realize there is much history here that I wasn't involved in, and I appreciate that it takes time to change behaviors and expectations. But the more we try to keep non-events as non-events by avoiding on a flurry of emails around each one, the more we will be able to keep the community and the world's focus on the REAL events when we do want to get their attention. Having watched OLPC from outside for a while before joining, I certainly wanted to see a steadier flow of technical / development information and I will definitely try to help. I'd also ask for your help in that process so we can help focus the world's attention on what we ARE doing, because it's pretty cool stuff. Thanks! - Ed Ed McNierney Vice President of Software Development One Laptop Per Child [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
Thanks for talking to us. This would be even more useful as the basis for an article or editorial in one or more of the computer magazines or Web sites, or a fact-filled press release. All of the media people I have talked with say they would like to hear from OLPC. We don't have to frame it as us vs. them. We can just announce the state of current deployments, and discuss plans for future deployments and G1G1, including whatever can be said in public about the Microsoft trials. Everybody wants to know what's up with the Amazon deal, too. 2008/9/16 Ed McNierney [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Folks - There have been a number of questions about press coverage late last week from Peru concerning the introduction of XO laptops running XP and Office. Microsoft has previously ordered a number of XO laptops for XP testing and pilot deployment. The usage and distribution of these machines for that effort is up to Microsoft, and that's what they're doing in Peru. This activity is not news, but is just a stage in Microsoft's plans as they were announced back in May: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-15MSOLPCPR.mspx There are a number of milestones yet to be achieved before XP can be made widely available on XO machines in any form, from any source. The work involved will require at least more several months to complete. Microsoft and OLPC announced in May that we'd work to make XP available in a future XO dual-boot configuration, and nothing has changed about that situation. - Ed Ed McNierney Vice President of Software Development One Laptop Per Child [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still ahead in EC! http://www.obamapedia.org/ Join us! http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
Hi all, quote who=Edward Cherlin This would be even more useful as the basis for an article or editorial in one or more of the computer magazines or Web sites, or a fact-filled press release. All of the media people I have talked with say they would like to hear from OLPC. We don't have to frame it as us vs. them. We can just announce the state of current deployments, and discuss plans for future deployments and G1G1, including whatever can be said in public about the Microsoft trials. Everybody wants to know what's up with the Amazon deal, too. I just want to support what Edward is saying and say that OLPC could avoid a lot of misinformation and drama by pre-emptively releasing news about what is going on, which means OLPC wouldn't constantly be on the back foot of having to respond to misinformation. I believe there is an internal newsletter, why doesn't OLPC have a monthly public news feed that is on the main website that talks about stuff happening which would give the world (and community trying to support OLPC) the information we all need :) The amount of times I've had people both from the FOSS community and the general community ask me what is going on is crazy, and damaging. And I'm not even on the inside, I'm just involved with some regional projects! If it is any help, Im sure there are many people in the community who would be happy to help (including me) with something like this, with keeping the general public and community informed in a more public fashion. There is generally a lot of good will towards the project around the world but real and positive public information is key to maintaining that good will. Cheers, Pia -- OLPC Australia http://olpc.org.au/ Linux Australia http://linux.org.au/ Open Source Industry Australia http://osia.net.au/ Software Freedom Day http://softwarefreedomday.org/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 3:27 AM, Pia Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi all, quote who=Edward Cherlin This would be even more useful as the basis for an article or editorial in one or more of the computer magazines or Web sites, or a fact-filled press release. All of the media people I have talked with say they would like to hear from OLPC. We don't have to frame it as us vs. them. We can just announce the state of current deployments, and discuss plans for future deployments and G1G1, including whatever can be said in public about the Microsoft trials. Everybody wants to know what's up with the Amazon deal, too. I just want to support what Edward is saying and say that OLPC could avoid a lot of misinformation and drama by pre-emptively releasing news about what is going on, which means OLPC wouldn't constantly be on the back foot of having to respond to misinformation. I believe there is an internal newsletter, why doesn't OLPC have a monthly public news feed that is on the main website that talks about stuff happening which would give the world (and community trying to support OLPC) the information we all need :) The amount of times I've had people both from the FOSS community and the general community ask me what is going on is crazy, and damaging. And I'm not even on the inside, I'm just involved with some regional projects! There's a community newsletter brought out weekly: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/community-news/ Ideally http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Current_events should be kept in sync with it. The news section of the main laptop.org website also points to this wki page. Thanks, Sayamindu -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
Jim took over my weekly community news digest for OLPC. It tends to have a lot of information, not necessarily actionable, about deployments. Alas, it tends to be more cheer leading than anything else, where as the technical content has some depth (or at least pointers to some depth). -walter On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 5:57 PM, Pia Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi all, quote who=Edward Cherlin This would be even more useful as the basis for an article or editorial in one or more of the computer magazines or Web sites, or a fact-filled press release. All of the media people I have talked with say they would like to hear from OLPC. We don't have to frame it as us vs. them. We can just announce the state of current deployments, and discuss plans for future deployments and G1G1, including whatever can be said in public about the Microsoft trials. Everybody wants to know what's up with the Amazon deal, too. I just want to support what Edward is saying and say that OLPC could avoid a lot of misinformation and drama by pre-emptively releasing news about what is going on, which means OLPC wouldn't constantly be on the back foot of having to respond to misinformation. I believe there is an internal newsletter, why doesn't OLPC have a monthly public news feed that is on the main website that talks about stuff happening which would give the world (and community trying to support OLPC) the information we all need :) The amount of times I've had people both from the FOSS community and the general community ask me what is going on is crazy, and damaging. And I'm not even on the inside, I'm just involved with some regional projects! If it is any help, Im sure there are many people in the community who would be happy to help (including me) with something like this, with keeping the general public and community informed in a more public fashion. There is generally a lot of good will towards the project around the world but real and positive public information is key to maintaining that good will. Cheers, Pia -- OLPC Australia http://olpc.org.au/ Linux Australia http://linux.org.au/ Open Source Industry Australia http://osia.net.au/ Software Freedom Day http://softwarefreedomday.org/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 6:57 PM, Pia Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi all, quote who=Edward Cherlin This would be even more useful as the basis for an article or editorial in one or more of the computer magazines or Web sites, or a fact-filled press release. All of the media people I have talked with say they would like to hear from OLPC. We don't have to frame it as us vs. them. We can just announce the state of current deployments, and discuss plans for future deployments and G1G1, including whatever can be said in public about the Microsoft trials. Everybody wants to know what's up with the Amazon deal, too. I just want to support what Edward is saying and say that OLPC could avoid a lot of misinformation and drama by pre-emptively releasing news about what is going on, which means OLPC wouldn't constantly be on the back foot of having to respond to misinformation. Though I believe in the importance of properly communicating to/with the outside world, truth is that there will be always a lot of rumors, misinformation, lies and speculations regarding OLPC. This will come from bloggers, professional (or not quite so) journalists, people and institutions with hidden agendas, etc. So, I suggest that we don't get too anxious about that (and focus on what will make difference on the long run). I believe there is an internal newsletter, why doesn't OLPC have a monthly public news feed that is on the main website that talks about stuff happening which would give the world (and community trying to support OLPC) the information we all need :) The amount of times I've had people both from the FOSS community and the general community ask me what is going on is crazy, and damaging. And I'm not even on the inside, I'm just involved with some regional projects! If it is any help, Im sure there are many people in the community who would be happy to help (including me) with something like this, with keeping the general public and community informed in a more public fashion. There is generally a lot of good will towards the project around the world but real and positive public information is key to maintaining that good will. Cheers, Pia -- OLPC Australia http://olpc.org.au/ Linux Australia http://linux.org.au/ Open Source Industry Australia http://osia.net.au/ Software Freedom Day http://softwarefreedomday.org/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Peru and Microsoft announcement
Hi Pia, On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 5:57 PM, Pia Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: quote who=Edward Cherlin This would be even more useful as the basis for an article or editorial in one or more of the computer magazines or Web sites, or a fact-filled press release. All of the media people I have talked with say they would like to hear from OLPC. We don't have to frame it as us vs. them. We can just announce the state of current deployments, and discuss plans for future deployments and G1G1, including whatever can be said in public about the Microsoft trials. Everybody wants to know what's up with the Amazon deal, too. We could have a formulaic please check out our latest public announcements email, and a list that media orgs can sign up to to receive regular pointers to longer announcements. Something between the sporadic Press Release and the detailed weekly community-news blurbs. I believe there is an internal newsletter, why doesn't OLPC have a monthly public news feed that is on the main website that talks about stuff happening which would give the world (and community trying to support OLPC) the information we all need :) The amount of times I've had people both from the FOSS community and the general community ask me what is going on is crazy, and damaging. And I'm not even on the inside, I'm just involved with some regional projects! As mentioned elsewhere, we have a community-news list (http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/community-news), but it only goes out to some 2000 people. It might be valuable to have a list for shorter, more specific announcements that includes a regular link to the community-news archive, and any major essays or press pieces, which we can broadcast to a much larger audience. If it is any help, Im sure there are many people in the community who would be happy to help (including me) with something like this, with keeping the general public and community informed in a more public fashion. There is generally a lot of good will towards the project around the world but real and positive public information is key to maintaining that good will. This is a good point. For instance, it would be useful to post and wikify the community-news archives on the wiki (this would both give them much higher google rank and help highlight red-links for a number of efforts, deployments, or concepts that deserve public descriptions but don't have their own page yet on our wiki). SJ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
