Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 10:13 PM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com wrote: Someone remarked that teachers don't like to use Sugar. If not,... why not? Ask them! I hate to say that the user's not always right, but in Haiti at least, some of the teachers are disappointed when they see Sugar because they were expecting Windows. They've never used Windows, and they don't know what it can and can't do, but they do know that's the software you have to master in order to get a job. We ask our Haitian staff to speak during training about the advantages they've seen using Sugar with kids. I constantly repeat my mantra We're not learning to use computers; we're using computers to learn. But it doesn't always work. Obviously, the teachers in Uruguay like it and use it. But not all of it. So, do a survey of teachers who do use it and find the 10 or 20 top Activities and then concentrate on getting them ported to a more universal platform (e.g. Android). When I was there a few years back I did ask them... and the students. The hands-down winner was Labyrinth! Yep, Labyrinth is fantastic (the mind-mapping one, although the maze isn't bad either). Folks also like Fototoon, and the music software never gets enough credit. But I'm just reporting what I've seen and what we wrote up in our curriculum guide. I'd be up for sending out an actual survey. How important is collaboration? Ask the teachers! Can collaboration be implemented on an Android platform? If not, is there an easy work around? I hope so. I know in Haiti the teachers don't use it very often, but that's partly because it requires a new method of thinking about implementing lessons and that can be tricky. It's something I always emphasize in follow-up training sessions; once the teachers and students have gotten a basic grasp of the technology they start exploring other possibilities like this. One other thing I should mention about some Sugar Activities... some of them really lack color. When you look at the typical educational software for children, it is always bright and colorful with very simple artwork... maybe too much so. It also often has cute little tunes playing in the background. Teachers, parents, and children have grown to expect this in educational software. Perhaps considering brightening up the screens a bit on some of the Activities would be something to experiment with. I've been reading a lot about e-books and digital education for school for the past few weeks. One thing that keeps coming up is the line between engaging and distracting. As you say, bright and colorful with music is what people have come to expect, but unless it's very tightly integrated with what kids are doing it doesn't really enhance the experience. Another case where the user may not be right...but what can you do? Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 10:40:01 +1100 From: qu...@laptop.org To: m...@jvonau.ca CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org; lio...@olpc-france.org; sam...@greenfeld.org Subject: Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld) On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 03:31:50PM +1100, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:20:02PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: On February 25, 2015 at 3:09 PM James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 01:20:19PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: I know this is not a sugar issue directly, more of an OLPC issue but since Fedora F12 the entire i686 platform's userland is being compiled with -mtune=atom which would use sse. This causes problems for some parts of sugar now that java is being used more and the XO-1 lacks sse. Fixing one package that uses sse might fix one issue but this is really a distro wide setting and other issues may float to the top in other areas. Thanks, wasn't aware -mtune=atom was being used upstream. It explains a lot. First build after Fedora 11 was 11.2.0 (os874) using Fedora 14. So if we rebuild everything there may be an improvement? That's probably something that can be set running as a test. Wouldn't all the rpms used need to be recompiled to ensure mtune is set to match throughout the distro? Don't think so. Check my logic: The GCC documentation you referenced described -mtune as Tune to cpu-type everything applicable about the generated code, except for the ABI and the set of available instructions. -march is more significant, as Generate instructions for the machine type cpu-type. The choices for cpu-type are the same as for -mtune. Moreover, specifying -march=cpu-type implies -mtune=cpu-type. If the ABI were different between i586 and i686 arch, that would be very interesting. Tall order IMHO, good luck ;-) For the moment, I'm doing a mock --rebuild of webkitgtk3 with --arch=i586, and the logs so far show -march=i586 -mtune=generic
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 08:13:04PM -0700, Caryl Bigenho wrote: One other thing I should mention about some Sugar Activities… some of them really lack color. [...] This was possibly the design decision to support the colourless display of the XO laptop when used outdoors, as well as colour impaired children. I don't think it needs to be kept for Sugar, and would welcome a change where colour was more heavily used. (Developers: as a reproducible colouring of the background of the icons, for example, along with nicknames always shown on the neighbourhood view.) -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
Hi Folks… Sorry I didn't put my 2 cents worth in sooner, but here are some questions/suggestions I have re: planning for the future…. Someone remarked that teachers don't like to use Sugar. If not,… why not? Ask them! Obviously, the teachers in Uruguay like it and use it. But not all of it. So, do a survey of teachers who do use it and find the 10 or 20 top Activities and then concentrate on getting them ported to a more universal platform (e.g. Android). When I was there a few years back I did ask them… and the students. The hands-down winner was Labyrinth! How important is collaboration? Ask the teachers! Can collaboration be implemented on an Android platform? If not, is there an easy work around? Could someone write an ebook similar to James Simmons' Make Your Own Sugar Activities but with instructions for adapting or creating Sugar Activities for Android or whatever other platform is chosen? Is it possible to get the Activities to integrate like they do on the XO? i.e. be able to transfer a project from one Activity to another for further use. Currently, I'm happily involved in an online course, Harvard's CS50, where I am learning C and will also be exposed to JavaScript, HTML (been there before) and CSS. My goal is to make my final project the adaptation of some Sugar Activity to IOS and maybe Android (although Lionel's group is beating me to it and doing a good job). One other thing I should mention about some Sugar Activities… some of them really lack color. When you look at the typical educational software for children, it is always bright and colorful with very simple artwork… maybe too much so. It also often has cute little tunes playing in the background. Teachers, parents, and children have grown to expect this in educational software. Perhaps considering brightening up the screens a bit on some of the Activities would be something to experiment with. OK. 'Nuff said. Caryl Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 10:40:01 +1100 From: qu...@laptop.org To: m...@jvonau.ca CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org; lio...@olpc-france.org; sam...@greenfeld.org Subject: Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld) On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 03:31:50PM +1100, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:20:02PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: On February 25, 2015 at 3:09 PM James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 01:20:19PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: I know this is not a sugar issue directly, more of an OLPC issue but since Fedora F12 the entire i686 platform's userland is being compiled with -mtune=atom which would use sse. This causes problems for some parts of sugar now that java is being used more and the XO-1 lacks sse. Fixing one package that uses sse might fix one issue but this is really a distro wide setting and other issues may float to the top in other areas. Thanks, wasn't aware -mtune=atom was being used upstream. It explains a lot. First build after Fedora 11 was 11.2.0 (os874) using Fedora 14. So if we rebuild everything there may be an improvement? That's probably something that can be set running as a test. Wouldn't all the rpms used need to be recompiled to ensure mtune is set to match throughout the distro? Don't think so. Check my logic: The GCC documentation you referenced described -mtune as Tune to cpu-type everything applicable about the generated code, except for the ABI and the set of available instructions. -march is more significant, as Generate instructions for the machine type cpu-type. The choices for cpu-type are the same as for -mtune. Moreover, specifying -march=cpu-type implies -mtune=cpu-type. If the ABI were different between i586 and i686 arch, that would be very interesting. Tall order IMHO, good luck ;-) For the moment, I'm doing a mock --rebuild of webkitgtk3 with --arch=i586, and the logs so far show -march=i586 -mtune=generic instead of -march=i686 -mtune=atom: This didn't change the problem, gdb core still showed SSE instructions used. Daniel Drake's change to WebKit that fixed this before has since been lost in the current WebKit sources in git. Patch is in the history, but some later patch removed the change. $ grep mtune build.log | grep i586 | wc --lines 8564 $ grep mtune build.log | grep atom | wc --lines 0 $ Jerry -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
Sora... Thanks for your thoughtful from the field answers! We need more of them. I think I'll ask my friend Rosamel in Uruguay what she thinks and if she might ask some of her collegues too. Mañana. I have to do it in Spanish so I'll wait until morning when I am thinking clearly. Caryl Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 22:40:17 -0500 Subject: Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld) From: s...@unleashkids.org To: cbige...@hotmail.com CC: qu...@laptop.org; m...@jvonau.ca; h...@laptop.org; iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org; lio...@olpc-france.org; sam...@greenfeld.org On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 10:13 PM, Caryl Bigenho cbige...@hotmail.com wrote: Someone remarked that teachers don't like to use Sugar. If not,… why not? Ask them!I hate to say that the user's not always right, but in Haiti at least, some of the teachers are disappointed when they see Sugar because they were expecting Windows. They've never used Windows, and they don't know what it can and can't do, but they do know that's the software you have to master in order to get a job. We ask our Haitian staff to speak during training about the advantages they've seen using Sugar with kids. I constantly repeat my mantra We're not learning to use computers; we're using computers to learn. But it doesn't always work. Obviously, the teachers in Uruguay like it and use it. But not all of it. So, do a survey of teachers who do use it and find the 10 or 20 top Activities and then concentrate on getting them ported to a more universal platform (e.g. Android). When I was there a few years back I did ask them… and the students. The hands-down winner was Labyrinth!Yep, Labyrinth is fantastic (the mind-mapping one, although the maze isn't bad either). Folks also like Fototoon, and the music software never gets enough credit. But I'm just reporting what I've seen and what we wrote up in our curriculum guide. I'd be up for sending out an actual survey. How important is collaboration? Ask the teachers! Can collaboration be implemented on an Android platform? If not, is there an easy work around?I hope so. I know in Haiti the teachers don't use it very often, but that's partly because it requires a new method of thinking about implementing lessons and that can be tricky. It's something I always emphasize in follow-up training sessions; once the teachers and students have gotten a basic grasp of the technology they start exploring other possibilities like this. One other thing I should mention about some Sugar Activities… some of them really lack color. When you look at the typical educational software for children, it is always bright and colorful with very simple artwork… maybe too much so. It also often has cute little tunes playing in the background. Teachers, parents, and children have grown to expect this in educational software. Perhaps considering brightening up the screens a bit on some of the Activities would be something to experiment with. I've been reading a lot about e-books and digital education for school for the past few weeks. One thing that keeps coming up is the line between engaging and distracting. As you say, bright and colorful with music is what people have come to expect, but unless it's very tightly integrated with what kids are doing it doesn't really enhance the experience. Another case where the user may not be right...but what can you do? Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2015 10:40:01 +1100 From: qu...@laptop.org To: m...@jvonau.ca CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org; lio...@olpc-france.org; sam...@greenfeld.org Subject: Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld) On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 03:31:50PM +1100, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:20:02PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: On February 25, 2015 at 3:09 PM James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 01:20:19PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: I know this is not a sugar issue directly, more of an OLPC issue but since Fedora F12 the entire i686 platform's userland is being compiled with -mtune=atom which would use sse. This causes problems for some parts of sugar now that java is being used more and the XO-1 lacks sse. Fixing one package that uses sse might fix one issue but this is really a distro wide setting and other issues may float to the top in other areas. Thanks, wasn't aware -mtune=atom was being used upstream. It explains a lot. First build after Fedora 11 was 11.2.0 (os874) using Fedora 14. So if we rebuild everything there may be an improvement? That's probably something that can be set running as a test. Wouldn't all the rpms used need to be recompiled to ensure mtune is set to match throughout the distro? Don't think so. Check my logic: The GCC documentation you referenced described -mtune as Tune to cpu-type everything
Re: [IAEP] Upgrading XOs
I have finished categorizing the Sugar activities on BERNIE. The Backup and Backup4G are the activities installed on the standard builds. The Standard activities that I believe work without restriction. The Spanish category is evident. The Web activity are activities that require web-service (not yet installed on the XOs). The Restricted category includes activities that require special external capabilities such as a Butia robot, access to the internet, a midi controller and so on. The Broken category are activities which do not install and launch cleanly on an XO-1 for various reasons (all activities have correct activity.info files so 'broken' refers to some other issue). The Untested category include activities which depend on multiple users as well as the Spirituality for Kids activities which have not been tested). The activities list can be see in the Class Page by clicking on the Guide button on the Sugar Activities page at http://www.projectbernie.org. Tony ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] XO Infinity ?
I hope this is not affected by Osborne effect [1] These looks like 3d software generated images, from that to a product ready to ship, there are a long way. Gonzalo [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 2:48 PM, Lionel Laské lio...@olpc-france.org wrote: Hi all, As some of you, I've seen: https://medium.com/road-to-infinity Something that look like to a new XO concept with an Android OS proposed by OLPC Australia. Just my guess. Is someone have more information on this ? Is it related to OLPC Foundation ? Is it related to Sugar ? Please share with us. Lionel. ___ Sugar-devel mailing list sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel -- Gonzalo Odiard SugarLabs - Software for children learning ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
Thanks Sora for sharing. We are working in a questionnaire to get more information from the local deployments. If you agree, we can send it to you to get more information from Haiti deployments. Gonzalo On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Sora Edwards-Thro s...@unleashkids.org wrote: I just got started with all of this in 2013, so my relationship with the project is very different from many others on this list. I'm also not a programmer. So this is just my perspective as a coordinator with schools using XOs in Haiti. I'm going to tackle the below item-by-item; looking forward to seeing what others have to say. Thanks for bringing these questions to us all. On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 2:09 PM, Samuel Greenfeld sam...@greenfeld.org wrote: I am not necessarily discounting XOs; but several community members have said in the past they were not upgrading to the latest Sugar/OLPC OS versions. This is because newer versions tend to need more resources and run slowly on older XO models. Here's a table Martin Dluhos generated of the start-up times on XO-1s for different OS versions. It influenced our decision-making in Haiti (we have a customized version of 12.1.0) http://wiki.laptop.org/go/HaitiOS; I don't know what they decided in Nepal, where he was based. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As_jQJX0Me6XdDI2clFpX1FFRHhKMHVFZGkyakdST2cusp=sharing Here was my input on that decision: My gut is keep moving forward and go with the latest thing because it's the latest, but I'm not the one who has to fix things when they go wrong...I just report them. Basically, I'm hoping those who have been involved much longer can help gauge what we're gaining and giving upin terms of not only speed loading activities but the support we'll require (12.1.0 more reliable, so less help needed?) and receive (13.2.0 more shiny, so more help offered?) to keep things running. Others should speak for themselves, but I think we stuck with 12.1.0 because the deadline to get things figured out was coming up and we wanted something that had been battle-tested for the upcoming large and ambitious deployment. XOs may always be part of the community; but they are not necessarily going to be the centerpiece going forward. Volunteers have collected and refurbished significant numbers of XO-1s that are still awaiting deployment. It would be a shame to have those go to waste when they can do good somewhere. Same goes for perhaps 1000 XOs sitting in closets in Haiti - we've identified multiple schools (see here https://projectrive.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/kenscoff-special-report/ and here http://www.unleashkids.org/2014/07/11/special-report-thomazeau/) that have abandoned these programs for lack of training and electrical solutions; a little funding and volunteer-work has been able to get those up and running again http://www.unleashkids.org/2014/07/26/lascahobas-we-do-it-all/. For my own project this summer: if we didn't have XOs, this project wouldn't be happening, because we'd be spending all our budget on tablets / laptops instead of the teacher training and programming assistance we'll need to get good results. So no, XOs aren't going to be the centerpiece, but in terms of our operations in Haiti they're definitely a big part of the picture. - An assessment of what is the current Sugar community, and what we would like to see the community become. All I can give you is what we've got in Haiti. 13,200 XOs were apparently deployed. See the blog posts mentioned above for evidence that many actually made it to schools, but those programs did not survive into 2014. In terms of schools where Unleash Kids volunteers have deployed XO-1s or revived XO-1 programs: 60 to Mission of Hope (spring 2013) 25 to Silars' Orphanage (spring 2013) 10 to Ferrier (summer 2013) 10 to Ansapit (summer 2013) 20 to Cazeau (winter 2013) 18 to Hinche (winter 2013) (I know a team went to Leogane as well; I don't know what they did there) 25 to Delmas (summer 2014) 120 in Lascahobas (summer 2014) but only 60 XOs actually being used in classes 10 in Bois D'Avril (summer 2014) Programs are still going strong at Silars', Ansapit, Cazeau, and Lascahobas. Programs have run into funding problems at Mission of Hope, Ferrier, and Hinche, and Delmas. Bois D'Avril is doing its best, but they could use some more training. In 2014 I entered college and started considering how I can approach work in Haiti from the perspective of a researcher and get funding. Nick Doiron and I collaborated with others to create software for a USAID literacy competition. My school funded a pilot test https://projectrive.wordpress.com/ of the software in December. We installed it on the schoolserver and accessed it through browsers on the XOs. I plan to acquire more funding to build on that project this summer. We'll be needing to write new software for some aspects of the project. I hope to host
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
Thanks Samuel for start this public discussion. I share some of your concerns, and agree with your points. I think we agree web activities is the way to move forward. We started to work on that for Sugar 0.100, and that will provide us the possibility of run activities in any browser, in android, and in Sugar at the same time. Need more work, but the basics is here. Then we need implement/improve a cloud (or little server) solution, like Sugarizer, or develop a way to provide a Journal in Android. I also think we need a educative social network solution for Sugar. Is not 2007 anymore. I honestly wonder what will we do with our Sugar python/fedora implementation. Without funding, we can't maintain it. And deployments in general are not interested in put money in Sugar, sadly. They are used to get the software for free with the XOs. The true is that we lost the last 3 paid developers working on Sugar (walter, tch and me). Someone who does not work on development could think you can replace 3 developers working 8/10 hours/day by 30 developers working 1 hour/day, but does not work in that way. [1] In my opinion, as Sugar Labs, if we want to be relevant, we need: * Find a way to get funding/partners. Maybe we need someone with marketing skills, and pay him/her a salary. (But for that we need money) I am not a marketing guy (this mail will confirm that), nor walter or others in the slobs. We have a marketing team, but only work on press releases, and I am thinking in marketing in a broader way. * We need review our governance model. SLOBs works for the little decisions (participate or not in GSoC or GCI, support a event), but is not working to take strategic decisions. We can see how other communities are organized. Two years without enough candidates to run the elections is a signal, or the community is not here anymore, or does not care about SLOBs. * Improve our communication internal and external. We have many communities inter related (sugar-devel, iaep, olpc france, olpc sf, Unleash kids, somos azucar, etc, etc). Everyone contribute in different ways to different parts in the ecosystem. I wonder if we can improve communication and team work. Sorry if my message sounds too negative. I already discussed these issues privately but didn't find a solution. Gonzalo [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_mythical_man-month On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Samuel Greenfeld sam...@greenfeld.org wrote: I am not necessarily discounting XOs; but several community members have said in the past they were not upgrading to the latest Sugar/OLPC OS versions. This is because newer versions tend to need more resources and run slowly on older XO models. XOs may always be part of the community; but they are not necessarily going to be the centerpiece going forward. The Oversight Board may have more information than what is publicly known. But from the operational perspective, I would like to see: - A clear succession plan for Sugar Labs and Sugar development. It is unclear to me if there still are developers who can fill in for each other if case someone needs to stop working on Sugar, or who will champion the project if Walter becomes unable to do so. - An assessment of what is the current Sugar community, and what we would like to see the community become. - Some sort of public plan depending on the above. - Focusing on what's really out there. Quoting 2 or 3 million XOs made since the beginning of OLPC is great for press releases. But this does not reflect how many are actively used by children. Many XOs are broken, retired, in warehouses, etc. Apart from larger deployments which may have these numbers internally, I don't think anyone has collected the statistics. This is like if Apple stated there are 500 million iPhones 'in the field' (sold) running iOS when in practice many people have broken their iPhones, replaced them with newer models, switched to a different brand... Similar statistics could be taken for Intel Classmates and other things. - The ability to prove that Sugar is still relevant. Looking at the overlap between One Education's leadership and OLPC's historical structure, it is possible that the XO Infinity, when released, will become the new laptop being offered by both going forward.(*) So I would not be surprised if the XO Infinity ran XO Learning or something similar with a new interface supporting thousands of educational applications, was easier and cheaper to develop for, had more conflicting terminology with Sugar, and some improvements for initial mistakes. The use of similar icons and terms puts Sugar into a state like OLPC volunteers are with OLPC's corporations. Volunteers may claim to be part of a wider movement. But whenever the press has questions, they are going to hear the corporations' answers.
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 1:20 PM, Jerry Vonau m...@jvonau.ca wrote: I know this is not a sugar issue directly, more of an OLPC issue but since Fedora F12 the entire i686 platform's userland is being compiled with -mtune=atom[1] which would use sse[2]. -mtune is designed not to break any compatibility. So -mtune=atom means that generated code is optimized for atom but *no compatibility with other CPUs is broken*. So -mtune=atom does not imply that gcc will spit out sse instructions because it feels like it. In fact, it will actively avoid generating sse instructions in order to maintain compatibility. (-march is probably what you are thinking of) This causes problems for some parts of sugar[3] now that java[4] is being used more and the XO-1 lacks sse. The WebKit issue happened because it generates its own machine code at runtime (not using gcc). It's definitely a bug that it dropped sse instructions in there without properly checking if the CPU can do sse, but not a common case that you will see throughout the distro. I assume you mean javascript there, and bug #4785 does not look like a sse-related issue to me. That issue shows a SIGSEGV whereas if code is using sse instructions you would instead expect a SIGILL. Daniel ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
Friday, February 27, 2015 2:07 PM -03:00 from Gonzalo Odiard godi...@sugarlabs.org: Thanks Samuel for start this public discussion. I share some of your concerns, and agree with your points. I think we agree web activities is the way to move forward. We started to work on that for Sugar 0.100, and that will provide us the possibility of run activities in any browser, in android, and in Sugar at the same time. Need more work, but the basics is here. Then we need implement/improve a cloud (or little server) solution, like Sugarizer, or develop a way to provide a Journal in Android. I also think we need a educative social network solution for Sugar. Is not 2007 anymore. I honestly wonder what will we do with our Sugar python/fedora implementation. Without funding, we can't maintain it. And deployments in general are not interested in put money in Sugar, sadly. They are used to get the software for free with the XOs. The true is that we lost the last 3 paid developers working on Sugar (walter, tch and me). Someone who does not work on development could think you can replace 3 developers working 8/10 hours/day by 30 developers working 1 hour/day, but does not work in that way. [1] In my opinion, as Sugar Labs, if we want to be relevant, we need: * Find a way to get funding/partners. Maybe we need someone with marketing skills, and pay him/her a salary. (But for that we need money) I am not a marketing guy (this mail will confirm that), nor walter or others in the slobs. We have a marketing team, but only work on press releases, and I am thinking in marketing in a broader way. The problem with partners is that any partner who has established a history of making good decision will ask the same question Mr. Greenfeld asked to start this thread. If they get the same response Dr. Bender gave Mr. Greenfeld they take their money and go back home. Several individuals such as Mr. Abente have suggested the importance of feedback. SugarLabs seems to have difficulty hearing feedback it does not like. Rather than investigate what to improve, the project tends to belittle the reporter's lack of knowledge or vision. This has left Sugar as Dr. Bender's personal project. It might be instructive to ask the simple question, What type of project is Sugar? * We need review our governance model. SLOBs works for the little decisions (participate or not in GSoC or GCI, support a event), but is not working to take strategic decisions. We can see how other communities are organized. Two years without enough candidates to run the elections is a signal, or the community is not here anymore, or does not care about SLOBs. * Improve our communication internal and external. We have many communities inter related (sugar-devel, iaep, olpc france, olpc sf, Unleash kids, somos azucar, etc, etc). Everyone contribute in different ways to different parts in the ecosystem. I wonder if we can improve communication and team work. Sorry if my message sounds too negative. I already discussed these issues privately but didn't find a solution. Gonzalo [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_mythical_man-month On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Samuel Greenfeld sam...@greenfeld.org wrote: I am not necessarily discounting XOs; but several community members have said in the past they were not upgrading to the latest Sugar/OLPC OS versions. This is because newer versions tend to need more resources and run slowly on older XO models. XOs may always be part of the community; but they are not necessarily going to be the centerpiece going forward. The Oversight Board may have more information than what is publicly known. But from the operational perspective, I would like to see: * A clear succession plan for Sugar Labs and Sugar development. It is unclear to me if there still are developers who can fill in for each other if case someone needs to stop working on Sugar, or who will champion the project if Walter becomes unable to do so. * An assessment of what is the current Sugar community, and what we would like to see the community become. * Some sort of public plan depending on the above. * Focusing on what's really out there. Quoting 2 or 3 million XOs made since the beginning of OLPC is great for press releases. But this does not reflect how many are actively used by children. Many XOs are broken, retired, in warehouses, etc. Apart from larger deployments which may have these numbers internally, I don't think anyone has collected the statistics. This is like if Apple stated there are 500 million iPhones 'in the field' (sold) running iOS when in practice many people have broken their iPhones, replaced them with newer models, switched to a different brand... Similar statistics could be taken for Intel Classmates and other things. * The ability to prove that Sugar is still relevant. Looking at the overlap between One Education's leadership
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
The problem with partners is that any partner who has established a history of making good decision will ask the same question Mr. Greenfeld asked to start this thread. If they get the same response Dr. Bender gave Mr. Greenfeld they take their money and go back home. Several individuals such as Mr. Abente have suggested the importance of feedback. SugarLabs seems to have difficulty hearing feedback it does not like. Rather than investigate what to improve, the project tends to belittle the reporter's lack of knowledge or vision. This has left Sugar as Dr. Bender's personal project. I can't follow you. Almost all the people participating in this thread are Sugar Labs. We have different opinions many times. It might be instructive to ask the simple question, What type of project is Sugar? Could you be more specific? That question can be replied in many different ways. Gonzalo ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
On February 27, 2015 at 6:23 AM Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 1:20 PM, Jerry Vonau m...@jvonau.ca wrote: I know this is not a sugar issue directly, more of an OLPC issue but since Fedora F12 the entire i686 platform's userland is being compiled with -mtune=atom[1] which would use sse[2]. -mtune is designed not to break any compatibility. So -mtune=atom means that generated code is optimized for atom but *no compatibility with other CPUs is broken*. So -mtune=atom does not imply that gcc will spit out sse instructions because it feels like it. In fact, it will actively avoid generating sse instructions in order to maintain compatibility. (-march is probably what you are thinking of) Well sort of, that sets the minimum cpu level to be compiled for, -mfpmath has hand in the choice that is used for compiling also. I was mistaken, guess I'll now think of -mtune as the most advanced cpu features that can be used if present. Just a thought, I haven't checked yet and have no plans in doing so but compiling for i686 on a x86_64 machine might use the -mfpmath info, unless specifically overridden, from the compiling machine where mfpmath default is to use sse. This causes problems for some parts of sugar[3] now that java[4] is being used more and the XO-1 lacks sse. The WebKit issue happened because it generates its own machine code at runtime (not using gcc). It's definitely a bug that it dropped sse instructions in there without properly checking if the CPU can do sse, but not a common case that you will see throughout the distro. Good that is not the whole distro it is just WebKit but someone wrote the code with sse in mind but didn't see the need to fallback if absent. Perhaps they were working on the assumption that all i686s had sse or Fedora's lowest cpu supported would have sse available. I assume you mean javascript there, and bug #4785 does not look like a sse-related issue to me. That issue shows a SIGSEGV whereas if code is using sse instructions you would instead expect a SIGILL. A crash is a crash, and should be fixed. What is the fix needs to be is up to those who still care. ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)
On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 03:31:50PM +1100, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 04:20:02PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: On February 25, 2015 at 3:09 PM James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote: On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 01:20:19PM -0600, Jerry Vonau wrote: I know this is not a sugar issue directly, more of an OLPC issue but since Fedora F12 the entire i686 platform's userland is being compiled with -mtune=atom which would use sse. This causes problems for some parts of sugar now that java is being used more and the XO-1 lacks sse. Fixing one package that uses sse might fix one issue but this is really a distro wide setting and other issues may float to the top in other areas. Thanks, wasn't aware -mtune=atom was being used upstream. It explains a lot. First build after Fedora 11 was 11.2.0 (os874) using Fedora 14. So if we rebuild everything there may be an improvement? That's probably something that can be set running as a test. Wouldn't all the rpms used need to be recompiled to ensure mtune is set to match throughout the distro? Don't think so. Check my logic: The GCC documentation you referenced described -mtune as Tune to cpu-type everything applicable about the generated code, except for the ABI and the set of available instructions. -march is more significant, as Generate instructions for the machine type cpu-type. The choices for cpu-type are the same as for -mtune. Moreover, specifying -march=cpu-type implies -mtune=cpu-type. If the ABI were different between i586 and i686 arch, that would be very interesting. Tall order IMHO, good luck ;-) For the moment, I'm doing a mock --rebuild of webkitgtk3 with --arch=i586, and the logs so far show -march=i586 -mtune=generic instead of -march=i686 -mtune=atom: This didn't change the problem, gdb core still showed SSE instructions used. Daniel Drake's change to WebKit that fixed this before has since been lost in the current WebKit sources in git. Patch is in the history, but some later patch removed the change. $ grep mtune build.log | grep i586 | wc --lines 8564 $ grep mtune build.log | grep atom | wc --lines 0 $ Jerry -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
