Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-26 Thread Tim McNamara
Please excuse my rash pushing of the 'send' button:

On 26 October 2010 23:42, Tim McNamara  wrote:

> *Issue 2*: veto
>
> We have a small cadre of experienced and highly able contributors.
>

This means that an expectation of very high-quality will become established
as the norm.  This is a hard wall to scale while contributing. However,
there have been many emails on the development list surrounding changes to
the patch acceptance process. I don't feel that anyone is against change if
it will make things more productive.

Tim
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-26 Thread Tim McNamara
On 24 October 2010 17:42, David Farning  wrote:

> Sugar Labs lost its lead developer.  [...]
>

At the risk of angering pretty much everybody Sugar Labs has three
> fundamental problems.  Sugar Labs is optimistic to the point of
> untruthfulness.  Sugar Labs is lead by veto rather than vision.  There
> is a lack of accountability to stakeholders.
>

David,

Thank you for your bravery and frankness with which you have raised these
concerns. My main desire from these discussion is that contributors will
feel like they are contributing to a project with momentum by the end of
them.

I would like to address your three points. However, I would also like to add
some more context to the discussion as I see it:

Sugar faces several up-coming technical challenges that will test the
resolve of Sugar Labs.
 - a move to a touch-based interface
 - change in hardware infrastructure for the XOs (e.g. ARM processors)
 - Move to GNOME 3.0
 - Move to Python 2.7 & eventually to 3.x

>From the pedagogical side, I'm sure that an increased emphasis on
standardised testing (at least in the developed world) means that there will
be an increased expectation for standardised teaching tools.

*Issue 1*: over-promising

This is a tricky problem. Sugar is enticing. I think that we will not be
able to contain people's enthusiasm, nor do I think that Sugar Labs should
stop aspiring to provide the world's best educational platform. Instead, we
should focus on improving the technology.

*Issue 2*: veto

We have a small cadre of experienced and highly able contributors.

*Issue 3*: lack of accountability to stakeholders

I don't agree that Sugar Labs is unresponsive. Nor do I agree that a change
in the leadership structure will be beneficial.  WB has provided excellent
service to the team. We have engaged with OLPC, Fedora and provide support
several deployments. For a volunteer driven organisation, it's highly
responsive.

Here are some of my reflections over the last few days:

The list of challenges does look overwhelming. There is probably a lack of
developer capacity in our community to deal with them. At least, I'm fairly
intimidated. Sugar is a very large project, with hundreds of interdependent
parts. However, we should remember that each of these challenges is
surmountable. They will also present developers with the possibility to
innovate and interesting solutions.

It would be good to quantify the risks that the project faces. Are the list
of challenges I've written up valid things to worry about?

I think Sugar Labs could create an informal mentor system to enable more
contributions from current 'lurkers'. This proposal is  I think the
development teams needs to draw on IAEP & others for support. I think that
once everyone feels like that a degree of momentum has been reached, the
community will grow and our educators will be able to go back to just
educating.

Sugar Labs does lots of its own infrastructure. Is that the best use of
contributors' time? (Why don't we use Canonical's Launchpad?)


Regards,


Tim McNamara
@timClicks
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-24 Thread Daniel Drake
On 24 October 2010 05:42, David Farning  wrote:
> Sugar Labs lost its lead developer.  It is unfortunate that no-one has
> done a public review of the reasons and implications of Tomeu quiting.
>  Tomeu's leaving is significant enough that Sugar Labs should take a
> hard look at what is working, what is not working, and how to fix the
> pieces that are not working.

I think a lot of contributors forgot to be nice to the maintainer. If
I were in Tomeu's position I think I would have stepped down a while
ago (I've been put in what I think are similar positions in other
projects I've been involved in). Too much emails and not enough code,
simple maintainers wishes being ignored, nobody stepping up to help
the maintainer with the increasing workload, etc. A key part of
contributing to an open source is keeping the maintainer engaged and
motivated.

Daniel
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-24 Thread David Farning
On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Bastien  wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> I think everyone agrees that Tomeu stepping down as a maintainer is a
> big loss.  I join my voice to those who already expressed this and my
> thanks to Tomeu for all the crazy work he's been achieving here - and
> it's not only lines of code, it's also a general welcoming and helping
> attitude, which is priceless.
>
> I did a small experiment: I clicked on the "Getting involved" button.
>
> I'm not falling into those categories: developer, designer, educator,
> content writer.  I can help as a translator (I did so in the past) and
> as a "people person".
>
> So I clicked on the "People person" button.
>
> I understand the projects listed here and how I can help them: marketing
> team, documentation team, deployment team, local labs, soas.
>
> Here is my list (preference order) :
>
> - *Local labs*: I will try to have more people involved in Sugar from
>  France.  Since early october, we have at least two new members of OLPC
>  who will work more on Sugar.
>
> - *Sugar on a stick*: together with other members, I will try to develop
>  a french Soas.
>
> - *Marketing team*: [sadly enough, we don't seem to have news from Sean.
>  Hopefully nothing bad happened to him - he's usually very responsive.]
>  My role here could be a "general outreach" role: trying to translate
>  marketing documents, speak more about Sugar in events, etc.

Bastien,
Thank you for all you have done and being the first person to
_step_up_ and identify yourself as willing (and from your past
performance -- able) to commit to working on a much needed set of
tasks.

> I'm addressing this message to you since your the contact for this role.
>
> :)
>
> There is something I miss in the list of "teams/projects" for "people
> persons": community management.  This is very different from marketing
> and outreach.  Maybe this project/role could be advertized somewhere
> on the wiki.
>
> I'll keep this list updated about progress I make in this role.
>
> PS: I don't dwell on Sugar criticism because I fail to grok how this
> could help us go ahead and keep moving forward.

+1.  The focus is not criticism or even discussion.  The criticism
is a call to action -- Sugar Labs needs help.

The focus is the generous response of people like you going though the
process of:
1.  Determining what can be done to make Sugar and Sugar Labs better.
2. Identifying how you can apply your time and specific talents to those needs.
3. Making the public commitment to work on a few specific needs.

david

>  Criticism is useful
> when resources are growing, not when they are shrinking.
>
> --
>  Bastien
>
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-23 Thread David Farning
On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:50 AM, Tomeu Vizoso  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> for personal reasons have to drastically reduce my involvement in the project.
>
> Will be leaving maintenance of my modules and unsubscribing from the
> mailing lists. My place on the board is vacant from now on and I'll be
> adding to the wiki the new vacancies:
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Vacancies
>
> Cheers and good luck,
>
> Tomeu

Sugar Labs lost its lead developer.  It is unfortunate that no-one has
done a public review of the reasons and implications of Tomeu quiting.
 Tomeu's leaving is significant enough that Sugar Labs should take a
hard look at what is working, what is not working, and how to fix the
pieces that are not working.

At the risk of angering pretty much everybody Sugar Labs has three
fundamental problems.  Sugar Labs is optimistic to the point of
untruthfulness.  Sugar Labs is lead by veto rather than vision.  There
is a lack of accountability to stakeholders.

Sugar Labs is optimistic to the point of untruthfulness.  The main
_symptom_ of this is the current state of Sugar Labs.  Sugar is not
perfect. Sugar Labs is not perfect.

The _disease_ is an adherence to faulty premises rather then the use
of the Scientific Method of: Ask a question. Do background research.
Construct a hypothesis. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment.
Analyze your data and draw a conclusion. Communicate your results.

Premise 1. Sugar is open source, written in python, and the source is
easily available.  Therefore kids will develop and improve Sugar.
What fraction of useful and usable improvements have been committed
into sugar by the target users.  The key metric is commit ratio.
Everyone has an antidote about some budding hacker.  As with the patch
acceptance process, developing Sugar requires more than solving logic
problems.

In theory this premise is sound, and desirable, the overall technical
capabilities of a nation will improve as more people are exposed to
Sugar at an early age.  The question become what is the time lag
between exposure to Sugar and useful contribution to Sugar?

Premise 2. Sugar is open source, written in python, and the source is
easily available.  Therefore deployments will develop Sugar.  What
fraction of useful and usable improvements have been committed into
sugar by deployments.

In theory this premise is sound, and desirable, Sugar deployments and
their associated support infrastructure provide a catalyst for
building local technical capability. The question becomes, considering
the limited resources of deployments, is the benefit of contributing
upstream worth the cost?

Premise 3.  Any problems with Sugar are because the user, teacher, or
deployment is not smart or motivated enough.  What are the usability
concerns of users, teachers, and deployments? How are those concerns
being addressed?

In theory this is true yet undesirable.  A significantly motived
person _can_ figure out just about anything.  The primary decision
making factor for users, teachers, and deployments is marginal
benefit.  Does using and learning to use the laptop/Sugar prove a
marginal benefit over other learning opertunities.

Sugar Labs is lead by veto rather than vision. A _symptom_ is the
development process. It it easy to have fix commited to Fedora or
OLPC.  It is hard to have a fix commited to Sugar Labs.  When someone
sends a useful fix to either OLPC or Fedora, a senior developer takes
the patch, review it, fixes it up (if necessary) and thanks the
contributor.  This provides an incentive and on-ramp for less
experienced developers to participate and contribute.

Sugar Labs rejects most patches.  Once a patch is technically correct,
which can take several iterations for a new developer, it is forward
to another developer for their vote of approval.  The end result is
that very few people bother to submitted patches upstream.

The _disease_ is a marginalization of anyone who dissents.  As a
result no one is willing to take a risk.  There is an unwritten
checklist for participation.  1) Are you a knowledgeable, experienced,
and patient open source developer? 2) Is your goal open source
advocacy? 3) Are you a strict constructionist? 4)  This results in
very low participation in Sugar Labs.

There is the lack of accountability to stakeholders.  The Board of
Directors of an non-profit organization the board reports to
stakeholders, particularly the local communities which the nonprofit
serves.  The Executive Director is responible for carrying out the
strategic plans and policies as established by the board of directors.

As a starting point for bringing Sugar Labs out its current crisis, I
suggest the following plan:

1. Each Oversight board member, or candidate, identify a stakeholder
and spend the next 12 months advocating for that stakeholder.
Advocating includes: Identify the specif needs and goals of the
stakeholder.  Identify the resources that stakeholder can contribute
to Sugar Labs.  Identify how Sugar or

Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-19 Thread Gary Martin
Hi Tomeu,

On 19 Oct 2010, at 17:50, Tomeu Vizoso  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> for personal reasons have to drastically reduce my involvement in the project.
> 
> Will be leaving maintenance of my modules and unsubscribing from the
> mailing lists. My place on the board is vacant from now on and I'll be
> adding to the wiki the new vacancies:
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Vacancies

I'm very sorry to see you step down as maintainer. I wish you all the very best 
of success for your future goals, and many, many thanks for all your efforts 
and dedication! 

Kind Regards,
--Gary

> Cheers and good luck,
> 
> Tomeu
> ___
> 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
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-19 Thread Christoph Derndorfer
I'm sorry to see you go. Thanks so much for your outstanding work and
commitment over the years. I think it's very safe to say that Sugar
wouldn't be anywhere close to where it is today if it weren't for you.

Best of luck for your future endeavors and I hope to see you again in
the not too-distant future.

Thanks,
Christoph

Am 19.10.2010 18:50, schrieb Tomeu Vizoso:
> Hi,
> 
> for personal reasons have to drastically reduce my involvement in the project.
> 
> Will be leaving maintenance of my modules and unsubscribing from the
> mailing lists. My place on the board is vacant from now on and I'll be
> adding to the wiki the new vacancies:
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Vacancies
> 
> Cheers and good luck,
> 
> Tomeu
> ___
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
> 

-- 
Christoph Derndorfer
co-editor, www.olpcnews.com
e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-19 Thread James Simmons
Tomeu,

Let me join the chorus of thank-yous.  You helped me a great deal when
I was learning how to make Sugar activities, and if my book on the
subject is any good at all you deserve a large portion of the credit.

Good luck in all your future endeavors.

Jame Simmons
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-19 Thread Caryl Bigenho

Tomeu,
You will be greatly missed!  Thanks for the many wonderful things you have done 
over the years.
¡Abrazos!
Carolina (Caryl)

> Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:18:26 +0200
> From: si...@schampijer.de
> To: to...@sugarlabs.org
> CC: iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer
> 
> On 10/19/2010 06:50 PM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > for personal reasons have to drastically reduce my involvement in the 
> > project.
> >
> > Will be leaving maintenance of my modules and unsubscribing from the
> > mailing lists. My place on the board is vacant from now on and I'll be
> > adding to the wiki the new vacancies:
> > http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Vacancies
> >
> > Cheers and good luck,
> >
> > Tomeu
> 
> Thanks for all the great work you have been doing over the last years!
> 
> Good luck to you,
> Simon
> ___
> 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
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep

Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-19 Thread Simon Schampijer

On 10/19/2010 06:50 PM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:

Hi,

for personal reasons have to drastically reduce my involvement in the project.

Will be leaving maintenance of my modules and unsubscribing from the
mailing lists. My place on the board is vacant from now on and I'll be
adding to the wiki the new vacancies:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Vacancies

Cheers and good luck,

Tomeu


Thanks for all the great work you have been doing over the last years!

Good luck to you,
Simon
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


[IAEP] stepping down as maintainer

2010-10-19 Thread Tomeu Vizoso
Hi,

for personal reasons have to drastically reduce my involvement in the project.

Will be leaving maintenance of my modules and unsubscribing from the
mailing lists. My place on the board is vacant from now on and I'll be
adding to the wiki the new vacancies:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Vacancies

Cheers and good luck,

Tomeu
___
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep