Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer
On 24 October 2010 17:42, David Farning dfarn...@ubuntu.com 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
On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Bastien bastien.gue...@wikimedia.fr 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
On 24 October 2010 05:42, David Farning dfarn...@ubuntu.com 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
On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:50 AM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org 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
[IAEP] stepping down as maintainer
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
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
Re: [IAEP] stepping down as maintainer
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
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
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
Hi Tomeu, On 19 Oct 2010, at 17:50, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org 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
