[Sugar-devel] Fwd: Call for Participation Now Open
Is anyone sending in proposals for OSCON 2009? This year it will (sadly) be in San Jose. I saw many XOs at OSCON in 2007 (Rob Savoye had the most visible one...he was walking around with it), but only two in 2008 - I had one and the OSUOSL guys had one. I also heard a lot of misleading opinions from the attendees (Windows/MSFT drama). So, at the very least, we should have a significant presence in the exhibit areas. Some of you Sugarheads should really present in sessions as well! Sameer -- Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Information Systems San Francisco State University San Francisco CA 94132 USA http://verma.sfsu.edu/ http://opensource.sfsu.edu/ -- Forwarded message -- From: O'Reilly Open Source Convention Date: Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 4:45 PM Subject: Call for Participation Now Open To: sve...@sfsu.edu If you cannot read the information below, click here. News & Coverage Sponsorship opportunities Media partnership inquiries Be Part of OSCON 2009 O'Reilly's Open Source Convention, "Open for Business" as It Begins Its Second Decade O'Reilly Media invites developers, designers, sysadmins, community leaders, inventors, CTOs and CIOs, evangelists and activists, researchers, strategists, and entrepreneurs to lead conference sessions and tutorials at the eleventh O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 20-24 in San Jose, California. The Call for Participation is now open. Submit your proposal by midnight PST February 3, 2009 With the global economy on shifting ground, the world is looking to the tech industry for solutions to a wide range of challenges. Ubiquitous computing, with smart phones at the leading edge, continues to expand. Open source is at the core of so many emerging technologies, driving the innovation engine. How can open source — its tools as well as its principles — contribute to making a difference in the business of computing? How can it help to create a sustainable lifestyle? In an uncertain economy, how can open source empower us? The first ten years of OSCON were about opening the minds of big business to the philosophy of open source. The next ten will be about opening the minds of the open source community to the practical possibilities of its future. As OSCON "goes to eleven" in 2009, we want to turn up the volume on efficiency, knowledge transfer, and working smarter within constraints to achieve more with what we already have—or even with less. What can you contribute? We want to hear about your winning techniques, favorite life-savers, and the system you've made that everyone will be using next year. We'll have tracks for sessions and tutorials on Linux, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, Databases, Desktop Applications, Web Applications, Mobile, Administration, Security, People, Business, and Emerging Topics. We're seeking proposals for 45-minute sessions, 45-minute panel discussions, and 3-hour in-depth, hands-on tutorials. Some of the topics we want to consider at OSCON 2009 include: Doing more with less—finding opportunities in a constrained economy Design and usability—tools, techniques, and success stories Open source in smart phones and mobile networked devices Cloud computing, openness in distributed services Parallelization, grid, and multicore technologies Open web, open standards, open data AI, machine learning, and other ways of making software smarter than the people using it Open source in democracy, politics, government, and education Best practices for building a business model around open source Virtualization and appliances—their creation and deployment This is just to get you started. We want to hear your ideas, your stories, your successes (and failures). Focus your proposal on hands-on instruction and real-world examples to provide conference participants with information they can put to use immediately and inspiration that will propel their work for months to come. If you're passionate about open source, the open technologies shaping our future, building communities, crafting beautiful code, designing for users, or just getting things done, we invite you to answer the call for innovation and submit a proposal now, see the submission guidelines Meeting July 20-24 in San Jose, OSCON is the crossroads of all things open source, a deeply technical conference that brings community ideals face-to-face with business practicality. Join 3,000 of the best, brightest, and most interesting people to explore what's new and to help define, maintain, and extend the identity of what it means to be open source. OSCON is the place to be inspired and challenged, renew bonds to community, make new connections, and discover the most relevant projects and products to help you do your best. Early registration opens in March. To receive advance notification and stay informed on the program as it develops, sign up for the conference newsletter If you have ideas for speakers and topics that will make the convention a must attend event, send t
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Hi Stanley, > The FlashPlayer is a virtual machine for display of highly visual, > interactive, and compelling software content. I don't agree that > use of Flash as a platform would be incompatible with "our strategy > of _how_ to achieve education of the world's children" just because > it was created under the proprietary umbrella of Macromedia and now > Adobe. Please re-read my e-mail -- Flash's creation story was not in the list of reasons I gave for finding it an inappropriate platform for Sugar. > Regarding free development tools, the FlashDevelop IDE is free > open-source and quite good for developing source code for the > FlashPlayer. The various development kits (SDK) from Adobe and 3rd > parties for Flash development (ActionScript, Flex, AIR, Away3d, > etc.) are free downloads. Even if any of these tools were usable for the creation of Flash content (my impression is that they aren't), none of them run under the same operating system as Sugar, which makes them unavailable as editors for learners using Sugar (most of whom currently use Sugar on the OLPC XO). My argument is that a learning environment whose reason for existing is to encourage the creation and appropriation of content by learners should not attempt to accomplish this using a platform that provides *no method* for the learners using it to create or appropriate content! Thanks, - Chris. -- Chris Ball ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
[Sugar-devel] Sugar Digest 2009-01-05
=== Sugar Digest === I read the new Neal Stephenson book, Anathem, last week. There was one line I cannot resist sharing with the Sugar community. Raz, our hero, is a young mathematician who leaves the nest to solve any number of problems. At one point, he asks why he is the one upon whom everyone is leaning. "But Raz, you are educable, you can learn 'this kind of thing,'... You've spent your whole life ... becoming educable." Another book I read over the holidays is a new biography of Andrew Jackson. He remains a pretty controversial figure, but he knew the importance of "staying focused on the things that matter most and not dwelling on the things that pull us apart." In the case of Sugar Labs, the things that matters most are creating a great learning platform and making it available to learners everywhere. I am confident that in 2009, we will see Sugar in the hands of many more children and teachers. We'll see an accelerated pace of development and deployment across a diverse set of platforms under an even more diverse set of conditions. While we debate the various means towards our goals, we need to keep in mind that the most important metric we can hold up to our work is the impact on learning. On the one hand, we need to flexible and inclusive; on the other hand, we need to adhere to the core principles that make Sugar of value to the learner, putting an emphasis on quality over quantity. So while we shouldn't be overly zealous, we need to constantly remind ourselves and those whom we are trying to reach of the value of learning to learn: the authentic appropriation of knowledge, learning through expressing, debugging, reflection, and critique. If it does not impact the learning, we shouldn't be doing it. === Community jams, meet-ups, and meetings === FUDConF11 (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConF11) will be held this week (9–11 January) at MIT (Cambridge, MA). === Help Wanted === Christian Marc Schmidt has been working on a static landing page for Sugar Labs. (The wiki is a powerful tool, but not the easiest place to get started from when you are new to Sugar.) Christian has uploaded a build onto a server (See http://www.christianmarcschmidt.com/projects/sugarlabs/betasite). This version is fully dynamic, based on an XML->XSL translation using PHP 5 and Libxslt. Christian has tested it in all major browsers where it seems to work fine, but please exercise it some more. Christian is ready to concentrate on gathering content for the gallery and the activity sections. There is other content that needs to be prepared as well. As far as internationalization, we are thinking of adding a simple CSS dropdown underneath the links on the top-right edge of the page. We should decide how best to handle the translations, whether through Pootle or some other mechanism. One specific area where we are seeking help is in regard to illustrations. One project we have in mind is a comic-book-like narrative about Sugar to be featured on the static site. If anyone is interested in taking on such a project, please come forward. === Tech Talk === There are some Activity updates to report: * TurtleArt-27.xo * Yay!BeeSee-2.xo === Sugar Labs === Gary Martin has generated another SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Image:2008-Dec-27-2009-Jan-2-som.jpg) Gary has also made some significant changes to the text-metric extraction code; he is trying to "fully normalize the frequency of each term". He hypothesizes that this will "allow the maps to more clearly show the finer details that are otherwise drowned out by heavy terms" like "Sugar", "Work", "Use", "Project", "Want", etc. He'll be posting some examples in the wiki. -walter -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] possible additional talks for XOCamp2?
On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 10:27 -0500, Greg Smith wrote: > Thursday and Friday are more open. John Gilmore is confirmed for > Thursday afternoon but otherwise those meetings are mostly open and can > be changed. > > Do you want to take Friday AM 10AM - Noon or Thursday afternoon 3PM - 5PM? > > Pick a slot and fill it in. Add a section below with more detail and > link to it from the calendar if you want to give people a chance to see > the agenda in advance. > > I'm not sure how many sugar focused people will be there late in the > week but I expect you can get all the regulars from OLPC HQ at a minimum. > > Thanks, > > Greg S Great I will plan on Thursday afternoon. will put it in the wiki. How do I link it to the calendar? I will do the karma presentation since I have already written it. -- Bryan W. Berry Technology Director OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Frame icon for controlling 'wired' connection capability
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Mikus Grinbergs wrote: > Been thinking about how to re-establish a wired ethernet connection that had > been "broken" (for whatever reason). [See Ticket #7785, and two posts to > de...@laptop.org with "#7785" in the Subject.] > > All I have to go by is Joyride (I normally install each build as it is > released). I've seen the 'Wired' icon in Frame -- but the way I remember > it, that icon only showed up once the wired ethernet connection was active. > [The current Joyride 2613 only shows me two unlabeled gray circles in the > bottom edge of Frame, neither of which can be used for anything. Do you > suppose they are meant to represent 'wired connection resource' and 'mesh > connection resource' ???] > > > What I am writing to you about is to request that the 'Wired' icon in Frame > be shown __all the time__ when a "wired adapter" is being detected by the > hardware. [Judging by the LEDs on the ethernet adapter I have plugged into > my XO, that adapter is "powered" (i.e., "detected") only when there is a > "live cable" plugged into it.] > > I believe that if the system is not (for whatever reason) automatically > using the physical wired connection, the user *needs* a means to indicate > "wired is what I want you to try now". When an appropriate icon is present > in the Frame, it is simpler to click there (and see what happens) than to > physically re-plug the adapter (and see what happens). That means the icon > needs to be there already, irrespective of "network use". The specification for the wired device is that it appears anytime a physical ethernet connection exists. I realize after reading your email that my advice to Simon (who implemented it), may have been ambiguous in this regard, assuming a wired network connection and not a physical connection. I'm not sure how it's presently implemented, but I concur that the device should be present anytime the physical cable is connected. Simon, do you have input to help clarify the current status? - Eben > [Ticket #7785 was on 8.2.x, which does not have a 'wired' icon in Frame. > The system had uselessly set up an 196.254.x.x address for the XO's > ethernet interface, whereas the ethernet itself provided only a 192.168.1.0 > network. I had to massively intervene to get the XO to pay attention to > that wired network's DHCP server.] > > Thanks, mikus > ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Hi, > When the primary mission - educating the world's least served children > - comes into conflict with Software Freedom, which one wins? How do > you explain that to the deployments? This is a fine question. Here's my shot at it. First, I think it would be a mistake to think that we're the only group of people, or the only software project, interested in educating these children. It would be helpful for me, then, if we could be more specific about what we in particular are trying to do (although it contains the risk that we won't agree on that). It seems to me that Sugar exists because we claim at least the following failings of most educational software projects: * they don't allow the knowledge they contain to be *appropriated*. For example, translated into other languages or cultures so that it can be useful for the entire world, or modified, commented on and discussed. They might choose to disallow this technically (by not providing a method to perform the appropriation) or socially (by actively disallowing it). * they don't allow children to be *creators*, and not just consumers. We believe, as a consensus, that the best way to learn is by creation and problem-solving rather than by being dictated to. * they don't allow learning to be *collaborated upon*, critiqued, and conducted jointly. I'm sure this is less eloquent than the text that's already been written on our goals, but it's a start. What follows from it is that we should build software that: * is eminently modifiable by all, so that it can be appropriated into areas of the world and use cases that its authors did not consider. * should allow not just the consumption of content, but its outright creation. * should provide for pervasive sharing. Why did I just repeat all of this? It makes it easy for me to see that a system like Flash is not (yet) appropriate software for learning as we envision it, because it would not support our strategy of _how_ to achieve education of the world's children, and that strategy is our reason for not sitting back and letting the rest of the software projects out there solve the problem for us. For this reason, I would support having Sugar Labs advocate against the use of Flash, and think I can do this in an intellectually honest way. This doesn't mean I would stop someone from writing a Flash player wrapper if they want to, and it means I would likely change my mind if free Flash players and editors became more available. Thanks, - Chris. -- Chris Ball ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Wade Brainerd wrote: > just talking about shipping and supporting a 200 line > Gnash-based-activity launcher script, which can also launch Adobe if > it happens to be installed. Assuming you can talk Adobe into giving you a standalone version of their plugin... - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote: > Wade Brainerd wrote: >> >> I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar >> dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around. > > I strongly disagree. We should send the clearest possible message that SWF, > a language with no good free spec and no good free interpreter, is not > recommended, even if it is supported. Software Freedom is a key part of the > Sugar labs mission, both officially and in fact. When the primary mission - educating the world's least served children - comes into conflict with Software Freedom, which one wins? How do you explain that to the deployments? Anyway, this is such a gray area to be taking a stand in. We are just talking about shipping and supporting a 200 line Gnash-based-activity launcher script, which can also launch Adobe if it happens to be installed. -Wade ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [Testing] Please help test our pre-release build of 8.2.1
Hi Sugar team, Can you help clarify the right Browse version for 8.2.0 and 8.2.1 per the thread below? I also left a related note on the 0.83 release notes discussion page: http://sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:DevelopmentTeam/Release/Releases/Sucrose/0.83.3 Thanks, Greg S ** Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:09:37 -0500 From: Mikus Grinbergs Subject: Re: [Testing] Please help test our pre-release build of 8.2.1 To: OLPC Devel Mailing List , test...@lists.laptop.org Message-ID: <496141b1.9040...@bga.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Gary wrote: > Browse-98 . . . . . . . x x Browse-101 needed for 8.2.1 PDF support I Tested Browse-101 using the staging-7 build: - Browse-101 listed on http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities/G1G1 (i.e., http://dev.laptop.org/~erikos/bundles/0.83/Browse-101.xo) is unacceptable to me -- it will not allow on-line user changes to the entries in about:config (I selected an entry and left-clicked, then clicked on 'modify' - nothing happened). [Besides, it copies PDFs to Journal, instead of showing them.] [Other wiki pages (Activities/G1G1/8.2) listed only Browse-98.] - http://dev.laptop.org/raw-attachment/ticket/9112/Browse-101.xo, built by Sayamindu, works - I *can* modify about:config Thus it appears there is Browse-101, and then there is Browse-101. mikus ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Hi, > This might be of interest: Salasaga is a GTK/Gnome based IDE used > to create eLearning for applications. With it, you take screenshots > of your applications, add highlights, text and external images, > then generate learning objects. Present output is in swf (flash) > format. Here's another app that appeared in my RSS reader today, I haven't tried it; it seems to contain some of the ideas Bryan's interested in, though: http://www.blueskyonmars.com/2009/01/05/build-desktop-apps-with-web-ui-and-python/ http://titaniumapp.com/ - Chris. -- Chris Ball ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] How to Make Activity Designers Happy , Parts I and II
Hi, > I think Bryan's idea is wonderfully practical. What's more, > it sounds easy to achieve. You just need a 'swf-activity' > launcher, and a script to sugarize .SWF files into .xo bundles > which launch as fullscreen activities. Oh, that sounds good. I should clarify -- I don't have a problem with anyone working on that launcher or making Flash applications for learning that use it. The 'swf-activity' launcher could be little more than the gtk-gnash binary, which we already install. We're talking about "reworking the default activity framework", though, and that setup is incompatible with the requirements I'd propose for our framework, because it requires proprietary software and doesn't (as far as I can see) allow activities to save work or offer collaboration and sharing. If we recommended it in place of our current framework, we would be gaining some convenience in the form of developer time at the expense of much of the expressivity, power, and software freedom that makes our platform meaningful in the first place. So, I'd suggest that this goal (play Flash applications fullscreen) happens independently of improvements on how we help people to write Sugar activities. Does that make sense? - Chris. -- Chris Ball ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] More about Flash on the XO
Because it may help others on this list, here's a reply I received regarding my problem with Flash on the XO. Carlos Nazareno wrote: Hi Stan! > I'm having problems: Adobe FlashPlayer doesn't detect the XO's built-in > webcam so it can't transmit video out to the Internet on Flash-enabled > web sites, I've documented this problem as well at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Adobe_Flash -> The XO's webcam is not interfacing properly with Adobe Flash 9 & 10. Adobe's done a lot of work towards getting cameras in various Linux distros working with webcam enabled-Flash apps, and they finally got V4L2 running last year, but apparently the XO is using some kind of not-as-common chipset/software combo (in 8.2.0 I think the OS is using a weird mishmash of old & new software/drivers because of problems with the cam in the webcam activity on newer drivers?). I got in touch with some Adobe guys last year before Flash Player 10 final launched about Flash's webcam interfacing problems on the XO, filed the bug report, followed their instructions and submitted the hardware info gathered from the data-gathering tool at Penguin.swf's (Adobe's official Linux Flash dude) blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/07/paparazzi_v2_1.html Anyway, I haven't heard a word from the Adobe folks yet as I guess that was a very busy time for them with Flash 10 final release going out the door at the time, the report probly got lost in all the hubbub. Anyway, I'll try following up with them as I'd like to play with writing some Flash webcam toys that would work on the XO myself. >I can't get Flash to activate the > XO's camera... ...This was while running on the XO's Browse activity. The camera works with the Browse Activity, just not properly (the camera turns on and it displays red & green static that reacts to objects waved in front of the camera) > I thought > that maybe Opera for the XO would do better. No luck. Yup, Same as with the Browse Activity. XO's weird camera chipset/software combo interface still hasn't been fixed with the linux Adobe Flash 10 plugin. > Opera as installed from the wiki.laptop.org/opera instructions does not even play > the Flash on the Adobe web site nor any other Flash embedded in a web page. All that Opera shows is a > gray rectangle where the Flash should be, no text saying to click to > play the Flash. As documented in the Adobe Flash wiki: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Adobe_Flash and Adobe Flash The official Opera Activity is based on Opera 9.12 and it isn't compatible with Flash 10. The newest Adobe Flash plugin compatible with it is an older version of Flash Player 9. Newer non-Sugarized Linux desktop versions of Opera like 9.63 latest work fine and dandy with latest Flash Player 10 final. Again, you're going to have to use the Terminal (type "opera" at the prompt) to launch Opera. > I submitted a comment to the Opera programmer who maintains the Opera > blog about the OLPC version, but that blog has had very little activity > in the past year so I'm not hopeful of any results from the Opera > people. Ditto. I've tried Sugarizing newer versions of Opera myself, but we're out of luck because of the Rainbow Security implemented in newer XO OS builds don't allow writing of files by Activities to certain directories that Opera installs to. The Opera dudes will have to create a special OLPC Opera Activity for us like with 9.12 since Opera is not open sourced and we won't be able to do the proper modifications for Rainbow Security compatibility ourselves. > Has anyone here tried to run a recent release of Opera on the > XO, not the very old version that was customized for the XO according to > our wiki? Runs fine and dandy, you just have to launch it via terminal :) -> Launch Terminal Activity, type "opera" at the prompt (assuming of course that you'd already installed Opera). That instance of terminal will then be inaccessible until you exit Opera. Once you exit Opera, you regain control of the terminal prompt. (Yeah Skier, the Opera wiki entries are next on my hit list for editing: they're due for massive updates :P) > Even without the 2-way video streaming, www.vyew.com is a nice > application for collaboration over the Internet. Try it. Thanks for the link Stan! I was looking to build a Flash app just like that, only less ambitious (crud, someone beat me to the punch! ;P) Cheers! -Naz -- Carlos Nazareno http://www.object404.com -- interactive media specialist zen graffiti studios http://www.zengraffiti.com -- Philippine Flash ActionScripters http://www.phlashers.com ___ Devel mailing list de...@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote: > I strongly disagree. We should send the clearest possible message that > SWF, a language with no good free spec and no good free interpreter, is Just as a warning, Adobe is probably this year going to push SWF as an official standard, ala OOXML... at least that's the rumor... >> A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen >> resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at >> 600x450, which would likely quadruple performance. This is why we've been adding XVideo support, which has not been a trivial task as it turns out. > We can do even better. > http://wiki.gnashdev.org/Release_0.8.5#Release_Goals shows XVideo > scaling support as one of the goals for the next Gnash, due in a month. Yep, hopefully the code will stabilize over the next week now that the holiday's are over. The Code freeze starts after FOSDEM, the release itself won't be out till late Feb. It will also have support for the MIT-SHM extension, which works now, and also helps with performance issues. We hope the combination of these two performance hacks helps on low end hardware like the XO. - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Bert Freudenberg wrote: > IMHO that activity should be a wrapper for Gnash, perhaps as a native > GTK+ application, without the browser baggage (maybe such a stand-alone > player does exist already?). Since the content is authored specifically As Gnash was created originally as the UI layer for a stereo, it's always run standalone. I only made an additional plugin since most people are used to only running flash in their browser. > for Sugar (and in Nepal's case even more specifically for Sugar on the > OLPC XO-1) it can easily be tuned to work well in Gnash. Hopefully > Gnash's current limitations are well documented so authors can avoid > pitfalls. That "sugarized SWF player" could even be extended to > integrate nicely with the Journal (being able to do that is the point of > having a free implementation after all) - there is no need to be > compatible with Adobe's Flash player. Exactly. If the people creating he content work with us a little, and test with Gnash, the flash content will always work fine. You don't need any of the features of the latest flash anyway. At the same time, we need to figure out how to keep up to data builds for Sugar, as much of the problem has been old versions of Gnash. - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
David Van Assche wrote: > Salasaga is a GTK/Gnome based IDE used to create eLearning for > applications. With it, you take screenshots of your applications, > add highlights, text and external images, then generate learning > objects. Present output is in swf (flash) format. I've talked to their developers. Salasaga is a good tool for creating instructional design software, namely lots of screenshots. It's not much for animations. They thought adding a SWF backend would be interesting, it's not in their roadmap. - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: > Personally, I don't believe that Sugar Labs the organization needs > to be concerned with any of these four points. Ahh, but a recurring question from existing Sugar deployments is how to get Flash, why Flash doesn't run faster, etc. > The question is whether the Sugar *software* is flexible enough to > adapt to the needs of its users. Who are we to say what they > should install, and what tools they should use to make their content? The question is what answer you provide to this crucial question. How crucial ? Any (non-x86) processor design hoping to for MID/ settop/laptop market penetration is paying Adobe to support them from day one. One day, we hope they will instead pay someone to port Gnash + codecs instead... > Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not > specifically designed for it. Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. They don't have to be "designed" for Sugar. > This precludes smaller organizations who cannot design custom Sugar > activities from producing good content. Once the Sugar software is > more flexible and able to run arbitrary programs (Gnash, Flash, > Silverlight, GTK, Qt) without massive time investment and hacking > on the part of the content producers, the other questions won't > even reach this list. > > Best regards, > Wade > > On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 8:38 PM, David Farning > wrote: > Bryan Berry started a great thread about activity development a few > days ago. In the initial post he proposed using flash as means of > developing content. Before taking the thread any farther I though we > should stop and look at what flash actually is. > > The term flash is often interchangeably used as: > 1. A brand > 2. A player > 3. A development environment > 4. A protocol > > Yep, confusing. As we continue the discussion, I thought we should > look at how 'flash' relates to Sugar and to more generally to OLPC and > Open Source. I have CCed MaryBeth from Open Media Now and Rob from > Gnash to help clarify the many shortcomings in my explanations. > > First, the brand - > Flash is primarily a brand. It was originally created by MacroMedia > and has been purchased by Adobe. The brand consists of the player, > IDE, protocol, and the support and marketing provided by Adobe. As a > brand, Flash is competing head-to-head with Microsoft's Silverlight. > > Second, the player - > The most visible part of flash is the player. The _Adobe_Flash_Player > is a proprietary product which is developed, supported, and > distributed by Adobe. Currently, the Adobe Flash Player can only be > distributed with Adobe's permission. Binary code for the player can > be downloaded for most operating systems and distributions. > > Third party redistribution is strictly prohibited without permission. > As such it would not be possible for Sugar Labs to distribute the > Adobe_Flash_Player in its code bundles. Deployments can, and often > do, add the Player as an available activity. The Player can be > legally redistributed over an organization's intra-net. > > Third, the authoring tools - > Adobe's business model is to give away the player and sell the > authoring tools. As a result, Adobe sells several very good, yet, > expensive authoring tools. Adobe's development tool costs > approximately $750 US. > > Fourth, the Standards - > Flash deliverables come in two formats .swf and .flv. Swf and > ActionScript, the development language use to create .swfs have been > open sourced. I believe that the ActionScript source code is jointly > held by Adobe and Mozilla. There are possible legal questions about > the patent encumberment status of some of the media codecs used in > swfs and flvs. We would need clarification from the Software Freedom > Conservancy on these issues. > > So, counting backwards how does this affect Sugar Lab? > Fourth, the Standards - > We need to wait for feedback from the SFC and Open Media Now. > > Third, the authoring tools - > Adobe has done a very effective job eliminating the competition for > flash authoring tools. http://osflash.org/ has a number of open > source development tools. I am not enough of a flash developer to > judge if the authoring products are mature enough to be useful or not. > Are there any Flash developers out there, can you judge the quality > of some of these products? > > Second, the player - > The Free Software Foundation has flash player project called Gnash. > The project is makin slow yet steady progress towards being a fully > capable swf player. The project suffers from lack of support. Many > Open Source users either download the Adobe player or forgo using > flash. The itch factor is pretty low. > > As a product, Gnash is approaching, yet is not yet ready for, prime > time. I spent New Years Day with my sister's kids( ages 11, 7, and 4) > looking at their favorites sites under Ubuntu/Flash, Ubuntu/Gnas
Re: [Sugar-devel] Flash at Sugar Labs
David Farning wrote: > Fourth, the Standards - > Flash deliverables come in two formats .swf and .flv. Swf and > ActionScript, the development language use to create .swfs have been > open sourced. I believe that the ActionScript source code is jointly > held by Adobe and Mozilla. There are possible legal questions about > the patent encumberment status of some of the media codecs used in > swfs and flvs. We would need clarification from the Software Freedom > Conservancy on these issues. We wrote our own ActionScript library, and now the specifications are freely available. We haven't implemented a complete AS library, that's a huge project we haven't had the resources for. We have implemented most of the AS classes that actually get used, and have been working on AS 3 support as well. FLV is not patented, but it uses sorenson for compression, which is patented. Gnash supports Theora streaming to get around this, although I think only the Internet Archive is doing this. > So, counting backwards how does this affect Sugar Lab? > Fourth, the Standards - > We need to wait for feedback from the SFC and Open Media Now. Already talked to the SFLC on the issues, the main legal issue is basically the codecs, SWF itself has never been patented. I've met with EFF lawyers too about reverse engineering issue,and we're good there. But flash movies use MP3 as the codec for sounds in animations. While Gnash does support the streaming of vorbis or theora, there so far aren't any creation tools that will let you use vorbis for sound effects yet. We'd love to add this to our swf creation tool, Ming, one of these days... > Third, the authoring tools - > Adobe has done a very effective job eliminating the competition for > flash authoring tools. http://osflash.org/ has a number of open > source development tools. I am not enough of a flash developer to > judge if the authoring products are mature enough to be useful or not. > Are there any Flash developers out there, can you judge the quality > of some of these products? None of the free flash authoring tools have a GUI. We support the Ming project, then there is mtasc (as2, v8 only), and haxe. We've tried to raise funding to put a GUI on top of any of these swf compilers, but nobody seems that interested. The existing free authoring tools I've seen don't even generate swf yet, they're bare prototypes. I've wondered about a SWF backend for etoys though... > Second, the player - > The Free Software Foundation has flash player project called Gnash. > The project is makin slow yet steady progress towards being a fully > capable swf player. The project suffers from lack of support. Many > Open Source users either download the Adobe player or forgo using > flash. The itch factor is pretty low. Yep. We get little support, as at the slightest problem, people just install Adobe, and nobody sticks to Gnash unless they're a free software fan. That and although we make good progress for a small team, many distributions (OLPC included) have a bad tendency to stick to old, out of date versions. > There was a steady decrease in the availability and usability of sites > with Xo and Gnash. We need to wait for feedback from Gnash about the > product's technical limitations and the project's development > limitations. We suffer mostly from lack of resources, even when we had some funding for the core team. There is just so much a handful of volunteer developers can do... and reverse engineering is often slow and tedious. > Finally, the brand - > Adobe has recently asked Gnash to call their player a SWF player > rather than a flash player:) Actually Adobe asked Canonical to call it a swf player, they've never talked to us about it directly. As they said then, swf is the name of a format that gets played, flash is the trademarked term of the creation tools itself. - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash development for the XO
Hi, Chris Ball wrote: > Hi Bryan, > >> Developing learning activities requires the developer already know >> something about programming. In Nepal, China, India that means they >> have at least a pirated copy of Windows and possibly Adobe Flash. >> If they have linux, that means that some time ago they had pirated >> Windows which they used to learn about linux. > > That sounds plausible, at least for pirated Windows. (I'm sure it's > much harder to get a copy of Flash.) > > I'm not willing to incorporate "First, get a pirated copy of Windows > and Flash" into my instructions for activity development, though. > I'm writing regarding the latest thread about using Flash as a development platform for XO activities. Very recently, my attention turned to Flash, or more specifically to Flex which is Adobe's platform for development of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that run on the Flash Player virtual machine. (Flash is the system for development of applications, mainly video animations on a timeline, in a highly visual manner, whereas Flex is oriented toward programming GUI (graphical user interface) applications, but both of them use the same underlying technology of ActionScript language and the virtual machine embedded in the Flash Player to execute the object code.) I considered Javascript and the multitude of libraries built for it, but Flash seems to be a better way for me to build robust, attractive, run-everywhere applications. I won't go into the details of that decision, but here are some things not mentioned yet in this discussion about Flash for the future of OLPC software. Adobe has opened the source of most of the Flash development kit and provides it free-of-charge as a download of the kit called the Flex SDK, which is a complete development kit for building ActionScript 3 applications except for the IDE (integrated development environment). Adobe sells their Flash Builder IDE for about $300, but there's a free open source IDE that's pretty good: FlashDevelop. FlashDevelop doesn't have the what-you-see-is-what-you-get playback view of your code that is included in Adobe's more featured Flex Builder, but you can accomplish the same thing by compiling and viewing the results in your browser, then returning to the FlashDevelop IDE, all of which is quick and easy. Read about it at: http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Features . You don't absolutely need an IDE to develop Flash programs, since you can just write them in your favorite programming editor, but an IDE makes life a little easier. FlashDevelop only runs on Windows and .NET, but the resulting output runs anywhere on the FlashPlayer. Flex (and FlashDevelop) lets you develop the UI (user interface) using an XML language called MXML to place the pre-built widgets on the screen and hook them to programmed logic written as scripts in ActionScript, all embedded in an HTML page to run in a browser that has had the Flash Player installed. (ActionScript is Adobe's language, but it was based on the proposed next version of Javascript which is still in development by the standards organization.) As you know, FlashPlayer is almost ubiquitous, being installed by most computer manufacturers and freely downloaded from www.adobe.com . It's available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. There are free open-source libraries that work with ActionScript to enhance what you can do, even some amazing 3d libraries such as Away3d. (Check it out at www.away3d.org .) Although the source of the FlashPlayer is not open, that should not be a deterrent to developing for it. Anyone working with open source software is sorely aware that open source software development is somewhat chaotic and doesn't in fact produce software that runs everywhere without major problems. Having one company provide the infrastructure in the form of FlashPlayer has some advantages. FlashPlayer sounds like just a video player, but it's far more than that. It is a virtual machine for running programs compiled by the ActionScript compilers, such as the one included for free in the Flex SDK. Adobe's web site has a great deal of tutorial and reference information, including videos, about developing for the infrastructure, so it's not necessary to buy a lot of books or take expensive classes. The same development system can also be used to run Flex applications outside of the browser like any other desktop application, using the Adobe AIR player, also free to download with a free AIR SDK at www.adobe.com/air . However, Flash on the XO is not yet a rosy picture in my book. Yesterday I posted my comments on de...@lists.laptop.org, which I quote below. Stanley Sokolow wrote to developers at de...@lists.laptop.org: > Hi, > > I'm having problems: Adobe FlashPlayer doesn't detect the XO's built-in > webcam so it can't transmit video out to the Internet on Flash-enabled
Re: [Sugar-devel] How to Make Activity Designers Happy , Parts I and II
Hi Bryan, > Developing learning activities requires the developer already know > something about programming. In Nepal, China, India that means they > have at least a pirated copy of Windows and possibly Adobe Flash. > If they have linux, that means that some time ago they had pirated > Windows which they used to learn about linux. That sounds plausible, at least for pirated Windows. (I'm sure it's much harder to get a copy of Flash.) I'm not willing to incorporate "First, get a pirated copy of Windows and Flash" into my instructions for activity development, though. We're supposed to be combating the inequity that says "we can create things on our computers because we're rich, but you don't get to do that on yours without breaking the law because you're poor". That inequity is just as much a part of the digital divide as everything else we're trying to bridge over, in my opinion. It feels important to me to be able to say "Here's a software platform for you to start out with, and here's all of the software we used in the process of making it, which means there's nothing stopping you from learning to further it yourself". A true passing on of knowledge from one group to another, as equals. I imagine this is the kind of debate where no-one really changes their mind; that's okay. As long as the viewpoint of software freedom as a foundational principle for Sugar (even in the face of extra convenience) is being represented and considered, I'm happy. Thanks, - Chris. -- Chris Ball ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Teaching typing and basic math on the XO
On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 07:20:05PM -0500, Wade Brainerd wrote: If you have used TuxType, you will know that it's a simplistic typing *practice game* and in no way teaches the user how to type. I thought that's what you're looking for. How do you imagine a "typing teaching activity" to work? What does the "Typing Turtle" activity that was mentioned look like? CU Sascha -- http://sascha.silbe.org/ http://www.infra-silbe.de/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] How to Make Activity Designers Happy , Parts I and II
Hi Bryan, > Sadly, Javascript can't use the Graphics Processing Unit like Flash > can. Ouch, The XO doesn't have much of a GPU, so I wouldn't be so worried about this. Any Javascript renderer that backs onto cairo will get as any other graphics on the XO. > Many people will likely hate my promotion of Flash for learning > activities. It's OK if you hate me and Flash. I do hope you > recognize that we need a more developer-centric activity framework > that uses web technologies. Making activity development easier is an unarguably fine goal, but I don't think there are any simple solutions. For example, do we even have a Flash editor under Linux? Is the first instruction on how to write activities for someone in the developing world going to be "First, pirate a copy of Windows and Adobe Flash Professional, and then.."? - Chris. -- Chris Ball ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 16:01 +0100, David Van Assche wrote: > This might be of interest: > > Salasaga is a GTK/Gnome based IDE used to create eLearning for > applications. With it, you take screenshots of your applications, > add highlights, text and external images, then generate learning > objects. Present output is in swf (flash) format. > > It would certainly be useful for making flash based learning objects > for Moodle. The site for the soft is here: > http://www.salasaga.org/ > > kind Regards, > David Van Assche This looks extremely neat. Thanks for the link David! -- Bryan W. Berry Technology Director OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Wade Brainerd wrote: > I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar > dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around. I strongly disagree. We should send the clearest possible message that SWF, a language with no good free spec and no good free interpreter, is not recommended, even if it is supported. Software Freedom is a key part of the Sugar labs mission, both officially and in fact. > A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen > resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at > 600x450, which would likely quadruple performance. We can do even better. http://wiki.gnashdev.org/Release_0.8.5#Release_Goals shows XVideo scaling support as one of the goals for the next Gnash, due in a month. --Ben ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] File transfer in Telepathy
Le mardi 02 décembre 2008 à 17:51 +, Guillaume Desmottes a écrit : This new release depends on glib 2.16, dbus 1.1.0 and > libsoup-2.2. I just released telepathy-salut 0.3.7 depending on libsoup-2.4 instead of 2.2. This release also fixes some file transfer related bugs. See http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/telepathy/2009-January/002719.html for the announcement. Regards, G. ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] possible additional talks for XOCamp2?
Hi Bryan, Both sound like very good subjects. I have you down for two hours Monday afternoon: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XOcamp_2#Monday_January_12.2C_2009 My goal for the first day is to give an overview of the challenges faced by deployments and how we hope to address them in release 9.1.0. Hopefully your slot Monday can address Nepal's experience and next stage plans. After you on Monday afternoon, is a working meeting to define how we ensure the latest Sugar is stable and how we include it in 9.1.0. Then we cover the technical details of each 9.1 area Tues. and Wed. Thursday and Friday are more open. John Gilmore is confirmed for Thursday afternoon but otherwise those meetings are mostly open and can be changed. Do you want to take Friday AM 10AM - Noon or Thursday afternoon 3PM - 5PM? Pick a slot and fill it in. Add a section below with more detail and link to it from the calendar if you want to give people a chance to see the agenda in advance. I'm not sure how many sugar focused people will be there late in the week but I expect you can get all the regulars from OLPC HQ at a minimum. Thanks, Greg S Bryan Berry wrote: > I would like to give the following talks at XOCamp2 if there is space in > the schedule for them and others are interested. Please let me know if > you would be interested > > 1. Evolution of a deployment organization. > > About the challenges of building a deployment team from scratch and > lesson learned along the way. Not a very technical talk. > > 2. Karma - Not for Hackers, for Designers > > Talk about my still evolving ideas for a flash-based activity framework > called Karma > > ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
This might be of interest: Salasaga is a GTK/Gnome based IDE used to create eLearning for applications. With it, you take screenshots of your applications, add highlights, text and external images, then generate learning objects. Present output is in swf (flash) format. It would certainly be useful for making flash based learning objects for Moodle. The site for the soft is here: http://www.salasaga.org/ kind Regards, David Van Assche On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: > On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote: >> On 05.01.2009, at 05:24, John Watlington wrote: >> >>> On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not specifically designed for it. >>> >>> Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. >>> They don't have to be "designed" for Sugar. >> >> >> I think this goes besides the original point of Bryan. He is well aware that >> software needs to be specifically designed for Sugar, and wether this is >> good or bad is not the current debate. The point is what tools one can use >> to implement a proper Sugar activity. Bryan says the tools many content >> developers are familiar with are HTML, Javascript, and Flash. > > I agree completely - I proposed a swf-activity launcher script as the > solution, in my initial response to Bryan. > >> I think it would be relatively easy to come up with an activity template >> that just has a subdirectory for SWF content. Creating an SWF activity then >> would involve copying the template, editing the meta data, putting the SWF >> content into the directory, zipping it up and voila, a nice XO bundle. That >> process could easily be done by a script, even on Windows. > > I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar > dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around. > > That way it's able to be updated and improved over time, and as better > Flash solutions become available we can incorporate them easily. > > I agree with the rest of Bert's plan. It should be a PyGTK activity > with just an activity toolbar, which launches Gnash or Adobe Flash > into its canvas. It should also find the Flash persistence database > and copy it to/from the Journal. > > A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen > resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at > 600x450, which would likely quadruple performance. > > -Wade > ___ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > i...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > On 05.01.2009, at 05:24, John Watlington wrote: > >> On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: >>> >>> Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not >>> specifically designed for it. >> >> Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. >> They don't have to be "designed" for Sugar. > > > I think this goes besides the original point of Bryan. He is well aware that > software needs to be specifically designed for Sugar, and wether this is > good or bad is not the current debate. The point is what tools one can use > to implement a proper Sugar activity. Bryan says the tools many content > developers are familiar with are HTML, Javascript, and Flash. I agree completely - I proposed a swf-activity launcher script as the solution, in my initial response to Bryan. > I think it would be relatively easy to come up with an activity template > that just has a subdirectory for SWF content. Creating an SWF activity then > would involve copying the template, editing the meta data, putting the SWF > content into the directory, zipping it up and voila, a nice XO bundle. That > process could easily be done by a script, even on Windows. I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around. That way it's able to be updated and improved over time, and as better Flash solutions become available we can incorporate them easily. I agree with the rest of Bert's plan. It should be a PyGTK activity with just an activity toolbar, which launches Gnash or Adobe Flash into its canvas. It should also find the Flash persistence database and copy it to/from the Journal. A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at 600x450, which would likely quadruple performance. -Wade ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 11:24 PM, John Watlington wrote: > On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: >> Personally, I don't believe that Sugar Labs the organization needs to be >> concerned with any of these four points. > > Ahh, but a recurring question from existing Sugar deployments is how to get > Flash, why Flash doesn't run faster, etc. This appears to contradict the following statement. >> Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not specifically >> designed for it. > > Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. They > don't have to be > "designed" for Sugar. This thread isn't about simpler SWF files (punch the monkey, etc). It's about learning activities written in Flash. OTOH, if web games etc get better as a result, great. >> The question is whether the Sugar *software* is flexible enough to adapt to >> the needs of its users. Who are we to say what they should install, and >> what tools they should use to make their content? > >The question is what answer you provide to this crucial question. It's not my question to answer, nor Sugar Labs. It's a good idea to support other OSS software, but not when it runs counter to the mission of the project. Macromedia created, supported and marketed Flash. They deserve to make some money from it. Gnash will be a wonderful solution when it's ready for prime time. But it's up to the deployments (the practicality folks) to decide what software to use, we just have to make it work with the rest of our system. -Wade ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On 05.01.2009, at 05:24, John Watlington wrote: > On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: >> Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not >> specifically designed for it. > Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. > They don't have to be "designed" for Sugar. I think this goes besides the original point of Bryan. He is well aware that software needs to be specifically designed for Sugar, and wether this is good or bad is not the current debate. The point is what tools one can use to implement a proper Sugar activity. Bryan says the tools many content developers are familiar with are HTML, Javascript, and Flash. So how could an activity look like that can be authored primarily using Adobe's Flash tools? I think it would be relatively easy to come up with an activity template that just has a subdirectory for SWF content. Creating an SWF activity then would involve copying the template, editing the meta data, putting the SWF content into the directory, zipping it up and voila, a nice XO bundle. That process could easily be done by a script, even on Windows. IMHO that activity should be a wrapper for Gnash, perhaps as a native GTK+ application, without the browser baggage (maybe such a stand- alone player does exist already?). Since the content is authored specifically for Sugar (and in Nepal's case even more specifically for Sugar on the OLPC XO-1) it can easily be tuned to work well in Gnash. Hopefully Gnash's current limitations are well documented so authors can avoid pitfalls. That "sugarized SWF player" could even be extended to integrate nicely with the Journal (being able to do that is the point of having a free implementation after all) - there is no need to be compatible with Adobe's Flash player. My 1/50 € ... - Bert - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Education on the XO
Maybe we should try and put together some sort of roadmap and strategy for schools.sugarlabs.org. Perhaps we could schedule an IRC meeting regarding it? kind Regards, David Van Assche On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Tony Anderson wrote: > David, > > I didn't realize that you were the source of the content on > schools.sugarlabs.org. Thanks for posting the courses. I also looked at the > database of possible sources. A good start on that. > > I hope that we will have a chance to discuss the infrastructure needs next > week in Boston. > > Tony > > > David Van Assche wrote: >> >> Actually there are a whole bunch of examples I uploaded to >> schools.sugarlabs.org, the problem we have is of how to categorise >> them. ie... do we put them via subject, via class, via country, via >> language? >> >> The infrastructure needs to be discussed and then agreed upon. That's >> the main reason why I didn't upload anything else. That and I realised >> I'm the only one adding anything to the site ;-) That said, the entire >> Open University content is creative commons, and can be easily >> ported and there are many sources across the internet that offer >> moodle material in various languages. I pasted a list of the best >> curriculum and learning sources on schools.sugarlabs.org. There are >> enough examples up there for course creators to get an idea of how to >> create an effective learning course, and even some usable courses >> (intro to gimp, intro to networking, etc.) Moodle is really quite >> simple to get the hang off, but like everything else, it requires >> putting time into it. If there are any course content creators out >> there, I'd love to hear their ideas, and if they need help with >> creating courses on the schools.sugarlabs.org site, I believe I can >> help. >> >> I also began creating a database of all the activities so that they >> can easily be searched for, categorised, etc. but I read that this was >> being done elsewhere so again, I didn't continue down that avenue, but >> I'll gladly continue if its of use... >> >> kind Regards, >> David Van Assche >> >> On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Bryan Berry wrote: >>> >>> On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 07:31 -0500, Tony Anderson wrote: The XO's primary tool for education, as opposed to learning experiences, is Moodle. The problem is that Moodle for the XO is a tool which is ready and waiting to be used (all dressed up and no where to go). >>> >>> Thanks for bringing this up Tony. I didn't properly address moodle in my >>> very long article about Karma, a new activity framework for Sugar. >>> Whatever karma or the default activity framework Sugar become, a key >>> element will be easy integration with moodle. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Bryan W. Berry >>> Technology Director >>> OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org >>> >>> ___ >>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) >>> i...@lists.sugarlabs.org >>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep >>> >> >> . >> > > > ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Education on the XO
David, I didn't realize that you were the source of the content on schools.sugarlabs.org. Thanks for posting the courses. I also looked at the database of possible sources. A good start on that. I hope that we will have a chance to discuss the infrastructure needs next week in Boston. Tony David Van Assche wrote: > Actually there are a whole bunch of examples I uploaded to > schools.sugarlabs.org, the problem we have is of how to categorise > them. ie... do we put them via subject, via class, via country, via > language? > > The infrastructure needs to be discussed and then agreed upon. That's > the main reason why I didn't upload anything else. That and I realised > I'm the only one adding anything to the site ;-) That said, the entire > Open University content is creative commons, and can be easily > ported and there are many sources across the internet that offer > moodle material in various languages. I pasted a list of the best > curriculum and learning sources on schools.sugarlabs.org. There are > enough examples up there for course creators to get an idea of how to > create an effective learning course, and even some usable courses > (intro to gimp, intro to networking, etc.) Moodle is really quite > simple to get the hang off, but like everything else, it requires > putting time into it. If there are any course content creators out > there, I'd love to hear their ideas, and if they need help with > creating courses on the schools.sugarlabs.org site, I believe I can > help. > > I also began creating a database of all the activities so that they > can easily be searched for, categorised, etc. but I read that this was > being done elsewhere so again, I didn't continue down that avenue, but > I'll gladly continue if its of use... > > kind Regards, > David Van Assche > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Bryan Berry wrote: >> On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 07:31 -0500, Tony Anderson wrote: >>> The XO's primary tool for education, as opposed to learning experiences, >>> is Moodle. The problem is that Moodle for the XO is a tool which is >>> ready and waiting to be used (all dressed up and no where to go). >> Thanks for bringing this up Tony. I didn't properly address moodle in my >> very long article about Karma, a new activity framework for Sugar. >> Whatever karma or the default activity framework Sugar become, a key >> element will be easy integration with moodle. >> >> >> -- >> Bryan W. Berry >> Technology Director >> OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org >> >> ___ >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) >> i...@lists.sugarlabs.org >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep >> > > . > ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
