Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
Indeed, deployments (both administrators and users) have much to contribute to Sugar and the XO's community. The challenge here was how to get and manage such tremendous amount of feedback? Back in November of 2011, we (the Peruvian Local Lab) made an open call to the community addressing this and other issues. We ended up designing and implementing the Sugar Network / Red Azúcar [1]. "El principal objetivo de la Red es proveer un ambiente que permita a los participantes crear, compartir y mejorar recursos educativos digitales libres y abiertos. Inicialmente, los recursos podrán ser Artículos, Archivos, Actividades de Sugar o Artefactos creados desde las actividades de Sugar." Today, thanks to the efforts of the Sugar Labs Platform Team and the generous contributions of some community members, we have Beta OS images for XO1 and XO1.5 that include access to the Sugar Network. Of course there is still much to do in order to take this support-social-content-exchange platform up to its potential, so please do not hesitate to give us a hand in any way you can. Best regards, [1] http://pe.sugarlabs.org/go/Red_Az%C3%BAcar 2013/10/31 Walter Bender : > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:56 PM, Daniel Narvaez wrote: >> On 31 October 2013 19:31, Walter Bender wrote: >>> >>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Sameer Verma wrote: >>> >>> > Here's OLPC's mission, as a reminder: >>> > >>> > Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's >>> > poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, >>> > low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for >>> > collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. >>> > >>> >>> I think we all share concerns about the future of OLPCA (Indeed, I >>> left OLPC in 2008 to start Sugar Labs in part because of my concerns >>> about strategy and pedagogy.) That said, I continue to work in support >>> of OLPC's efforts since I believe that they are still a viable vehicle >>> to reach millions of children. But Sugar Labs is not OLPC. And Sugar >>> Labs has a future independent of OLPC. In 2008 we made a decision as a >>> community to be agnostic about hardware to the extent possible and >>> that is reflected in our code. In 2010, we made the decision to make >>> HTML5/Javascript a first-class development environment for Sugar with >>> the goals of both reaching more kids and attracting more developers. >>> This is work in progress, but we (Manuq and Daniel) have made great >>> strides. We face further challenges ahead. But our mission remains: >>> >>> to produce, distribute, and support the use of the Sugar learning >>> platform; it is a support base and gathering place for the community >>> of educators and developers to create, extend, teach, and learn with >>> the Sugar learning platform. >> >> >> >> Both being hardware agnostic and OS agnostic make sense at a certain level. >> But I feel like Sugar Labs needs one or more well defined flagship products >> to focus on. That gives us something to market, to test, to design for. >> >> The only Sugar based product which has really been successful until now is >> the XO. And that makes us still very dependent on OLPC strategies. >> >> Given the uncertainity of the OLPC situation (or rather it seems pretty >> certain that their investement on Sugar has been heavily scaled down), I >> think Sugar Labs should try to come up with another flagship product to >> focus on. Sugar on Raspberry? Sugar as a cross OS application? Sugar on some >> custom built (by who?) piece of hardware? I don't know but I feel it's >> something we will need to figure out. > > I think we should be having this discussion with the Sugar > deployments. They by-and-large remain committed to Sugar even if they > are uncertain about the base platform. > > -walter > > -- > Walter Bender > Sugar Labs > http://www.sugarlabs.org > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Laura V. I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org Identi.ca/Skype acaire IRC kaametza Happy Learning! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Thanks
Since I finally mentioned that OLPC and I had parted ways in an earlier email, I really need to thank the OLPC community for providing me with the opportunity to work with you for the past seven years. Reuben continues to provide outstanding deployment support for all XO laptops, and I will still be available online for questions and deep support issues. Cheers, wad ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On Oct 31, 2013, at 2:10 PM, Sameer Verma wrote: > On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 9:04 AM, David Farning > wrote: >> I just wanted to bump this line of questions as, it is the critical >> set of questions which will determine the future viability of Sugar. >> >> If anyone as more informed, please correct me if I am sharing >> incorrect information: >> 1. The Association has dropped future development of XO laptops and >> Sugar as part of their long term strategy. I base this on the >> reduction of hardware and software personal employed by the >> Association. >> 2. The Association is reducing its roll within the engineering and >> development side of the ecosystem. I base this on the shift toward >> integrating existing technology, software, and content from other >> vendors on the XO tablet. The Association continues to have an engineering effort, but it has been completely outsourced (mostly to MorphOSS) and almost entirely concentrated on the "XO Learning Software" for the tablet for the last six months. >> 3. The Association is shifting away from its initial roll as a >> technical philanthropy to a revenue generating organization structured >> as a association. I base this on the general shift in conversations >> and decisions from public to private channels. I have no knowledge about points 1 and 3. > My understanding of the XO Tablet project was that it was designed as > a revenue generator ($x per unit sale goes to OLPC A) so that work on > the XO-4 could continue. In my own conversations with OLPCA, I was > always reassured that the XO continues to be the pedagogical machine. > However, I'm not seeing the evidence to that end from OLPCA. Pretty > much all the staff that worked on the XO are either laid off or have > quit. > > There were other conversations at OLPC SF Summit, where the concern > was that OLPCA is quietly trying to convert requests for XO-4 > purchases into XO Tablet purchases. I've raised this issue of device > cannibalization with OLPCA. If the real plan is to keep both lines > going, then the devices should have separate marketing and sales > plans. Keep in mind that the XO4 has had close to zero marketing, and > all the media I see about OLPC these days usually positions the XO > Tablet as the new thing. > > Today's Wired article makes the intentions clearer: > http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/31/olpc-and-datawind-tablet > However, if all that OLPC remains is a vendor of cheap, proprietary > Android tablets wrapped in green silicone, then what motivation > remains to continue to plug for it? We all have different motivations > for working on this project. I'd like to hear more from others. OLPC was never about making cheap products --- it was about making a good product at the lowest possible cost. The Vivitar (XO) Tablet and the software associated with it are a complete departure from OLPC's previous engineering practices (and despite the marketing, had no input from the then-existing OLPC team.) Unfortunately, as you point out, there is little effort to market the XO-4 and instead a bewildering push to sell the Vivitar (XO) Tablet to large deployments despite its unsuitability for such.OLPC and I parted ways at the end of September. There are plenty of vendors of cheap Android tablets. Perhaps Walter is right that this is the time to concentrate on providing software designed for collaborative, joyful, advertising-free, self-empowered learning, in a hardware independent manner. The seven years since OLPC started have seen a huge improvement in MIPS/Watt and MIPS/$, making the hardware independent approach (Python, Java, HTML5) an even better approach. Regards, wad ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar 0.100.0 (stable)
Congratulations to all the team! Gonzalo On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 10:18 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote: > This is really impressive. > Congratulations! > > Gerald > > On Oct 31, 2013 8:45 PM, "Daniel Narvaez" wrote: >> >> Hello, >> >> we are proud to announce the release of Sugar 0.100.0. A lot is new for >> both users and developers, see the release notes >> >> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.100/Notes >> >> Sources: >> >> >> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-datastore/sugar-datastore-0.100.0.tar.xz >> >> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-artwork/sugar-artwork-0.100.0.tar.xz >> >> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-runner/sugar-runner-0.100.0.tar.xz >> >> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar/sugar-0.100.1.tar.xz >> >> http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/sugar-toolkit-gtk3-0.100.0.tar.xz >> >> Thanks to everyone that contributed with code, translations and testing! >> >> -- >> Daniel Narvaez >> >> ___ >> Sugar-devel mailing list >> sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel >> > > ___ > Sugar-devel mailing list > sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On 1 November 2013 03:22, Walter Bender wrote: > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:56 PM, Daniel Narvaez > wrote: > > On 31 October 2013 19:31, Walter Bender wrote: > >> > >> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Sameer Verma wrote: > >> > >> > Here's OLPC's mission, as a reminder: > >> > > >> > Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's > >> > poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, > >> > low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for > >> > collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. > >> > > >> > >> I think we all share concerns about the future of OLPCA (Indeed, I > >> left OLPC in 2008 to start Sugar Labs in part because of my concerns > >> about strategy and pedagogy.) That said, I continue to work in support > >> of OLPC's efforts since I believe that they are still a viable vehicle > >> to reach millions of children. But Sugar Labs is not OLPC. And Sugar > >> Labs has a future independent of OLPC. In 2008 we made a decision as a > >> community to be agnostic about hardware to the extent possible and > >> that is reflected in our code. In 2010, we made the decision to make > >> HTML5/Javascript a first-class development environment for Sugar with > >> the goals of both reaching more kids and attracting more developers. > >> This is work in progress, but we (Manuq and Daniel) have made great > >> strides. We face further challenges ahead. But our mission remains: > >> > >> to produce, distribute, and support the use of the Sugar learning > >> platform; it is a support base and gathering place for the community > >> of educators and developers to create, extend, teach, and learn with > >> the Sugar learning platform. > > > > > > > > Both being hardware agnostic and OS agnostic make sense at a certain > level. > > But I feel like Sugar Labs needs one or more well defined flagship > products > > to focus on. That gives us something to market, to test, to design for. > > > > The only Sugar based product which has really been successful until now > is > > the XO. And that makes us still very dependent on OLPC strategies. > > > > Given the uncertainity of the OLPC situation (or rather it seems pretty > > certain that their investement on Sugar has been heavily scaled down), I > > think Sugar Labs should try to come up with another flagship product to > > focus on. Sugar on Raspberry? Sugar as a cross OS application? Sugar on > some > > custom built (by who?) piece of hardware? I don't know but I feel it's > > something we will need to figure out. > > I think we should be having this discussion with the Sugar > deployments. They by-and-large remain committed to Sugar even if they > are uncertain about the base platform. > Absolutely! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:56 PM, Daniel Narvaez wrote: > On 31 October 2013 19:31, Walter Bender wrote: >> >> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Sameer Verma wrote: >> >> > Here's OLPC's mission, as a reminder: >> > >> > Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's >> > poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, >> > low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for >> > collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. >> > >> >> I think we all share concerns about the future of OLPCA (Indeed, I >> left OLPC in 2008 to start Sugar Labs in part because of my concerns >> about strategy and pedagogy.) That said, I continue to work in support >> of OLPC's efforts since I believe that they are still a viable vehicle >> to reach millions of children. But Sugar Labs is not OLPC. And Sugar >> Labs has a future independent of OLPC. In 2008 we made a decision as a >> community to be agnostic about hardware to the extent possible and >> that is reflected in our code. In 2010, we made the decision to make >> HTML5/Javascript a first-class development environment for Sugar with >> the goals of both reaching more kids and attracting more developers. >> This is work in progress, but we (Manuq and Daniel) have made great >> strides. We face further challenges ahead. But our mission remains: >> >> to produce, distribute, and support the use of the Sugar learning >> platform; it is a support base and gathering place for the community >> of educators and developers to create, extend, teach, and learn with >> the Sugar learning platform. > > > > Both being hardware agnostic and OS agnostic make sense at a certain level. > But I feel like Sugar Labs needs one or more well defined flagship products > to focus on. That gives us something to market, to test, to design for. > > The only Sugar based product which has really been successful until now is > the XO. And that makes us still very dependent on OLPC strategies. > > Given the uncertainity of the OLPC situation (or rather it seems pretty > certain that their investement on Sugar has been heavily scaled down), I > think Sugar Labs should try to come up with another flagship product to > focus on. Sugar on Raspberry? Sugar as a cross OS application? Sugar on some > custom built (by who?) piece of hardware? I don't know but I feel it's > something we will need to figure out. I think we should be having this discussion with the Sugar deployments. They by-and-large remain committed to Sugar even if they are uncertain about the base platform. -walter -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On 31 October 2013 19:31, Walter Bender wrote: > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Sameer Verma wrote: > > > Here's OLPC's mission, as a reminder: > > > > Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's > > poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, > > low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for > > collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. > > > > I think we all share concerns about the future of OLPCA (Indeed, I > left OLPC in 2008 to start Sugar Labs in part because of my concerns > about strategy and pedagogy.) That said, I continue to work in support > of OLPC's efforts since I believe that they are still a viable vehicle > to reach millions of children. But Sugar Labs is not OLPC. And Sugar > Labs has a future independent of OLPC. In 2008 we made a decision as a > community to be agnostic about hardware to the extent possible and > that is reflected in our code. In 2010, we made the decision to make > HTML5/Javascript a first-class development environment for Sugar with > the goals of both reaching more kids and attracting more developers. > This is work in progress, but we (Manuq and Daniel) have made great > strides. We face further challenges ahead. But our mission remains: > > to produce, distribute, and support the use of the Sugar learning > platform; it is a support base and gathering place for the community > of educators and developers to create, extend, teach, and learn with > the Sugar learning platform. Both being hardware agnostic and OS agnostic make sense at a certain level. But I feel like Sugar Labs needs one or more well defined flagship products to focus on. That gives us something to market, to test, to design for. The only Sugar based product which has really been successful until now is the XO. And that makes us still very dependent on OLPC strategies. Given the uncertainity of the OLPC situation (or rather it seems pretty certain that their investement on Sugar has been heavily scaled down), I think Sugar Labs should try to come up with another flagship product to focus on. Sugar on Raspberry? Sugar as a cross OS application? Sugar on some custom built (by who?) piece of hardware? I don't know but I feel it's something we will need to figure out. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar 0.100.0 (stable)
This is really impressive. Congratulations! Gerald On Oct 31, 2013 8:45 PM, "Daniel Narvaez" wrote: > Hello, > > we are proud to announce the release of Sugar 0.100.0. A lot is new for > both users and developers, see the release notes > > http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.100/Notes > > Sources: > > > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-datastore/sugar-datastore-0.100.0.tar.xz > > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-artwork/sugar-artwork-0.100.0.tar.xz > > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-runner/sugar-runner-0.100.0.tar.xz > > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar/sugar-0.100.1.tar.xz > > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/sugar-toolkit-gtk3-0.100.0.tar.xz > > Thanks to everyone that contributed with code, translations and testing! > > -- > Daniel Narvaez > > ___ > Sugar-devel mailing list > sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On 29 October 2013 20:29, David Farning wrote: > Phase two -- Let's look at lessons learned from other projects. We can > focus on the road map and product specification. From my experience, > these two piece can provide an anchor for the rest of the project: > 1. The act of sitting down and hashing out the roadmap and project > specification causes everyone to sit back and assess their individual > priorities and goals and how they fit into the project as a whole. > 2. The act of deciding which items are above the line and which are > below the line, which are targeted for this release and which are > pushed to a future release, help find the balance between what is > possible some day and what is probable in X months of work with > existing resources. > 3. Sitting back and preparing for a release forces us to asses what is > good enough for release what is not. It is a good feedback loop. > 4. Finally, after a successful release everyone can sit back bask is > the satisfaction that maybe we didn't save the world... but we make > enough progress that it is worth getting up again tomorrow and doing > it all again. > Hi David, I just started a thread about 0.102 focus and features. If you want to get involved defining the upstream roadmap there is your chance! For 0.100 we kept that very very simple, a short list of new features basically. But if you want to contribute with a product specification I think that would be awesome. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar 0.100.0 (stable)
Bravo!! Great job. -walter On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 8:45 PM, Daniel Narvaez wrote: > Hello, > > we are proud to announce the release of Sugar 0.100.0. A lot is new for both > users and developers, see the release notes > > http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.100/Notes > > Sources: > > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-datastore/sugar-datastore-0.100.0.tar.xz > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-artwork/sugar-artwork-0.100.0.tar.xz > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-runner/sugar-runner-0.100.0.tar.xz > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar/sugar-0.100.1.tar.xz > http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/sugar-toolkit-gtk3-0.100.0.tar.xz > > Thanks to everyone that contributed with code, translations and testing! > > -- > Daniel Narvaez > > ___ > Sugar-devel mailing list > sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel > -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Sugar 0.100.0 (stable)
Hello, we are proud to announce the release of Sugar 0.100.0. A lot is new for both users and developers, see the release notes http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/0.100/Notes Sources: http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-datastore/sugar-datastore-0.100.0.tar.xz http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-artwork/sugar-artwork-0.100.0.tar.xz http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-runner/sugar-runner-0.100.0.tar.xz http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar/sugar-0.100.1.tar.xz http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/sugar-toolkit-gtk3-0.100.0.tar.xz Thanks to everyone that contributed with code, translations and testing! -- Daniel Narvaez ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 11:10:40AM -0700, Sameer Verma wrote: > [...] We are seeing continued adoption of the XO in Rwanda (I hear > Rwanda is 1.75, but not 4) and Australia. [...] I can confirm that Rwanda is using XO-1.75, not XO-4. You can find this information, albeit without quantities, in the Manufacturing Data table on the Wiki, for SKU234 and SKU235. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Manufacturing_data At the moment, both XO-1.75 and XO-4 can be mass produced. (XO-1.75 has a cost advantage per child over XO-4, but without touchscreen, and a slightly slower processor. More children can be deployed to for the same overall project budget.) -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Sameer Verma wrote: > Here's OLPC's mission, as a reminder: > > Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's > poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, > low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for > collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. > I think we all share concerns about the future of OLPCA (Indeed, I left OLPC in 2008 to start Sugar Labs in part because of my concerns about strategy and pedagogy.) That said, I continue to work in support of OLPC's efforts since I believe that they are still a viable vehicle to reach millions of children. But Sugar Labs is not OLPC. And Sugar Labs has a future independent of OLPC. In 2008 we made a decision as a community to be agnostic about hardware to the extent possible and that is reflected in our code. In 2010, we made the decision to make HTML5/Javascript a first-class development environment for Sugar with the goals of both reaching more kids and attracting more developers. This is work in progress, but we (Manuq and Daniel) have made great strides. We face further challenges ahead. But our mission remains: to produce, distribute, and support the use of the Sugar learning platform; it is a support base and gathering place for the community of educators and developers to create, extend, teach, and learn with the Sugar learning platform. -walter -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.
On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 9:04 AM, David Farning wrote: > I just wanted to bump this line of questions as, it is the critical > set of questions which will determine the future viability of Sugar. > > If anyone as more informed, please correct me if I am sharing > incorrect information: > 1. The Association has dropped future development of XO laptops and > Sugar as part of their long term strategy. I base this on the > reduction of hardware and software personal employed by the > Association. > 2. The Association is reducing its roll within the engineering and > development side of the ecosystem. I base this on the shift toward > integrating existing technology, software, and content from other > vendors on the XO tablet. > 3. The Association is shifting away from its initial roll as a > technical philanthropy to a revenue generating organization structured > as a association. I base this on the general shift in conversations > and decisions from public to private channels. > So, with regard to the points above, several concerns along these lines were voiced at OLPC SF Summit. Most of these were in private corridor/coffee conversations, but I got to hear a bulk of it, being the lead organizer. Opinions and concerns varied from "I'm confused by what OLPC is doing", to "Are we not doing XOs anymore?" to "What about Sugar?" to "It was good ride, but it's over. Time to move along". Two other points to note for this year's meeting: The attendance was the lowest it's ever been, and we barely saw anyone pull out their XOs to work with. Neither observations were encouraging, to put it mildly. My understanding of the XO Tablet project was that it was designed as a revenue generator ($x per unit sale goes to OLPC A) so that work on the XO-4 could continue. In my own conversations with OLPCA, I was always reassured that the XO continues to be the pedagogical machine. However, I'm not seeing the evidence to that end from OLPCA. Pretty much all the staff that worked on the XO are either laid off or have quit. There were other conversations at OLPC SF Summit, where the concern was that OLPCA is quietly trying to convert requests for XO-4 purchases into XO Tablet purchases. I've raised this issue of device cannibalization with OLPCA. If the real plan is to keep both lines going, then the devices should have separate marketing and sales plans. Keep in mind that the XO4 has had close to zero marketing, and all the media I see about OLPC these days usually positions the XO Tablet as the new thing. Today's Wired article makes the intentions clearer: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/31/olpc-and-datawind-tablet So, is the XO-4 dead? My first reaction would be "No", although I'm still to very confident of my own assessment. We are seeing continued adoption of the XO in Rwanda (I hear Rwanda is 1.75, but not 4) and Australia. They must see some continued value in it, and perhaps that will help in continuing to foster the ecosystem around it. We also have the approx. 3 million machines around the world, and many are still chugging away. Personally, the move within the Sugar community to web services and HTML5 is very encouraging. However, if all that OLPC remains is a vendor of cheap, proprietary Android tablets wrapped in green silicone, then what motivation remains to continue to plug for it? We all have different motivations for working on this project. I'd like to hear more from others. Here's OLPC's mission, as a reminder: Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. Does the current stance at OLPCA help in furthering this mission? Sameer > Given financial constraints, these are reasonable shifts. While > painful, the world is better of with a leaner (and meaner) OLPC > Association which lives to fight another day. The challenge moving > forward is how to develop and maintain the Sugar platform, the > universe of activities, and the supporting distributions given the > reduction in patronage from the OLPC Association. > > I, and AC, would be happy to work more closely with Sugar Labs if > there are ways to establish publicly disclosed and mutually beneficial > relationships. In the meantime we are happy to provide deployments > support while seeding and supporting projects we feel are beneficial > to deployments such as School Server Community Edition and Sugar on > Ubuntu. > > On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 6:11 AM, David Farning > wrote: >> On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 2:43 PM, Gonzalo Odiard wrote: >>> I agree with your analysis about slow deployment updates versus fast >>> community cycles. >>> >>> In my view, there are two alternatives: >>> >>> * We can slow down a little the Sugar cycle, may be doing one release by >>> year, >>> but I am not sure if will help. The changes will take more time to go to the
