Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 6:37 PM, Martin Langhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 2:03 AM, Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have always believed we need Sugar. One only has to watch a child struggle with a conventional desktop (Windows, Linux or Mac) to see the need It's a lot more than that . When you contrast the current WIMP UI and generic apps with UIs built for _learning_, it's frustrating to the point of being ridiculous how what we know as conventional UIs get in the way. You and I have seen it, but we need to show it to the rest of the world. Would anybody be interested in doing videos of children at different computers, with commentary on what's happening, or not happening? What is the Constructivist way to teach grown-ups about how children learn? Having constructivist thinking behind the UI makes a huge difference when you are working with kids. It has made moodle what it is (the project lead is a fantastic programmer as well as an educationalist, and he cares a ton about the UI). I would not work in an educational project without a clear UI concept, and Sugar is - in that sense - fantastic. cheers, m -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 9:14 PM, Edward Cherlin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 6:37 PM, Martin Langhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 2:03 AM, Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have always believed we need Sugar. One only has to watch a child struggle with a conventional desktop (Windows, Linux or Mac) to see the need It's a lot more than that . When you contrast the current WIMP UI and generic apps with UIs built for _learning_, it's frustrating to the point of being ridiculous how what we know as conventional UIs get in the way. You and I have seen it, but we need to show it to the rest of the world. Would anybody be interested in doing videos of children at different computers, with commentary on what's happening, or not happening? What is the Constructivist way to teach grown-ups about how children learn? Personally I would hope it includes peer-reviewed research. Does anyone have links to how constructionist teaching methods compare to traditional ones? (sorry if people have posted this before... its been hard to keep up with all the mail) yours, Bobby Powers ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 2:03 AM, Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have always believed we need Sugar. One only has to watch a child struggle with a conventional desktop (Windows, Linux or Mac) to see the need It's a lot more than that . When you contrast the current WIMP UI and generic apps with UIs built for _learning_, it's frustrating to the point of being ridiculous how what we know as conventional UIs get in the way. Having constructivist thinking behind the UI makes a huge difference when you are working with kids. It has made moodle what it is (the project lead is a fantastic programmer as well as an educationalist, and he cares a ton about the UI). I would not work in an educational project without a clear UI concept, and Sugar is - in that sense - fantastic. cheers, m -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
2008/5/9 Alan Kay [EMAIL PROTECTED]: We are now several dimensions off topic ... Cheers, Alan The Research mailing list is available for such discussions. - Original Message From: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]; OLPC Devel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 9, 2008 4:59:04 PM Subject: Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model On 10.05.2008 00:13, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 09.05.2008, at 20:31, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bert, if you try and say that the entire world is wrong in how it writes software, Actually, that's exactly what I think, and entire world includes yours truly ;) But this isn't the place to talk about that (if you're curious, visit VPRI [*]). No, it's not foremost about how the software is written, but about how it is presented to the user. Unfortunately, interface design is much harder than just writing software. The VPRI stuff is scary because it proposes the equivalent of using assembler code to speed up C programs. Performing model checking against one piece of code, then replacing that piece of code with another one for speed reasons in production is really a horrible plan. It also makes it obvious that the mathematically correct code is expected to be unusably slow. [...] For example, the fastest way for me to retrieve a file is typing it in the system-wide search box on my machine, or into google. It doesn't matter where in the file system hierarchy or on which server it is stored. That is pretty much what the Journal would do, too. Also, the Journal will allow tagging, which is equivalent (but more powerful) to a directory hierarchy. Etc. Actually, tags are just the equivalence of file names and they are more efficient to use than simple searches. If you know exactly what you want and where to find it, searching for it is one of the worst choices possible besides random walking and active avoidance. With Mozilla/Firefox/Seamonkey, typing in the first few letters of the URL takes you faster to an often-used site (due to autocompletion) than using any search engine. In real life, searching is a last resort if direct access is impossible. If you keep your bike at a fixed location you can remember among other bikes in a bike shed, you walk straight to your bike and don't search for it. [*] see http://vpri.org/html/work/ifnct.htm Regards, Carl-Daniel ___ Its.an.education.project mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lo-res.org/mailman/listinfo/its.an.education.project Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 04:02:07PM -0400, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
I'm under the impression that the Sugar shell was specifically
designed to be EASY TO LEARN for people lacking Western education.
Yes, there are many who desire to run desktop applications (without
having to re-program them) in the Sugar shell. But *already* there
have been successful efforts at 'sugarizing' certain applications
('opera' comes to mind). From my perspective, what is needed is an
__excellent__ thunk layer to wrap around desktop applications.
Developers -- don't agonize -- go do it !! [The most intractable
problem seems to be Bitfrost - the security model for Sugar is NOT
the same as the security model for current desktop applications --
something has to give (or be re-programmed).]
The compatibility layer (thunkatron) which you describe is something
I'd like to work on.
Is there any prior work? Has anyone attempted such a layer? Does
anyone have any ideas about how it might be implemented and how
existing software would best interface with it?
-Erik
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Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
Mikus Grinbergs wrote: Frankly, I don't see a logic difference between Negroponte talking about extending the OLPC hardware to Windows (presumably to increase recognition of the OLPC), and those talking about extending Sugar to a standard desktop (presumably to increase recognition of Sugar). I myself wouldn't oppose a Windows port of Sugar. I would never waste my time on it, or encourage anyone to waste their time on it, but it's free software and thus anyone is free to port it to anything they wish. What we contest is not the mere act of porting Sugar to Windows itself. It's: - the technical viability and usefulness of this whole idea. - explicitly endorsing laptops with proprietary software as a proper learning tool for primary schools; and - letting a dangerous enemy of free software acquire control over the platform on which Sugar runs, which is a strategic suicide (ask Borland, Norton, Corel and Lotus about it); - partnering with a dangerous enemy of free software that will demand -- and seems to be already demanding -- that the Linux business be shut down in exchange for their support. -- \___/ _| o | Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/ \|_X_| It's an education project, not a laptop project! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
Slight correction, I should have said GNU/Linux below. Bernie Innocenti wrote: Mikus Grinbergs wrote: Frankly, I don't see a logic difference between Negroponte talking about extending the OLPC hardware to Windows (presumably to increase recognition of the OLPC), and those talking about extending Sugar to a standard desktop (presumably to increase recognition of Sugar). I myself wouldn't oppose a Windows port of Sugar. I would never waste my time on it, or encourage anyone to waste their time on it, but it's free software and thus anyone is free to port it to anything they wish. What we contest is not the mere act of porting Sugar to Windows itself. It's: - the technical viability and usefulness of this whole idea. - explicitly endorsing laptops with proprietary software as a proper learning tool for primary schools; and - letting a dangerous enemy of free software acquire control over the platform on which Sugar runs, which is a strategic suicide (ask Borland, Norton, Corel and Lotus about it); - partnering with a dangerous enemy of free software that will demand -- and seems to be already demanding -- that the GNU/Linux business be shut down in exchange for their support. -- \___/ _| o | Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/ \|_X_| It's an education project, not a laptop project! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
Hi David, unfortunately I don't have time right now to enter again in this debate, but I wanted to do one comment: On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 6:31 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: many people have pointed out the limitations of the journal approach, and problems with not naming activites and files. yes it's easier to get started if you don't have to deal with confusing matters like directories, but as more documents are created a flat namespace for them will get overwelmed (be it a time-based journal, or a single layer home directory) you are optimizing for the beginner so much that once they have used the system for a short time it will no longer be suitable for them. dom't make the training wheels for beginners so ridgid that the kids can't remove them as they learn more. For the record, I personally find more efficient to use a tagging interface with good search capabilities rather than a hierarchy of folders. A sizable part of the GMail users may share this opinion. So I don't think we are optimizing for the beginner at all. Indeed, the projected journal is a very good example of an UI that can be at the same time usable from the first time and a powerful tool for users that have dug beneath its surface. Thanks, Tomeu ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Core activities (was Re: An OLPC Development Model)
On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 8:55 AM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ps. SJ, there are no 'core activities' that we ship. There is only one security-privileged activity (Journal), which we currently ship in the core build because (a) Sugar breaks otherwise, and (b) Rainbow's activity-signing stuff is incomplete. I hope we can fix both of these in time, and stabilize the APIs enough that we can eventually unbundle even Journal. Your notion of 'core activity' is probably worthwhile for support and documentation reasons, but it bears no relation to the build process. We need some concept of core software so that those of us working on next-generation textbook ideas will know what capabilities we can count on. I, for one, would like Measure to be in this core, along with NumPy, SciPy, and perhaps some data visualization and analysis tools. The proposed literacy engine (Text-to-speech with karaoke text coloring) is another good candidate, and there are several more. I suggest that we take this discussion to the Research list, and that we put some thoughts on a Wiki page linked from Research. -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, 7 May 2008, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote: On Tue, 6 May 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally and picks what version of each of those packages to put in the main distro. the versions of these seperate packages are almost entirely independant of each other. they then do a lot of testing and some development of adminitrative tools and ship the result. unfortunantly much of the OLPC development has seemed to be against the idea of having external software run unmodified on sugar, and the resulting work to get anything running will hurt this model. Again: what makes Sugar different from Linux? The ability to interact *everywhere*, and to share *every activity* by default. That interactivity basically defines what an activity *is*. Yes, this severely restricts the amount of software that can run on Sugar. But again: the whole world of FLOSS educational software can run on Linux just fine. If we're just (badly) reinventing a new WM, what's the point? which is why I fail to see the big point of Sugar. you don't have to scrap everything to write activities that can be shared easily. a perfect example was the suggeation to make the sugarized activities use a standard file picker call so that it could go to the journal on the XO machine, or to a normal file selecteor window on other desktops. doing this would also meant that other 'well behaved' software that used that call to the window manager would suddenly just start working right on sugar without requiring modification. unfortunantly the concept was greeted with a reaction similar to yours (i.e. 'NO, we don't want to run the risk of people using the apps on a normal desktop, we need to lock them into using sugar') David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On 09.05.2008, at 09:59, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 7 May 2008, Jim Gettys wrote: On Wed, 2008-05-07 at 09:17 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote: On Tue, 6 May 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally and picks what version of each of those packages to put in the main distro. the versions of these seperate packages are almost entirely independant of each other. they then do a lot of testing and some development of adminitrative tools and ship the result. unfortunantly much of the OLPC development has seemed to be against the idea of having external software run unmodified on sugar, and the resulting work to get anything running will hurt this model. David, We must fix this Help greatfully appreciated. It isn't very much work to get there from here. at the moment it doesn't seem as if there's agreement yet that this does need to get fixed. until the problem is acknowledged it can't be fixed. unfortunantly my time constraints drasticly limit the code I can work on, so I am mostly a tester and a provider of resources to nearby developers (I just received my two g1g1 machines back from the USC hackathon) There is agreement that unmodified Linux software should run as well as possible in Sugar. There is no agreement that this would imply we do not need Sugar, or that activities written/adapted specifically for Sugar would not provide an order of magnitude better learning experience. That's the whole point of starting this endeavor in the first place. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 9:59 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 7 May 2008, Jim Gettys wrote: We must fix this Help greatfully appreciated. It isn't very much work to get there from here. at the moment it doesn't seem as if there's agreement yet that this does need to get fixed. until the problem is acknowledged it can't be fixed. What makes you think that the problem is not acknowledged!? Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [sugar] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 3:39 AM, Gary C Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: H, sorry, run that past me again. I thought the intention was that the Journal was an integral part of the Sugar UI, and the plan was that the Journal code was going to be integrated to the Sugar Shell for (I think) security and performance – or did the world just turn around yet again while I was looking the other way? No, that's still the plan. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, 9 May 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 09.05.2008, at 09:59, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 7 May 2008, Jim Gettys wrote: On Wed, 2008-05-07 at 09:17 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote: On Tue, 6 May 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally and picks what version of each of those packages to put in the main distro. the versions of these seperate packages are almost entirely independant of each other. they then do a lot of testing and some development of adminitrative tools and ship the result. unfortunantly much of the OLPC development has seemed to be against the idea of having external software run unmodified on sugar, and the resulting work to get anything running will hurt this model. David, We must fix this Help greatfully appreciated. It isn't very much work to get there from here. at the moment it doesn't seem as if there's agreement yet that this does need to get fixed. until the problem is acknowledged it can't be fixed. unfortunantly my time constraints drasticly limit the code I can work on, so I am mostly a tester and a provider of resources to nearby developers (I just received my two g1g1 machines back from the USC hackathon) There is agreement that unmodified Linux software should run as well as possible in Sugar. this is good. I have not received this impression from reading the list. what about Sugar software running as well as possible on normal linux boxes? without having to install the full sugar package and run everything under sugar in one window. this doesn't mean that some libraries won't need to be installed, but like running QT apps on a Gnome desktop, you install the QT libraries, not all of KDE (and similarly running gtk apps on a KDE destop you don't install all of gnome) There is no agreement that this would imply we do not need Sugar, or that activities written/adapted specifically for Sugar would not provide an order of magnitude better learning experience. That's the whole point of starting this endeavor in the first place. I wouldn't expect for this to imply that sugar is not needed or that the software stack you have been working on isn't the best possible for a learning envrionment. but if people are actually willing to seperate the activities from the platform in a meaningful manner, we gain the ability to mix-and-match as needed to find what really is the best. David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, 9 May 2008, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 9:59 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 7 May 2008, Jim Gettys wrote: We must fix this Help greatfully appreciated. It isn't very much work to get there from here. at the moment it doesn't seem as if there's agreement yet that this does need to get fixed. until the problem is acknowledged it can't be fixed. What makes you think that the problem is not acknowledged!? in part the other response to my message that seemed to have the attitude that 'fixing' the problem would reduce Sugar to 'just another WM' rendering it worthless. there have been other comments along similar lines from developers as well. David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: what about Sugar software running as well as possible on normal linux boxes? without having to install the full sugar package and run everything under sugar in one window. this doesn't mean that some libraries won't need to be installed, but like running QT apps on a Gnome desktop, you install the QT libraries, not all of KDE (and similarly running gtk apps on a KDE destop you don't install all of gnome) Not possible at the moment but it's on the plan too. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:35 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: in part the other response to my message that seemed to have the attitude that 'fixing' the problem would reduce Sugar to 'just another WM' rendering it worthless. That's not how I read Greg post but anyway... there have been other comments along similar lines from developers as well. This is an open mailing list and everyone express his own opinion. There will never be *full* consensus about complicated matters like compatibility. That's why there are maintainers and team leaders. And those already expressed very clearly that compatibility with desktop application is an important goal. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 3:54 AM, Mikus Grinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I believe TWO sets of Activities need to be made available to users who are not schoolkids linked to a school server. One set I'll call 'stable Activities' - they are packaged in Activity Packs such as the ones for Peru or for G1G1. Users need a documented way to install these. If the build they have put on their OLPC does not provide Browse, they need a way to access an Activity Pack. I will use 'development Activities' to describe the second set -- they represent the most recent versions built by their authors. Currently these are scattered on mock.laptop.org and dev.laptop.org and wiki.laptop.org (and others). I would prefer there to be a SINGLE repository containing the very latest level of each Activity -- barring that, there should exist an official list which gives the location from where the latest version of each individual Activity can be fetched. I agree. There needs to be a place that clearly lists activities suitable for stable builds, and a place that clearly lists the development versions. It needs to be relatively simple to keep these - especially the development one - up to date. [The existing http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities webpage lists a number of not-the-latest-version bundles. It is not suitable for a catalog of what I'm calling 'development Activities', unless more care is given to updating it as authors come up with new versions.] I have deliberately not put my new activity releases into [[Activities]] because this seems the most likely place G1G1 users will look for things they can install, and Chat for instance will now require a newer version of Sugar than is in 656 or 703. Morgan ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On 09.05.2008, at 09:56, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: which is why I fail to see the big point of Sugar. [...] a perfect example was the suggeation to make the sugarized activities use a standard file picker call so that it could go to the journal on the XO machine, or to a normal file selecteor window on other desktops. Your example indicates that you indeed fail to see the big point of Sugar. The point is to not have a document-centric environment, but an activity-centric one. Verbs rather than nouns. Yes it gets philosophical here. And I'm not the best to explain it. Maybe an analogy helps. Many developers fail to see the big point of object-oriented programming. For them, it's just that structs have function pointers now, so what's the big deal? But that misses the point completely, oo is all about decoupling and encapsulating concepts, it's a philosophy rather than an implementation technique. Or maybe the analogy does not help, depending on which camp one is in. Back to your example: even if all the world thinks applications with file dialogs are normal that does not imply it has to be that way. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of incomplete ideas. -- Alan Kay We do want to create something better than the status-quo. We may fail for a gazillion of reasons, but we're trying anyway. Children deserve the best, our future is in their hands. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On 5/9/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 7 May 2008, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote: On Tue, 6 May 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally and picks what version of each of those packages to put in the main distro. the versions of these seperate packages are almost entirely independant of each other. they then do a lot of testing and some development of adminitrative tools and ship the result. unfortunantly much of the OLPC development has seemed to be against the idea of having external software run unmodified on sugar, and the resulting work to get anything running will hurt this model. Again: what makes Sugar different from Linux? The ability to interact *everywhere*, and to share *every activity* by default. That interactivity basically defines what an activity *is*. Yes, this severely restricts the amount of software that can run on Sugar. But again: the whole world of FLOSS educational software can run on Linux just fine. If we're just (badly) reinventing a new WM, what's the point? which is why I fail to see the big point of Sugar. you don't have to scrap everything to write activities that can be shared easily. a perfect example was the suggeation to make the sugarized activities use a standard file picker call so that it could go to the journal on the XO machine, or to a normal file selecteor window on other desktops. doing this would also meant that other 'well behaved' software that used that call to the window manager would suddenly just start working right on sugar without requiring modification. This standard file picker call exists only for gtk apps. Also, working right on sugar might mean much more than what you think. You are more than welcome to explain a detailed plan of how to use the gtk file picker to access the journal. This is the kind of positive behavior that I expect from all the people I work with (be it in my job hours or in my free time). unfortunantly the concept was greeted with a reaction similar to yours (i.e. 'NO, we don't want to run the risk of people using the apps on a normal desktop, we need to lock them into using sugar') Are you sure about the existence of that statement? I don't think so. Thanks, Tomeu ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: what about Sugar software running as well as possible on normal linux boxes? without having to install the full sugar package and run everything under sugar in one window. this doesn't mean that some libraries won't need to be installed, but like running QT apps on a Gnome desktop, you install the QT libraries, not all of KDE (and similarly running gtk apps on a KDE destop you don't install all of gnome) Not possible at the moment but it's on the plan too. The way I see it it is somewhat of a two way street. Personally, if I'm going to run Sugar apps in Gnome I would prefer them to integrate nicely with my other apps, just as I would prefer apps running in Sugar to be 'sugary'. In this case the burdon falls on the shoulders of the activity developers. From what I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) Abiword is a good example - the text editor canvas is encapsolated as its own widget, and both the Gnome Abiword and the sugar activity use it in their respective user interfaces. So nice modular UI code should make maintaing a Gnome and a Sugar version of a program relatively painless. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong - I've been planning out what I want to do with a new activity and this is what I seem to have arrived at, if peoples experiences are different it could save me some headache... As for the sharing stuff, I know you can download and use the telepathy libs, but would you also need a presence service running? Could this be automatically started when an app wants to collaborate, or is it something that would have to be running in the background beforehand? yours, Bobby ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
2008/5/9 Bobby Powers [EMAIL PROTECTED]: As for the sharing stuff, I know you can download and use the telepathy libs, but would you also need a presence service running? Could this be automatically started when an app wants to collaborate, or is it something that would have to be running in the background beforehand? Presence Service is a layer between Sugar (and activities) and Telepathy. It provides the presence information that drives the Mesh View. Without Presence Service, you cannot join a shared activity - so there wouldn't be much point in trying to have it not running, if you are interested in collaboration. Presence Service is started on demand using D-Bus service activation. Sugar's Mesh View requires it immediately... Morgan ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
Bobby Powers wrote: On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: what about Sugar software running as well as possible on normal linux boxes? without having to install the full sugar package and run everything under sugar in one window. this doesn't mean that some libraries won't need to be installed, but like running QT apps on a Gnome desktop, you install the QT libraries, not all of KDE (and similarly running gtk apps on a KDE destop you don't install all of gnome) Not possible at the moment but it's on the plan too. The way I see it it is somewhat of a two way street. Personally, if I'm going to run Sugar apps in Gnome I would prefer them to integrate nicely with my other apps, just as I would prefer apps running in Sugar to be 'sugary'. In this case the burdon falls on the shoulders of the activity developers. From what I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) Abiword is a good example - the text editor canvas is encapsolated as its own widget, and both the Gnome Abiword and the sugar activity use it in their respective user interfaces. So nice modular UI code should make maintaing a Gnome and a Sugar version of a program relatively painless. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong - I've been planning out what I want to do with a new activity and this is what I seem to have arrived at, if peoples experiences are different it could save me some headache... I think *platform* integration is great from the user point of view. And I think designing the code so that it's easy to provide optimized UI for a certain platform is also a good idea. *But* I also think it should be possible to run a Sugar activity on a standard desktop and a desktop application in the Sugar shell. Integration is great and we should encourage it, but we can't assume it will always happen. And in the cases it doesn't happen, not-integrated is better than nothing. Also keeping the compatibility barrier low between the two platforms will make porting and cross pollination of technologies and ideas easier. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, 2008-05-09 at 15:30 +0200, Bobby Powers wrote: The way I see it it is somewhat of a two way street. Personally, if I'm going to run Sugar apps in Gnome I would prefer them to integrate nicely with my other apps, just as I would prefer apps running in Sugar to be 'sugary'. In this case the burdon falls on the shoulders of the activity developers. No, not in the X architecture. Most of this can/should/will be hidden in Sugar's libraries and window managers. From what I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) Abiword is a good example - the text editor canvas is encapsolated as its own widget, and both the Gnome Abiword and the sugar activity use it in their respective user interfaces. So nice modular UI code should make maintaing a Gnome and a Sugar version of a program relatively painless. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong - I've been planning out what I want to do with a new activity and this is what I seem to have arrived at, if peoples experiences are different it could save me some headache... As for the sharing stuff, I know you can download and use the telepathy libs, but would you also need a presence service running? Could this be automatically started when an app wants to collaborate, or is it something that would have to be running in the background beforehand? Either is possible. - Jim -- Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop Per Child ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, 9 May 2008, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: Bobby Powers wrote: On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: what about Sugar software running as well as possible on normal linux boxes? without having to install the full sugar package and run everything under sugar in one window. this doesn't mean that some libraries won't need to be installed, but like running QT apps on a Gnome desktop, you install the QT libraries, not all of KDE (and similarly running gtk apps on a KDE destop you don't install all of gnome) Not possible at the moment but it's on the plan too. The way I see it it is somewhat of a two way street. Personally, if I'm going to run Sugar apps in Gnome I would prefer them to integrate nicely with my other apps, just as I would prefer apps running in Sugar to be 'sugary'. In this case the burdon falls on the shoulders of the activity developers. From what I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong!) Abiword is a good example - the text editor canvas is encapsolated as its own widget, and both the Gnome Abiword and the sugar activity use it in their respective user interfaces. So nice modular UI code should make maintaing a Gnome and a Sugar version of a program relatively painless. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong - I've been planning out what I want to do with a new activity and this is what I seem to have arrived at, if peoples experiences are different it could save me some headache... I think *platform* integration is great from the user point of view. And I think designing the code so that it's easy to provide optimized UI for a certain platform is also a good idea. *But* I also think it should be possible to run a Sugar activity on a standard desktop and a desktop application in the Sugar shell. Integration is great and we should encourage it, but we can't assume it will always happen. And in the cases it doesn't happen, not-integrated is better than nothing. Also keeping the compatibility barrier low between the two platforms will make porting and cross pollination of technologies and ideas easier. thank you, this is exactly what I am hoping for. David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, 9 May 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 09.05.2008, at 09:56, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: which is why I fail to see the big point of Sugar. [...] a perfect example was the suggeation to make the sugarized activities use a standard file picker call so that it could go to the journal on the XO machine, or to a normal file selecteor window on other desktops. Your example indicates that you indeed fail to see the big point of Sugar. The point is to not have a document-centric environment, but an activity-centric one. Verbs rather than nouns. Yes it gets philosophical here. And I'm not the best to explain it. Maybe an analogy helps. Many developers fail to see the big point of object-oriented programming. For them, it's just that structs have function pointers now, so what's the big deal? But that misses the point completely, oo is all about decoupling and encapsulating concepts, it's a philosophy rather than an implementation technique. Or maybe the analogy does not help, depending on which camp one is in. Back to your example: even if all the world thinks applications with file dialogs are normal that does not imply it has to be that way. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of incomplete ideas. -- Alan Kay We do want to create something better than the status-quo. We may fail for a gazillion of reasons, but we're trying anyway. Children deserve the best, our future is in their hands. Bert, if you try and say that the entire world is wrong in how it writes software, and only software specificly written for the Sugar environment should be available to the children, you are doing them a great dis-service. it's fine to produce an alternate approach, but to bet-the-business on that approach with no fallback is betting that you know better then the rest of the world. it's possible that you are right, but not very likly. however if you allow for compatibility you have a fallback. many people have pointed out the limitations of the journal approach, and problems with not naming activites and files. yes it's easier to get started if you don't have to deal with confusing matters like directories, but as more documents are created a flat namespace for them will get overwelmed (be it a time-based journal, or a single layer home directory) you are optimizing for the beginner so much that once they have used the system for a short time it will no longer be suitable for them. dom't make the training wheels for beginners so ridgid that the kids can't remove them as they learn more. As for your arguments about object oriented programming vs functional programming, opject orientation has it's place, but there have been a lot of evils foisted on us over the years under the banner of Object Orientation. just becouse an idea has merit doesn't meant that any implementation of that idea is automaticaly good. David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Fri, 9 May 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 9 May 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 09.05.2008, at 09:56, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: which is why I fail to see the big point of Sugar. [...] a perfect example was the suggeation to make the sugarized activities use a standard file picker call so that it could go to the journal on the XO machine, or to a normal file selecteor window on other desktops. Your example indicates that you indeed fail to see the big point of Sugar. The point is to not have a document-centric environment, but an activity-centric one. Verbs rather than nouns. Yes it gets philosophical here. And I'm not the best to explain it. Maybe an analogy helps. Many developers fail to see the big point of object-oriented programming. For them, it's just that structs have function pointers now, so what's the big deal? But that misses the point completely, oo is all about decoupling and encapsulating concepts, it's a philosophy rather than an implementation technique. Or maybe the analogy does not help, depending on which camp one is in. Back to your example: even if all the world thinks applications with file dialogs are normal that does not imply it has to be that way. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of incomplete ideas. -- Alan Kay We do want to create something better than the status-quo. We may fail for a gazillion of reasons, but we're trying anyway. Children deserve the best, our future is in their hands. Bert, if you try and say that the entire world is wrong in how it writes software, and only software specifically written for the Sugar environment should be available to the children, you are doing them a great dis-service. Not at all. The fact is that *lots* of software is *already* available to many children, in all kinds of different forms. There can and will be other efforts around low-cost laptops. Many of these can and will rely upon open source to one degree or another. There are certainly enough applications in the world to come up with a respectable children's computer that isn't half bad. But the goal of Sugar isn't not half bad. The goal of Sugar is fundamental change of a 30-year-old computing metaphor, to take advantage of connectedness that simply did not exist when Windows first came to be. Some of these changes might be easily retrofit to existing applications. Many of them won't be. But the focus must be on creating the right interface experience, or the whole exercise is pointless. it's fine to produce an alternate approach, but to bet-the-business on that approach with no fallback is betting that you know better then the rest of the world. it's possible that you are right, but not very likely. The very nature of the Sugar idea *requires* a bet-the-business approach. Some changes can be evolutionary. Others must be revolutionary. In order for Sugar to have any point at all, it must represent a revolutionary change. Which is fine. If it fails, it fails. There are *plenty* of people working on evolving the current Linux desktop towards education. It's not an either/or proposition. Again, my $0.02, nothing more. --g -- Greg DeKoenigsberg Community Development Manager Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255 To whomsoever much hath been given... ...from him much shall be asked ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
*But* I also think it should be possible to run a Sugar activity on a
standard desktop and a desktop application in the Sugar shell. Integration is
great and we should encourage it, but we can't assume it will always happen.
And in the cases it doesn't happen, not-integrated is better than nothing.
Frankly, I don't see a logic difference between Negroponte talking
about extending the OLPC hardware to Windows (presumably to increase
recognition of the OLPC), and those talking about extending Sugar
to a standard desktop (presumably to increase recognition of Sugar).
I'm under the impression that the Sugar shell was specifically
designed to be EASY TO LEARN for people lacking Western education.
Yes, there are many who desire to run desktop applications (without
having to re-program them) in the Sugar shell. But *already* there
have been successful efforts at 'sugarizing' certain applications
('opera' comes to mind). From my perspective, what is needed is an
__excellent__ thunk layer to wrap around desktop applications.
Developers -- don't agonize -- go do it !! [The most intractable
problem seems to be Bitfrost - the security model for Sugar is NOT
the same as the security model for current desktop applications --
something has to give (or be re-programmed).]
But I don't see a pressing need to run individual Sugar activities
(without the Sugar shell) in another environment. [Would it really
increase the world's recognition of Sugar?] [The Sugar environment
is pared down -- why should for example users of non-Sugar
environments be asked to install applications which can draw just a
single small screen ?] If there *is* a market, again availability
of a thunk layer might provide the most wide-spread benefit.
I *do* see a two-fold use for porting the Sugar shell to various
distributions: (1) People without a Western education, who have
access only to a standard desktop, ought to find the Sugar shell
(together with a set of Activities that runs under it) easier to
learn. (2) By exposing more people to Sugar (including making
development resources available), hopefully the pool of contributors
to providing computerized help/information to those who previously
could not afford it will grow.
My $.02 mikus
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Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 09.05.2008, at 20:31, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bert, if you try and say that the entire world is wrong in how it writes software, Actually, that's exactly what I think, and entire world includes yours truly ;) But this isn't the place to talk about that (if you're curious, visit VPRI [*]). No, it's not foremost about how the software is written, but about how it is presented to the user. Unfortunately, interface design is much harder than just writing software. and only software specificly written for the Sugar environment should be available to the children, you are doing them a great dis- service. That's not what I meant or wrote, in my other message I did state that unmodified Linux software should run as well as possible in Sugar. it's fine to produce an alternate approach, but to bet-the-business on that approach with no fallback is betting that you know better then the rest of the world. it's possible that you are right, but not very likly. It's not as if these ideas are brand new. Bits and pieces have been developed over the last 30+ years. They just have not been implemented and tested at large scale yet. many people have pointed out the limitations of the journal approach You are looking at the incomplete implementation of the first design. Unsurprisingly it needs more iterations. you are optimizing for the beginner so much that once they have used the system for a short time it will no longer be suitable for them. This is a valid concern, but I don't see the Journal metaphor reaching its limits yet, by far. For example, the fastest way for me to retrieve a file is typing it in the system-wide search box on my machine, or into google. It doesn't matter where in the file system hierarchy or on which server it is stored. That is pretty much what the Journal would do, too. Also, the Journal will allow tagging, which is equivalent (but more powerful) to a directory hierarchy. Etc. We do not want a dumbed-down environment. It should be as powerful as any out there, and hopefully it will become even more powerful. There should be fences limiting power initially, but also gates that lead to more freedom. Ultimately children should not be restricted in any way by how the software is built. Which is why we insist on open-source, and also why we are not satisfied by the UI status quo. - Bert - [*] see http://vpri.org/html/work/ifnct.htm the research proposal: http://vpri.org/pdf/NSF_prop_RN-2006-002.pdf and first-year report: http://vpri.org/pdf/steps_TR-2007-008.pdf ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 10.05.2008 00:13, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 09.05.2008, at 20:31, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bert, if you try and say that the entire world is wrong in how it writes software, Actually, that's exactly what I think, and entire world includes yours truly ;) But this isn't the place to talk about that (if you're curious, visit VPRI [*]). No, it's not foremost about how the software is written, but about how it is presented to the user. Unfortunately, interface design is much harder than just writing software. The VPRI stuff is scary because it proposes the equivalent of using assembler code to speed up C programs. Performing model checking against one piece of code, then replacing that piece of code with another one for speed reasons in production is really a horrible plan. It also makes it obvious that the mathematically correct code is expected to be unusably slow. [...] For example, the fastest way for me to retrieve a file is typing it in the system-wide search box on my machine, or into google. It doesn't matter where in the file system hierarchy or on which server it is stored. That is pretty much what the Journal would do, too. Also, the Journal will allow tagging, which is equivalent (but more powerful) to a directory hierarchy. Etc. Actually, tags are just the equivalence of file names and they are more efficient to use than simple searches. If you know exactly what you want and where to find it, searching for it is one of the worst choices possible besides random walking and active avoidance. With Mozilla/Firefox/Seamonkey, typing in the first few letters of the URL takes you faster to an often-used site (due to autocompletion) than using any search engine. In real life, searching is a last resort if direct access is impossible. If you keep your bike at a fixed location you can remember among other bikes in a bike shed, you walk straight to your bike and don't search for it. [*] see http://vpri.org/html/work/ifnct.htm Regards, Carl-Daniel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
Developers should eat their own dogfood, AND this doesn't seem like the right process. A one-click install latest activities link would work just fine, and be a way to test activity updating. It shouldn't be possible to ship without browse. I find shipping a more reasonable set of priority activities to also be a good idea, as discussed in other threads. SJ On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 12:58 AM, Joshua N Pritikin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 11:54:30PM -0500, Dennis Gilmore wrote: Using the customisation key or one of the scripts floating around to install an activity bundle. they will be installed in /home then and its a one time deal. Yah, developers should eat their own dogfood. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 11:55 AM, C. Scott Ananian ps. SJ, there are no 'core activities' that we ship. There is only one security-privileged activity (Journal), which we currently ship in the core build because (a) Sugar breaks otherwise, and (b) Rainbow's activity-signing stuff is incomplete. I hope we can fix both of these in time, and stabilize the APIs enough that we can eventually unbundle even Journal. Just fine. We have more work to do to comply with the GPL in this case... A build that loads Sugar without successfully loading a bundle stream should give visible indications that it is not yet complete. Your notion of 'core activity' is probably worthwhile for support and documentation reasons There are many related notions of coreness. While I wasn't trying to define a new one, in the context of feeds and activity status tags, I will offer one: the intersection of globally supported important to education localized into the ambient language and moderately demanding (in size and resource consumption). This could be one of the default available streams, suitable for priming all machines in a region, and further tweaked by teachers and students on receipt. Preparing / testing / localizing / updating the latest supported version of an activity has its own timeframe; smooth deployment depends on all parties involved planning sufficiently far out. So while your defintion of 'build process' is one which excludes activity development, there is a parallel build process for named activity-sets which we should be talking about with clarity. SJ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
It also needs to be decided how the available activities are displayed. Initially we'd planned on simply launching Browse and pointing to a predetermined URL (an easy way out, but requires setting up the server side). That requires including Browse as part of the base image. Another option is to use an extension of Bert's script to fetch (potentially from a number of locations, if necessary), a list of activities and format a list with nice icons, titles, and short descriptions presented as a modal dialog From the viewpoint of a G1G1 user who likes to keep up with the Joneses, I am perfectly happy to fetch individual activities with 'wget' and to install them with 'sugar-install-bundle'. My biggest problem is simply *knowing* that updated Activities are available. I believe TWO sets of Activities need to be made available to users who are not schoolkids linked to a school server. One set I'll call 'stable Activities' - they are packaged in Activity Packs such as the ones for Peru or for G1G1. Users need a documented way to install these. If the build they have put on their OLPC does not provide Browse, they need a way to access an Activity Pack. I will use 'development Activities' to describe the second set -- they represent the most recent versions built by their authors. Currently these are scattered on mock.laptop.org and dev.laptop.org and wiki.laptop.org (and others). I would prefer there to be a SINGLE repository containing the very latest level of each Activity -- barring that, there should exist an official list which gives the location from where the latest version of each individual Activity can be fetched. [The existing http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities webpage lists a number of not-the-latest-version bundles. It is not suitable for a catalog of what I'm calling 'development Activities', unless more care is given to updating it as authors come up with new versions.] mikus ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 9 May 2008, at 00:42, Samuel Klein wrote: On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 11:55 AM, C. Scott Ananian ps. SJ, there are no 'core activities' that we ship. There is only one security-privileged activity (Journal), which we currently ship in the core build because (a) Sugar breaks otherwise, and (b) Rainbow's activity-signing stuff is incomplete. I hope we can fix both of these in time, and stabilize the APIs enough that we can eventually unbundle even Journal. H, sorry, run that past me again. I thought the intention was that the Journal was an integral part of the Sugar UI, and the plan was that the Journal code was going to be integrated to the Sugar Shell for (I think) security and performance – or did the world just turn around yet again while I was looking the other way? --Gary ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:48 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally Yes. Debian does most of the work, ubuntu polishes a subset of packages, and then a much smaller subset of packages are software that Ubuntu develop themselves. Just like us ;-) We only develop/customise... something like 0.5% of the code we ship. cheers, m -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Tue, 6 May 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally and picks what version of each of those packages to put in the main distro. the versions of these seperate packages are almost entirely independant of each other. they then do a lot of testing and some development of adminitrative tools and ship the result. unfortunantly much of the OLPC development has seemed to be against the idea of having external software run unmodified on sugar, and the resulting work to get anything running will hurt this model. Again: what makes Sugar different from Linux? The ability to interact *everywhere*, and to share *every activity* by default. That interactivity basically defines what an activity *is*. Yes, this severely restricts the amount of software that can run on Sugar. But again: the whole world of FLOSS educational software can run on Linux just fine. If we're just (badly) reinventing a new WM, what's the point? --g -- Greg DeKoenigsberg Community Development Manager Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255 To whomsoever much hath been given... ...from him much shall be asked ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, 2008-05-07 at 09:17 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote: On Tue, 6 May 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally and picks what version of each of those packages to put in the main distro. the versions of these seperate packages are almost entirely independant of each other. they then do a lot of testing and some development of adminitrative tools and ship the result. unfortunantly much of the OLPC development has seemed to be against the idea of having external software run unmodified on sugar, and the resulting work to get anything running will hurt this model. David, We must fix this Help greatfully appreciated. It isn't very much work to get there from here. - Jim ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 5:21 AM, Martin Langhoff [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For example, we may have a sugar build with the latest sugar UI bits, a security build which implements Bitfrost more fully, a printers build which works on printer support, That makes sense if (when) there is enough people - the overhead of maintaining and testing additional builds is important. I think we should very careful about the complexity and the maintenance costs brought by additional builds. Even just the joyride/stable distinction brought more confusion than benefits so far ihmo. I'm not opposed to make image builds more distributed on the long run. I just think we have worst problem to fight with at the moment. an activities build which tries to collect all the best activities from the community, etc. I want to have that activities build too 8-) I'm not really convinced it should be a separate build. Just ship a set of core activities and make it really easy to install new ones (we have already everything in place to do so). Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 19:36, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: I'm not really convinced it should be a separate build. Just ship a set of core activities and make it really easy to install new ones (we have already everything in place to do so). I hate the core activities idea. What are the core activities for an education machine? The activities that distinguish the XO from all the other laptops out there are regularly omitted from the core. Like in the new olpc3 build (*). There is no technical reason for this, and it sends the wrong message. Unless someone wants to convey that this is just another laptop project. - Bert - (*) http://dev.laptop.org/~bert/olpc3-pkgs.html ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
Note that the meat of this proposal was *not* aimed at @laptop.org employees, who I assume are savvy enough to get appropriate changes upstream. The real point here was to outline a devel strategy that would work for 'out of core' changes made by external developers. So worrying about the complexity and maintenance costs is kinda beside the point: these builds aren't being created or maintained by OLPC. They are just a mechanism to create and test worthwhile changes to the official build, and the merge window is a mechanism to get those changes back into the official builds. --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 7:49 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 19:36, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: I'm not really convinced it should be a separate build. Just ship a set of core activities and make it really easy to install new ones (we have already everything in place to do so). I hate the core activities idea. What are the core activities for an education machine? The activities that distinguish the XO from all the other laptops out there are regularly omitted from the core. Like in the new olpc3 build (*). There is no technical reason for this, and it sends the wrong message. Unless someone wants to convey that this is just another laptop project. Well, I think we should provide a set of default activities. And I think those should include the educational ones. Shipping default images with no activities on them doesn't send the right message either, imo. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 7:51 PM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Note that the meat of this proposal was *not* aimed at @laptop.org employees, who I assume are savvy enough to get appropriate changes upstream. The real point here was to outline a devel strategy that would work for 'out of core' changes made by external developers. So worrying about the complexity and maintenance costs is kinda beside the point: these builds aren't being created or maintained by OLPC. They are just a mechanism to create and test worthwhile changes to the official build, and the merge window is a mechanism to get those changes back into the official builds. I think the main obstacle for external developers to get stuff into the builds is the poor state of our release process. That's what we should aim to fix. IMO saying to external developers to come up with their builds (without even providing a good way to build packages for those) and that *we* will do the work to get them upstream is sending the wrong message and I'm afraid it will just increase the confusion, as happened with joyride. That said I don't want to stop energy. People will play with your ideas and we will see how it turns out. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:10 PM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, I think we should provide a set of default activities. And I think those should include the educational ones. Shipping default images with no activities on them doesn't send the right message either, imo. Dammit, why are we having the discussion again! We do not *ship* any image or machine with no activities installed. End of story. I thought that was exactly what we were doing, and that the only way to have activities wind up on builds was via activity packs supplied at the country level. Clearly communication hasn't been clear enough here. Do you mind clarifying the actual process? It's pertinent to the issue of ensuring that the ring is never empty. - Eben -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 8:10 PM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, I think we should provide a set of default activities. And I think those should include the educational ones. Shipping default images with no activities on them doesn't send the right message either, imo. Dammit, why are we having the discussion again! We do not *ship* any image or machine with no activities installed. End of story. People download 703 and install it on their XO or run it in the emulator. And it's completely useless until they grab Bert script to download the activities (or get them in some other way). I had to guide someone through that process just yesterday and I can tell it was really confusing him. But feel free to disregard the problem, if it makes you feel better. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
*shipping* refers to what leaves the factory in China. We do not *ship* anything without activities installed. If you already have a build and you upgrade, you shouldn't lose your activities (that would be a bug if you did). If you do a 'cleaninstall' based on the old methods of cleaninstall, then you are liable to end up without activities... but you can add them back; so it shouldn't be the end of the world. If you do want to do a cleaninstall, you should use the new method that will add the activities back with a second boot. Kim On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 8:10 PM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, I think we should provide a set of default activities. And I think those should include the educational ones. Shipping default images with no activities on them doesn't send the right message either, imo. Dammit, why are we having the discussion again! We do not *ship* any image or machine with no activities installed. End of story. People download 703 and install it on their XO or run it in the emulator. And it's completely useless until they grab Bert script to download the activities (or get them in some other way). I had to guide someone through that process just yesterday and I can tell it was really confusing him. But feel free to disregard the problem, if it makes you feel better. Marco ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 20:30, Kim Quirk wrote: If you already have a build and you upgrade, you shouldn't lose your activities (that would be a bug if you did). This is exactly what happens when you upgrade to the latest update.1 build. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:38 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 20:30, Kim Quirk wrote: If you already have a build and you upgrade, you shouldn't lose your activities (that would be a bug if you did). This is exactly what happens when you upgrade to the latest update.1 build. Then you are not following the instructions on the wiki. Please re-read them. --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On May 7, 2008, at 2:19 PM, Eben Eliason wrote: Dammit, why are we having the discussion again! We do not *ship* any image or machine with no activities installed. End of story. I thought that was exactly what we were doing, and that the only way to have activities wind up on builds was via activity packs supplied at the country level. Clearly communication hasn't been clear enough here. Do you mind clarifying the actual process? It's pertinent to the issue of ensuring that the ring is never empty. We have builds of the base system (e.g. update.1 703) We have activities. Countries/trials choose a set (bundle) of activities and content to have installed on the laptop. At the factory, a combination of base system and SKU (country) specific activity bundle is installed. In country, an upgrade would likewise install a base system and the country specific activity bundle. No laptop should ever have the OS bundle installed without some set of activities also being installed. Where we fail to meet expectations is when G1G1 users change from the old, monolithic, OS + activities to the new, unbundled OS without hand-holding (installing the G1G1 activity bundle). wad ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:51 PM, John Watlington [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Where we fail to meet expectations is when G1G1 users change from the old, monolithic, OS + activities to the new, unbundled OS without hand-holding (installing the G1G1 activity bundle). And, in fact, last I checked our Wiki had the correct instructions for doing an upgrade w/o losing activities, so (as far as I know) the only problem is with OLPC developers who know better and so don't read the instructions on the wiki. What can we do about that? --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 20:57, C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 2:51 PM, John Watlington [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Where we fail to meet expectations is when G1G1 users change from the old, monolithic, OS + activities to the new, unbundled OS without hand-holding (installing the G1G1 activity bundle). And, in fact, last I checked our Wiki had the correct instructions for doing an upgrade w/o losing activities, so (as far as I know) the only problem is with OLPC developers who know better and so don't read the instructions on the wiki. What can we do about that? The update could come with a simple (or even better: obvious) method to let people get the activities back. There probably was no time to do this 2 months ago. But in the mean time, if someone was interested to make things go smoother, it could have been done. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wednesday 07 May 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 19:36, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: I'm not really convinced it should be a separate build. Just ship a set of core activities and make it really easy to install new ones (we have already everything in place to do so). I hate the core activities idea. What are the core activities for an education machine? The activities that distinguish the XO from all the other laptops out there are regularly omitted from the core. Like in the new olpc3 build (*). There is no technical reason for this, and it sends the wrong message. Unless someone wants to convey that this is just another laptop project. Quit making things out of nothing, the olpc3 builds are a start on getting builds based on F-9 nothing more nothing less. i branched pilgrim based on the joyride tree. right now im trying to get things to a state where the image boots. once it boots ill announce it from the top of every cliff please test.but until then do not read false things into it. Dennis signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The update could come with a simple (or even better: obvious) method to let people get the activities back. There probably was no time to do this 2 months ago. But in the mean time, if someone was interested to make things go smoother, it could have been done. I look forward to seeing your code. --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 21:23, C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The update could come with a simple (or even better: obvious) method to let people get the activities back. There probably was no time to do this 2 months ago. But in the mean time, if someone was interested to make things go smoother, it could have been done. I look forward to seeing your code. My activity update script is out there. For quite a while now. As far as I am aware it still is the simplest way to get the activities back. Now please stop pointing the finger at me. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 19:54, C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 19:36, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: I'm not really convinced it should be a separate build. Just ship a set of core activities and make it really easy to install new ones (we have already everything in place to do so). I hate the core activities idea. What are the core activities for an education machine? The activities that distinguish the XO from all the other laptops out there are regularly omitted from the core. Like in the new olpc3 build (*). There is no technical reason for this, and it sends the wrong message. Unless someone wants to convey that this is just another laptop project. - Bert - (*) http://dev.laptop.org/~bert/olpc3-pkgs.html Bert, the olpc3 branch has not been released yet and in fact doesn't even *boot* yet, as far as I know. It's where Dennis is working on FC9 stuff. etoys is not in the official Fedora repositories because of CLA issues, which we all understand, but to fault Dennis for not including something which is completely irrelevant to the FC9 porting work he is actually trying to do, and furthermore, to make this complaint against an *unreleased and unannounced testing build* which *doesn't even boot* -- this verges on paranoia. Please don't assume that OLPC is somehow conspiring against etoys! It is one of the most heavily used pieces of software in our deployments, as far as I can tell. Well, my trust in OLPC is being probed every other day. I take your word, and I trust a few other people there, but I also have to acknowledge that priorities at OLPC are changing. So much so that some of the people I trusted most are leaving. And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. We'll see. If this fear is unfunded, all the better. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wednesday 07 May 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: Well, my trust in OLPC is being probed every other day. I take your word, and I trust a few other people there, but I also have to acknowledge that priorities at OLPC are changing. So much so that some of the people I trusted most are leaving. And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. We'll see. If this fear is unfunded, all the better. have you even looked at the build.log you would see Parsing package install arguments No package fonts-thai-ttf available. No package olpc-library-core available. No package olpc-library-common available. No package olpc-licenses available. No package squeak-vm available. No package etoys available. No package olpc-logos available. No package olpc-hardware-manager available. No package olpc-utils available. No package libabiword available. No package pyabiword available. No package libabiword-plugins available. No package GConf2-dbus available. No package hulahop available. Resolving Dependencies this is not because we dont want these things only that i'm trying to get built up a environment that will at least boot and allow for testing. the only reason ive not yet announced anything is because it doesnt boot let alone provide something that is useful for testing and moving forward. Dennis signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, 7 May 2008 21:34:15 +0200 Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 19:54, C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 19:36, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: I'm not really convinced it should be a separate build. Just ship a set of core activities and make it really easy to install new ones (we have already everything in place to do so). I hate the core activities idea. What are the core activities for an education machine? The activities that distinguish the XO from all the other laptops out there are regularly omitted from the core. Like in the new olpc3 build (*). There is no technical reason for this, and it sends the wrong message. Unless someone wants to convey that this is just another laptop project. - Bert - (*) http://dev.laptop.org/~bert/olpc3-pkgs.html Bert, the olpc3 branch has not been released yet and in fact doesn't even *boot* yet, as far as I know. It's where Dennis is working on FC9 stuff. etoys is not in the official Fedora repositories because of CLA issues, which we all understand, but to fault Dennis for not including something which is completely irrelevant to the FC9 porting work he is actually trying to do, and furthermore, to make this complaint against an *unreleased and unannounced testing build* which *doesn't even boot* -- this verges on paranoia. Please don't assume that OLPC is somehow conspiring against etoys! It is one of the most heavily used pieces of software in our deployments, as far as I can tell. Well, my trust in OLPC is being probed every other day. I take your word, and I trust a few other people there, but I also have to acknowledge that priorities at OLPC are changing. So much so that some of the people I trusted most are leaving. And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. We'll see. If this fear is unfunded, all the better. Tee-hee; best Freudian slip of the week. By a guy named Freudenberg, no less! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 21:46, Dennis Gilmore wrote: On Wednesday 07 May 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: Well, my trust in OLPC is being probed every other day. I take your word, and I trust a few other people there, but I also have to acknowledge that priorities at OLPC are changing. So much so that some of the people I trusted most are leaving. And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. We'll see. If this fear is unfunded, all the better. have you even looked at the build.log you would see Parsing package install arguments No package fonts-thai-ttf available. No package olpc-library-core available. No package olpc-library-common available. No package olpc-licenses available. No package squeak-vm available. No package etoys available. No package olpc-logos available. No package olpc-hardware-manager available. No package olpc-utils available. No package libabiword available. No package pyabiword available. No package libabiword-plugins available. No package GConf2-dbus available. No package hulahop available. Resolving Dependencies What does this have to do with the activities list being trimmed down? (or selected activities being added - not sure if you started from a build with or without activities) this is not because we dont want these things only that i'm trying to get built up a environment that will at least boot and allow for testing. the only reason ive not yet announced anything is because it doesnt boot let alone provide something that is useful for testing and moving forward. The squeak-vm and etoys rpms and srpms are in my joyride public rpm repo. They should work fine. If not, let me know. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 22:11, C. Scott Ananian wrote: And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. You're on crack, Bert. *None* of the activities listed in 6598 are in the core build. Maybe I am hallucinating this: http://pilgrim.laptop.org/~pilgrim/olpc/streams/olpc3/build9/devel_jffs2/build.log Installing Journal from file Journal-87.xo Installing Read from file Read-45.xo Installing Chat from file Chat-37.xo Installing Web from file Web-86.xo Installing Write from file Write-55.xo Installing Record from file Record-54.xo Installing Paint from file Paint-19.xo What was actually implemented was http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/2064, which I opened 10 months ago, and eventually prevailed with. joyride is the anomaly these days, mostly due to historical reasons and my personal laziness. Please open a bug against joyride if you feel strongly about it. I don't mind too strongly, but I filed a ticket anyway (#6966). - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wednesday 07 May 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 22:11, C. Scott Ananian wrote: And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. You're on crack, Bert. *None* of the activities listed in 6598 are in the core build. Maybe I am hallucinating this: http://pilgrim.laptop.org/~pilgrim/olpc/streams/olpc3/build9/devel_jffs2/bu ild.log Installing Journal from file Journal-87.xo Installing Read from file Read-45.xo Installing Chat from file Chat-37.xo Installing Web from file Web-86.xo Installing Write from file Write-55.xo Installing Record from file Record-54.xo Installing Paint from file Paint-19.xo What was actually implemented was http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/2064, which I opened 10 months ago, and eventually prevailed with. joyride is the anomaly these days, mostly due to historical reasons and my personal laziness. Please open a bug against joyride if you feel strongly about it. I don't mind too strongly, but I filed a ticket anyway (#6966). the next joyride build and olpc3 build will only install Journal. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:22 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 22:11, C. Scott Ananian wrote: And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. You're on crack, Bert. *None* of the activities listed in 6598 are in the core build. Maybe I am hallucinating this: http://pilgrim.laptop.org/~pilgrim/olpc/streams/olpc3/build9/devel_jffs2/build.log That's not the core build. That's Dennis' private playground. Didn't we go over that already? --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:04 PM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:22 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 22:11, C. Scott Ananian wrote: And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. You're on crack, Bert. *None* of the activities listed in 6598 are in the core build. Maybe I am hallucinating this: http://pilgrim.laptop.org/~pilgrim/olpc/streams/olpc3/build9/devel_jffs2/build.log That's not the core build. That's Dennis' private playground. Didn't we go over that already? --scott This is something I remember coming up a lot back when Red Hat first started putting out Rawhide. We would get lots of tickets from people who would install it and expect it to a) work and b) be supported. This was an item that had to be said over and over again until it became a mantra from technical support to the president of the company... If you use Rawhide, don't expect it to work, don't expect your system to even work ever again... but thankyou for testing So you will say this quite a bit is my guess. -- Stephen J Smoogen. -- How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On 07.05.2008, at 23:04, C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:22 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 22:11, C. Scott Ananian wrote: And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. You're on crack, Bert. *None* of the activities listed in 6598 are in the core build. Maybe I am hallucinating this: http://pilgrim.laptop.org/~pilgrim/olpc/streams/olpc3/build9/devel_jffs2/build.log That's not the core build. That's Dennis' private playground. I was talking about the olpc3 build (it's still cited above for reference). I don't know exactly which build you mean by core, but probably update.1. Maybe it's all obvious to you. Here is how it looks from the outside: A new build series is started next to the official update.1 build. Lacking any announcement to clarify things, is it really so wrong to assume this has some significance? In particular when the other experimental builds (joyride and faster) are on a different server? And when I then look at what activities are installed, is it so wrong to wonder why *exactly* those 7 activities are installed that we are currently supporting at OLPC and should be part of builds going forward (Kim's words)? I concede this is not your fault, but please do not pretend this list of blessed activities would not exist. Didn't we go over that already? The olpc3 build was not discussed before today, as far as I know. Certainly not before it was out there. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 5:30 PM, Stephen John Smoogen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is something I remember coming up a lot back when Red Hat first started putting out Rawhide. We would get lots of tickets from people who would install it and expect it to a) work and b) be supported. This was an item that had to be said over and over again until it became a mantra from technical support to the president of the company... If you use Rawhide, don't expect it to work, don't expect your system to even work ever again... but thankyou for testing Then it is critical to get the developers on board with that message, too. In other words, when asked how something works, assume the asker is running the latest release until confirmed otherwise. Case in point, it bugs me when the wiki documents features of versions which haven't been released yet, or declares a problem fixed because some later, as yet unreleased version no longer shows the problem. It ain't fixed if, in order to get the fix, you need to ...don't expect it to work, don't expect your system to even work ever again... but thankyou for testing... -- Steve Holton [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
Where we fail to meet expectations is when G1G1 users change from the old, monolithic, OS + activities to the new, unbundled OS without hand-holding (installing the G1G1 activity bundle). And, in fact, last I checked our Wiki had the correct instructions for doing an upgrade w/o losing activities, so (as far as I know) the only problem is with OLPC developers who know better and so don't read the instructions on the wiki. What can we do about that? No, actually. I am a G1G1 / aspiring developer / community member, who upgraded, lost his activities, figured out the issue, got them, and then two days later saw instructions posted. The fact that critical documentation lags changes is a real issue. Bob ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:11 PM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 19:54, C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, my trust in OLPC is being probed every other day. I take your word, and I trust a few other people there, but I also have to acknowledge that priorities at OLPC are changing. It never hurts to be paranoid, but the educational priorities of our tool and software development are not changing. There are priorities that have not been effectively set in that regard -- but your input there is part of any decisions that are made. Perhaps we could use an open working group to review and set core activities that can guide the list of activities (and specific versions) that is proposed for each release. What people spend time discussing and worrying about has changed, and this can distract from addressing issues such as what the best activty presentation is for children and clasrooms in different settings -- one reason that recent discussions on the education.project list have been great to see and take part in. And it's certainly no coincidence that the list of activities in olpc3 is what Kim wanted in ticket 6598. You certainly remember the discussions. You're on crack, Bert. For the record, I don't think Bert is on crack. If there are any activities other than Browse and Journal included in even experimental builds, I would like to see them include a core list, certainly including etoys, log and terminal, for instance. I've added my current thoughts on having fallback activities in /usr/share to 2064. Cheers, SJ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Its.an.education.project] An OLPC Development Model
2008/5/7 Steve Holton [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Case in point, it bugs me when the wiki documents features of versions which haven't been released yet, or declares a problem fixed because some later, as yet unreleased version no longer shows the problem. Well, it's correct to document features of unstable builds; just not to conflate that with a bug being fixed in a stable update to the last official release. This is why stable branches continue development in parallel with the latest [unstable] trunk. It ain't fixed if, in order to get the fix, you need to ...don't expect it to work, don't expect your system to even work ever again... but thankyou for testing... Agreed in general. In specific, our system is built such that you /should/ expect everything to work if you upgrade specific activities to new ones. New entire builds which are experimental are places where you shouldn't expect anything to work -- if any docs suggest that there is a fix which requires installing an unstable build, that should certainly be swiftly removed. SJ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
2008/5/7 Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:11 PM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07.05.2008, at 19:54, C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, my trust in OLPC is being probed every other day. I take your word, and I trust a few other people there, but I also have to acknowledge that priorities at OLPC are changing. It never hurts to be paranoid, but the educational priorities of our tool and software development are not changing. There are priorities that have not been effectively set in that regard -- but your input there is part of any decisions that are made. Perhaps we could use an open working group to review and set core activities that can guide the list of activities (and specific versions) that is proposed for each release. Yes! Actually, we need an open working group on all OLPC policies. And I don't only mean development policies. It isn't only that the community has no input on many policies. It's that there is no reasonable way to find out what they are, or if there even is one on a point of interest and concern. What people spend time discussing and worrying about has changed, and this can distract from addressing issues such as what the best activty presentation is for children and clasrooms in different settings -- one reason that recent discussions on the education.project list have been great to see and take part in. Also, for the first time I have gotten sustained editing activity on a Wiki page I created. Thanks to all who looked and wrote more. -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 9:41 PM, Edward Cherlin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
2008/5/7 Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
It never hurts to be paranoid, but the educational priorities of our
tool
and software development are not changing. There are priorities that
have
not been effectively set in that regard -- but your input there is part
of
any decisions that are made. Perhaps we could use an open working group
to
review and set core activities that can guide the list of activities
(and
specific versions) that is proposed for each release.
Yes! Actually, we need an open working group on all OLPC policies. And
I don't only mean development policies.
Right. Well, we can start with a couple groups for 1. tagging and reviewing
core activities, and 2. reviewing policy organization/publication and the
style guidelines for creating and sharing policy suggestions.
We may also need open groups to more coherently address outreach, roadshows
and event representation, and general communication across the community.
It isn't only that the community has no input on many policies. It's
that there is no reasonable way to find out what they are, or if there
even is one on a point of interest and concern.
This is a slightly inaccurate set of statements : the community in principle
has a good deal of input on many policies; however, until they are
formulated in a coherent way, community members are unlikely to recognize
where and how they can effectively give input.
In rare cases there exist policies which the community has not found out
about -- usually because of an unfortunate time lag. The other 95% of the
time, not being able to find out what a policy is indicates that one has not
been set down -- and that {{sofixit}} is a reasonable first-pass solution.
(Which is to say, proposing a policy in writing on the wiki and broadcasting
it for discussion is a good way to begin finding out what the policy
is/should be.)
SJ
What people spend time discussing and worrying about has changed, and this
can distract from addressing issues such as what the best activty
presentation is for children and clasrooms in different settings -- one
reason that recent discussions on the education.project list have been
great
to see and take part in.
Also, for the first time I have gotten sustained editing activity on a
Wiki page I created. Thanks to all who looked and wrote more.
--
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay
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Changes to joyride build system? (Re: An OLPC Development Model)
2008/5/8 Dennis Gilmore [EMAIL PROTECTED]: the next joyride build and olpc3 build will only install Journal. Could you explain more background about the change to joyride? (I wouldn't care about olpc3 at this time) For activity developers Joyride has been: 1) staging environment before adding to production stream where developer can test if updated activity with some fixes really works 2) smoke testing environment where one can smell something broken because of recent changes to activity and sugar/system software I believe environment for those purposes will be still needed even if OLPC no longer integrate activities to base build and support them. Assuming you will permanently stop pulling activities to joyride , will OLPC have replacement (for either activities blessed by OLPC or community), or are you implying community need to plan it ? /Korakurider ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wednesday 07 May 2008, Chris Ball wrote: Hi, the next joyride build and olpc3 build will only install Journal. Oh, yuck. What's the recommended way for developers to install the activities, then? I don't think we're ready for this step -- the reason we still had all the activities in Joyride was that we don't have an activity that updates and installs activities yet. - Chris. Using the customisation key or one of the scripts floating around to install an activity bundle. they will be installed in /home then and its a one time deal. same as for update.1 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Update_1 Dennis signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 11:54:30PM -0500, Dennis Gilmore wrote: Using the customisation key or one of the scripts floating around to install an activity bundle. they will be installed in /home then and its a one time deal. Yah, developers should eat their own dogfood. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 8:52 AM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The model is simple: fork and merge. That is to say, rather than trying to maintain a single upstream that follows all the That thread you point out is a good resource to understand how current kernel devs handle things, and I agree with the fork-and-merge approach. Now, Linux is _one_ software project, and to an extent, our efforts are closer to what Ubuntu does. So IMHO... - In all tiers, it only makes sense to fork-and-merge if you have subsystem maintainers. If you don't, stick to a shared tree or - if there is a clear lead dev, send him/her patches. - In all tiers, if you just have a patch of two, just send them as patches. - For activities, each main lead dev decided, but should recommend that they sync with Sugar's cycles, and publish a branch or tag matching a Sugar milestone. - Sugar base (libs, wm, etc) can follow the fork-merge-stabilise cycle - depending on API stability and number of devs, it might make sense to make each cycle longer. - For packages where we are the downstream, maintain external patches as needed. For example, we may have a sugar build with the latest sugar UI bits, a security build which implements Bitfrost more fully, a printers build which works on printer support, That makes sense if (when) there is enough people - the overhead of maintaining and testing additional builds is important. an activities build which tries to collect all the best activities from the community, etc. I want to have that activities build too 8-) cheers, m -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: An OLPC Development Model
On Wed, 7 May 2008, Martin Langhoff wrote: On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 8:52 AM, C. Scott Ananian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The model is simple: fork and merge. That is to say, rather than trying to maintain a single upstream that follows all the That thread you point out is a good resource to understand how current kernel devs handle things, and I agree with the fork-and-merge approach. Now, Linux is _one_ software project, and to an extent, our efforts are closer to what Ubuntu does. they could be, but from what I see watching the list since I received my G1G1 machine, many things have been tightly integrated that probably shouldn't have been. ubuntu takes packages maintaned externally and picks what version of each of those packages to put in the main distro. the versions of these seperate packages are almost entirely independant of each other. they then do a lot of testing and some development of adminitrative tools and ship the result. unfortunantly much of the OLPC development has seemed to be against the idea of having external software run unmodified on sugar, and the resulting work to get anything running will hurt this model. David Lang So IMHO... - In all tiers, it only makes sense to fork-and-merge if you have subsystem maintainers. If you don't, stick to a shared tree or - if there is a clear lead dev, send him/her patches. - In all tiers, if you just have a patch of two, just send them as patches. - For activities, each main lead dev decided, but should recommend that they sync with Sugar's cycles, and publish a branch or tag matching a Sugar milestone. - Sugar base (libs, wm, etc) can follow the fork-merge-stabilise cycle - depending on API stability and number of devs, it might make sense to make each cycle longer. - For packages where we are the downstream, maintain external patches as needed. For example, we may have a sugar build with the latest sugar UI bits, a security build which implements Bitfrost more fully, a printers build which works on printer support, That makes sense if (when) there is enough people - the overhead of maintaining and testing additional builds is important. an activities build which tries to collect all the best activities from the community, etc. I want to have that activities build too 8-) cheers, m ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
