Sad to see some folks leaving: jobs available

[Gary Oberbrunner]

I'm sorry to see some familiar names gone from this list.  My G1G1 XO is
sad today.

But hopefully a brighter for those recently laid off: my company,
GenArts, is also hiring.  We make high-end special effects software for
movies and TV (www.genarts.com).  We are between Central and Harvard
squares on Mass Ave in Cambridge, which may be a draw for some folks on
this list.  We are looking for a QA/Release Engineer; a programmer with
GPGPU and image-processing experience; and an experienced web
application developer with Ruby and strong C++ coding skills.  Please
respond to j...@genarts.com, and if you'd like to forward this to folks
who may already be gone from the devel list, please feel free to do so.

-- 
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Gary Oberbrunnerga...@genarts.com
GenArts, Inc.   Tel: 617-492-2888
955 Mass. Ave   Fax: 617-492-2852
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA www.genarts.com
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Leaving soon

[Ricardo Carrano]

Dear all,

I am also sad to be leaving the project. It's been a true honor to
work in such a great project and with such a great team.

For those who are leaving I reinforce the "best of luck" votes. For
those who are staying I say the same and also ask that you don't  be
disheartened. We're all sad these days. These are hard times, but they
too will pass and OLPC must endure and look into the future. Its
mission is too important.

The success of OLPC goes far beyond that awesome 500 thousand XOs (and
counting) in the hands of kids. It is reinforcing the very idea that
we should care for the education of children, that they are important
and deserve the best, that is truly invaluable. We hope differently,
but even if they get a commercial laptop running a proprietary
operating system they will benefit and this will be, at least in part,
due to the job that OLPC started and how it changed the economics in
that "market" no one was paying attention to. So, please, keep up with
the good work, more kids are waiting for their green little laptops!
It was never an easy job, anyway. :-)

I started as a volunteer, and intend to keep helping if I can, again
as a volunteer. In my last days as a contractor I intend to revise the
documentation in the wiki that relate to wireless (there is a lot
there already, just needing some better linking).

My original planning for January was to finish the tx power tests
(just reported what was found in #9187) and test the scalability of
the "XO as an acess point" set up.  I am also coordinating tests to
better understand and adapt to dense wireless scenarios like the one
in classrooms, when tens of XOs are connected to access points. This
is not a short term task and I intend to continue with that and with
the training of students that will help run the tests and interpret
the results at UFF (Brazil).

But of course, this agenda may change in the face of other, more
urgent needs. So, just let me know how can I help now and in the
future.

My best regards,
Ricardo Carrano
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Leaving

[pgf]

tomeu wrote:
 > On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 09:07, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
 > > On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:50 PM, C. Scott Ananian  
 > > wrote:
 > >> Like many others, Friday will be my last day employed by OLPC.  I've
 > >> enjoyed working on the project a lot, and hope to find some way to
 > >> continue the work that has been begun.
 > >
 > > I'm very sorry to hear that. Will you be able to attend XOCamp2?
 > >
 > > The next release of Sugar appears to be left hanging, with no comment
 > > from management. I find this appalling.
 > 
 > Did you really meant Sugar? Or OLPC?

the official announcement did a disservice by repeating the 
conflation of the terms "sugar" and "XO release".  they're obviously
quite related, but it's really the latter that i suspect edward was
referring to.

paul
=-
 paul fox, p...@laptop.org
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Re: Leaving

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 09:07, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:50 PM, C. Scott Ananian  wrote:
>> Like many others, Friday will be my last day employed by OLPC.  I've
>> enjoyed working on the project a lot, and hope to find some way to
>> continue the work that has been begun.
>
> I'm very sorry to hear that. Will you be able to attend XOCamp2?
>
> The next release of Sugar appears to be left hanging, with no comment
> from management. I find this appalling.

Did you really meant Sugar? Or OLPC?

The next Sugar release is going onwards fine, thanks.

http://sugarlabs.org/go/DevelopmentTeam/Release/Roadmap

And when in a couple of weeks it gets into Ubuntu packages, I count on
you to help us test it (hope you will have better luck this time).

Regards,

Tomeu

>> Although I expect that the @laptop.org addresses will continue to work
>> for some time, you should probably use csc...@cscott.net for future
>> correspondence.  I've enjoyed working with you all.
>>  --scott
>>
>> --
>> ( http://cscott.net/ )
>> ___
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
> And Children are my nation.
> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai
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Re: Leaving

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:50 PM, C. Scott Ananian  wrote:
> Like many others, Friday will be my last day employed by OLPC.  I've
> enjoyed working on the project a lot, and hope to find some way to
> continue the work that has been begun.

I'm very sorry to hear that. Will you be able to attend XOCamp2?

The next release of Sugar appears to be left hanging, with no comment
from management. I find this appalling.


> Although I expect that the @laptop.org addresses will continue to work
> for some time, you should probably use csc...@cscott.net for future
> correspondence.  I've enjoyed working with you all.
>  --scott
>
> --
> ( http://cscott.net/ )
> ___
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>



-- 
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai
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Leaving

[C. Scott Ananian]

Like many others, Friday will be my last day employed by OLPC.  I've
enjoyed working on the project a lot, and hope to find some way to
continue the work that has been begun.

Although I expect that the @laptop.org addresses will continue to work
for some time, you should probably use csc...@cscott.net for future
correspondence.  I've enjoyed working with you all.
 --scott

-- 
 ( http://cscott.net/ )
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Aaron Kaplan]

On Apr 23, 2008, at 1:25 AM, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:

> By my judgment, I'm glad Richard Stallman isn't running OLPC. He would
> have delayed the launch until we have a GPL'd replacement for the mesh
> firmware. As it is now, we have a laptop which is more pure license- 
> wise
> than any other laptop available at about half the cost of the
> competition. And we have had mesh networking in production for  
> about six
> months. Who else has mesh networking? Nobody. That's not an ideal
>

not true ;-)

there are plenty of open source solutions out there which just need  
to be installed.
see www.olsr.org for one example.



---
there's no place like 127.0.0.1



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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Ivan Krstić]

After taking a few days to collect my thoughts about everything that's  
going on, I'll add my last message to this thread to encourage the  
community to continue to stand tall and proud:

 

You did good, folks, and it was a pleasure and a privilege of a  
lifetime to work with you on enabling learning for children who need  
it most. The recent developments don't change a thing about what  
you've accomplished.

--
Ivan Krstić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://radian.org
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 6:59 AM, Peter Krenesky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>  Edward Cherlin wrote:
>  > On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:09 PM, Tom Hoffman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  >> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Edward Cherlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  >>  > On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Torello Querci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
> wrote:
>  >>
>  >>
>  >>>  >  If is possible to use normal windows application on top 
> Sugar+Windows the
>  >>  >  >  educational project is broken because the developers what need to 
> write a
>  >>  >  >  program (program not activity) write it on windows because in this 
> manner one
>  >>  >  >  PC with windows can run it, and XO "XPzed" too  so why write 
> code for
>  >>  >  >  sugar? In this scenario Sugar is dead and OLPC became a Laptop 
> organization
>  >>
>  >>  If Sugar cannot offer any advantages to developers writing
>  >>  applications for children beyond those already offered by Windows XP,
>  >>  it will fail regardless.
...
>  the way they were talking most of those things would just be made into
>  top level apis.  Things like "sharing" would be available to all
>  applications.
>
>  If these functions are being made into apis then there is no benefit in
>  developing for sugar.  Why would any of us spend time developing a sugar
>  specific app at that point?   we can write a normal desktop app that
>  uses sugar apis.  We would get the same functionality with more portability.
>
>  Sugar as a window manager would be marginalized and fail.

Ah, I answered the wrong question. OK, the real question then is not
Microsoft or cool apps, but why the UI? Ask the children in Peru or
Nepal, not any of us. Illinois is organizing a bake-off that should
answer the question definitively.
-- 
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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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[david]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008, Peter Krenesky wrote:

> the way they were talking most of those things would just be made into
> top level apis.  Things like "sharing" would be available to all
> applications.
>
> If these functions are being made into apis then there is no benefit in
> developing for sugar.  Why would any of us spend time developing a sugar
> specific app at that point?   we can write a normal desktop app that
> uses sugar apis.  We would get the same functionality with more portability.
>
> Sugar as a window manager would be marginalized and fail.

if the only way for Sugar to survive is to have product lock-in that 
prevents things written for general use from working on a system running 
sugar, I believe that it deserves to fail.

If sugar as a concept really is a good idea then making it so that you can 
run unmodified apps on it will cause more people to use it not less.

David Lang
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Antoine van Gelder]

On 22 Apr 2008, at 22:52, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> How may developers want to shift to developing for an XP based, rather
> than a sugar based , platform?




How many developers want to shift to developing for a constructivist  
language, rather than having to make an agonizing choice between a  
wide range of commodity operating systems ?

http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/1762



  - a
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Peter Krenesky]

Edward Cherlin wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:09 PM, Tom Hoffman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Edward Cherlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>  > On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Torello Querci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>  >  If is possible to use normal windows application on top Sugar+Windows 
>>> the
>>  >  >  educational project is broken because the developers what need to 
>> write a
>>  >  >  program (program not activity) write it on windows because in this 
>> manner one
>>  >  >  PC with windows can run it, and XO "XPzed" too  so why write code 
>> for
>>  >  >  sugar? In this scenario Sugar is dead and OLPC became a Laptop 
>> organization
>>
>>  If Sugar cannot offer any advantages to developers writing
>>  applications for children beyond those already offered by Windows XP,
>>  it will fail regardless.
> 
> It does, though, so it won't. Here are just a few examples.
> 
> * We are now working on integrating the formerly separate activities.
> Among other things, we will be able to feed sound and other program
> output to Measure, and text-to-speech with karaoke-style text coloring
> will be available to all activities.
> 
> * Sugar provides a standard suite of software functions that can be
> built into interactive textbooks.
> 
> * Sugar is far easier to localize than other software, and a language
> community can do it themselves.
> 

the way they were talking most of those things would just be made into 
top level apis.  Things like "sharing" would be available to all 
applications.

If these functions are being made into apis then there is no benefit in 
developing for sugar.  Why would any of us spend time developing a sugar 
specific app at that point?   we can write a normal desktop app that 
uses sugar apis.  We would get the same functionality with more portability.

Sugar as a window manager would be marginalized and fail.


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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[John Gilmore]

> I fought long and hard to get the principle of free and open added to
> the core principles of OLPC because I believe that (a) there is power
> in freedom ... (b) there is efficiency in freedom ... .

Not to mention that there's freedom in freedom.   :-}

One aspect of freedom that has gone unmentioned by both Walter Bender
and Michael Stone is that free software users have a culture of
volunteering to support each other.  Providing free support for free
tools feels more like an act of charity to one's community, and less
like being exploited by a commercial company that ought to provide its
own support.

OLPC support-gang volunteers (in conversations that devel readers may
not have seen) recently pointed out that it's much easier to attract,
motivate, and retain unpaid volunteers when they're helping with free
and open projects.

It looks to me like OLPC's 2-staff and 60-volunteer end-user support
team would shrink significantly under a Windows OS model.  As Kurt
Maier said,

  I will stick with the support-gang to the bitter end, but I don't
  know if I have it in me to answer support questions about Windows,
  and I somehow doubt MS will be including free tech support ...

John

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:36 PM, Joshua N Pritikin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think the key word is "Trojan Horse":
>
>  "I believe the best educational tool is constructionism and the best
>  software development method is Open Source. In some cases those are best
>  achieved like the Trojan Horse, versus direct confrontation or isolating
>  ourselves with perfection."
...
>  To spell it out, Windows + Sugar is the Trojan Horse. However, we are
>  "secretly" filling up the Trojan Horse with free software. In other
>  words, the free software community are the Greek warriors. The idea is
>  that slightly indiscriminate decision makers (the Trojans) will buy our
>  Trojan Horse (advertised to them as Sugar + Windows).

All of this in plain sight, mind you.

>  Once we close the
>  deal, we can deliver Sugar ... and before anybody figures out what is
>  going on, all the teachers and students will fall in love with Sugar +
>  GNU/Linux

See, you lose me there. How did they find out about Linux, and how
were they able to install it? Schools can't install any software
whatsoever without official approval. Do you think that Microsoft is
going to miss that point?

-- 
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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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:09 PM, Tom Hoffman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Edward Cherlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  > On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Torello Querci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> >  >  If is possible to use normal windows application on top Sugar+Windows 
> > the
>  >  >  educational project is broken because the developers what need to 
> write a
>  >  >  program (program not activity) write it on windows because in this 
> manner one
>  >  >  PC with windows can run it, and XO "XPzed" too  so why write code 
> for
>  >  >  sugar? In this scenario Sugar is dead and OLPC became a Laptop 
> organization
>
>  If Sugar cannot offer any advantages to developers writing
>  applications for children beyond those already offered by Windows XP,
>  it will fail regardless.

It does, though, so it won't. Here are just a few examples.

* We are now working on integrating the formerly separate activities.
Among other things, we will be able to feed sound and other program
output to Measure, and text-to-speech with karaoke-style text coloring
will be available to all activities.

* Sugar provides a standard suite of software functions that can be
built into interactive textbooks.

* Sugar is far easier to localize than other software, and a language
community can do it themselves.

>  >  Sugar would not die, and will not die. If necessary, the community
>  >  will walk away from OLPC to start a new organization, and fork all of
>  >  the software. We would replicate git, Trac, lists, and Pootle, all of
>  >  which are under Free licenses. This has happened many times in the
>  >  FOSS development world. People at OLPC have been there and done that,
>  >  and in several cases gotten the t-shirt.
>
>  For what it is worth, I think Edward is overstating the likelihood
>  that a fork may be necessary in the future, and understating its
>  potential cost.

I don't think a fork is actually likely. It certainly isn't imminent.
Much depends on Nicholas's attitude to what we are trying to tell him.
If he really thinks that Windows is the way forward, and not Linux,
then I predict that the split will occur, that it will be painful and
somewhat costly, and that it will succeed beyond anybody's current
wildest imagination.

I take all criticism of Sugar in the way that Linus Torvalds took
criticism of his writing a kernel by himself. Who cares, as long as I
am doing what I want to? And then, of course, it turned out that he
wasn't doing it by himself any more. Or the annual criticisms that
Linux will never be ready for prime time because it can't do X.
Hackers took up those challenges every year, and typically made Linux
do X to some extent within a year, and then better and better until
nobody could complain about X any more. Remember when mere mortals
couldn't install Linux? When there were no commercial-grade databases
for Linux? When there was no Unicode support for Linux? How about when
X would never catch on? X has had two major forks since then, and is
doing better than ever. Ask Jim Gettys.

>  The process of porting Sugar to Windows would mostly
>  be made up of writing Windows implementations of relatively low level
>  libraries used by Sugar.  Many of these ports, like GTK, already exist
>  and are relatively mature.  And they're open source.  There is even an
>  extant project to port DBus to Windows already.
>
>  Forks are expensive and inefficient, and undertaken only when all else
>  fails.  I've read nothing to indicate that might be necessary in the
>  future.  Sugar will always be free software, even if it is sometimes
>  running on unfree software through a compatibility layer.

Yes, Sugar always will be Free Software. That isn't in question. The
question is whether Nicholas Negroponte intends to turn the resources
of OLPC toward Windows development, and away from Linux. If so, a lot
of us are out of here.

>  Given that this would make Sugar accessible to millions of children
>  around the world already using Windows, I can't see how this would be
>  a bad thing.

Sugar is accessible to them now, on Live CD, on CoLinux, and in
emulation. None of these is perfect, but I will argue that any of them
is less work and more value than Sugar on Windows.

> On the other hand, I can't see how either OLPC or
>  Microsoft has much motivation to invest in the port at this point.

Nicholas suggests that he wants OLPC to do port Sugar to Windows. We
haven't gotten a straight answer on this point, so we continue to
press the issue.

Microsoft has spent a lot of money to get XP on the XO, but has no
kind of educational software suite. Office won't amount to much. Most
of what passes for educational software in the proprietary market is
shovelware. What's the selling proposition for XP/XO? Where's the
tofu?

>  --Tom
>



-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to inve

Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[NoiseEHC]

Michael Stone wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 05:37:08PM -0400, Walter Bender wrote:
>   
>> I certainly don't know enough about Windows to be able to answer your
>> question from the technical perspective. 
>> 
>
> As a former Windows developer (using both proprietary APIs and Free
> APIs), I'm very confident that the collaborative user experience named
> the "Sugar UI" can be provided on Windows at what constitutes acceptable
> expense in the Windows world by any of several wholly different means
> (each with different degrees of freeness and with different technical
> folks carrying out the work).
>
>   
>> I do know that to launch an effort to port to Windows will require
>> resources above and beyond what are currently available. 
>> 
>
> True, but there are many skilled Windows developers around (including
> F/OSS developers) who might assist with the work.
>
>   
Depending how you define "Sugar", I think it can be as small an effort 
as 1 man.
Since the majority of the code is written in Python, clearly I do not 
see too much work with it.
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Martin Langhoff]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Joshua N Pritikin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  Once we close the
>  deal, we can deliver Sugar ... and before anybody figures out what is
>  going on, all the teachers and students will fall in love with Sugar +
>  GNU/Linux (Troy was destroyed; clearly, there is a limit to the
>  metaphor).

Within your metaphor, I do worry that the trojan horse could be the
reverse - under a veneer of OSS, deliver the 3rd world to MS APIs. We
wouldn't be the first outfit trying to outflank Microsoft, but I
somehow doubt we'd be the first to succeed.

To be fair, NN is thinking purely of an 'education' trojan horse:
deliver the laptops, whatever the OS, and kid's curiosity will break
through. I think that he is right... to a very limited extent. The
cargo-cultism that will be seeded based on the MS platform will be a
huge cultural lock-in.

h.



m
-- 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Joshua N Pritikin]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 03:47:13AM +0200, Shikhar wrote:
> In other words, "embrace, extend and extinguish" ;-)

What goes around, comes around, no?

-- 
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Shikhar]

> To spell it out, Windows + Sugar is the Trojan Horse. However, we are 
> "secretly" filling up the Trojan Horse with free software. In other 
> words, the free software community are the Greek warriors. The idea is 
> that slightly indiscriminate decision makers (the Trojans) will buy our 
> Trojan Horse (advertised to them as Sugar + Windows). Once we close the 
> deal, we can deliver Sugar ... and before anybody figures out what is 
> going on, all the teachers and students will fall in love with Sugar + 
> GNU/Linux (Troy was destroyed; clearly, there is a limit to the 
> metaphor).
>
>   

In other words, "embrace, extend and extinguish" ;-)

Shikhar
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Joshua N Pritikin]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 09:09:13PM -0400, Tom Hoffman wrote:
> Given that this would make Sugar accessible to millions of children
> around the world already using Windows, I can't see how this would be
> a bad thing.  On the other hand, I can't see how either OLPC or
> Microsoft has much motivation to invest in the port at this point.

Really? My sense from reading Negroponte's email is that OLPC _can_ 
benefit from a Windows port. However, I think the key word is "Trojan 
Horse":

"I believe the best educational tool is constructionism and the best
software development method is Open Source. In some cases those are best
achieved like the Trojan Horse, versus direct confrontation or isolating
ourselves with perfection."

I speculate that there are many decision makers out there who still 
think that Windows is synonymous with quality. Yes, really! So on one 
hand, Negroponte wants to appeal to these decision makers by saying, 
"Yes, we have Windows. We are 100% behind Windows." On the other hand, 
he is trying to explain his sales strategy to software developers and 
the community by emphasizing OLPC's increased investment in Sugar and 
allied projects.

Here's the history behind the term "Trojan Horse":

"Still seeking to gain entrance into Troy, clever Odysseus (some say 
with the aid of Athena) ordered a large wooden horse to be built. Its 
insides were to be hollow so that soldiers could hide within it. Once 
the statue had been built by the artist Epeius, a number of the Greek 
warriors, along with Odysseus, climbed inside. The rest of the Greek 
fleet sailed away, so as to deceive the Trojans. One man, Sinon, was 
left behind. When the Trojans came to marvel at the huge creation, Sinon 
pretended to be angry with the Greeks, stating that they had deserted 
him. He assured the Trojans that the wooden horse was safe and would 
bring luck to the Trojans. Only two people, Laocoon and Cassandra, spoke 
out against the horse, but they were ignored. The Trojans celebrated 
what they thought was their victory, and dragged the wooden horse into 
Troy. That night, after most of Troy was asleep or in a drunken stupor, 
Sinon let the Greek warriors out from the horse, and they slaughtered 
the Trojans. Priam was killed as he huddled by Zeus' altar and Cassandra 
was pulled from the statue of Athena and raped."

http://www.stanford.edu/~plomio/history.html

To spell it out, Windows + Sugar is the Trojan Horse. However, we are 
"secretly" filling up the Trojan Horse with free software. In other 
words, the free software community are the Greek warriors. The idea is 
that slightly indiscriminate decision makers (the Trojans) will buy our 
Trojan Horse (advertised to them as Sugar + Windows). Once we close the 
deal, we can deliver Sugar ... and before anybody figures out what is 
going on, all the teachers and students will fall in love with Sugar + 
GNU/Linux (Troy was destroyed; clearly, there is a limit to the 
metaphor).
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Tom Hoffman]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Edward Cherlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Torello Querci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>  >  If is possible to use normal windows application on top Sugar+Windows the
>  >  educational project is broken because the developers what need to write a
>  >  program (program not activity) write it on windows because in this manner 
> one
>  >  PC with windows can run it, and XO "XPzed" too  so why write code for
>  >  sugar? In this scenario Sugar is dead and OLPC became a Laptop 
> organization

If Sugar cannot offer any advantages to developers writing
applications for children beyond those already offered by Windows XP,
it will fail regardless.

>  Sugar would not die, and will not die. If necessary, the community
>  will walk away from OLPC to start a new organization, and fork all of
>  the software. We would replicate git, Trac, lists, and Pootle, all of
>  which are under Free licenses. This has happened many times in the
>  FOSS development world. People at OLPC have been there and done that,
>  and in several cases gotten the t-shirt.

For what it is worth, I think Edward is overstating the likelihood
that a fork may be necessary in the future, and understating its
potential cost.  The process of porting Sugar to Windows would mostly
be made up of writing Windows implementations of relatively low level
libraries used by Sugar.  Many of these ports, like GTK, already exist
and are relatively mature.  And they're open source.  There is even an
extant project to port DBus to Windows already.

Forks are expensive and inefficient, and undertaken only when all else
fails.  I've read nothing to indicate that might be necessary in the
future.  Sugar will always be free software, even if it is sometimes
running on unfree software through a compatibility layer.

Given that this would make Sugar accessible to millions of children
around the world already using Windows, I can't see how this would be
a bad thing.  On the other hand, I can't see how either OLPC or
Microsoft has much motivation to invest in the port at this point.

--Tom
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Michael Stone]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 05:37:08PM -0400, Walter Bender wrote:
> I certainly don't know enough about Windows to be able to answer your
> question from the technical perspective. 

As a former Windows developer (using both proprietary APIs and Free
APIs), I'm very confident that the collaborative user experience named
the "Sugar UI" can be provided on Windows at what constitutes acceptable
expense in the Windows world by any of several wholly different means
(each with different degrees of freeness and with different technical
folks carrying out the work).

> I do know that to launch an effort to port to Windows will require
> resources above and beyond what are currently available. 

True, but there are many skilled Windows developers around (including
F/OSS developers) who might assist with the work.

> Is that the best use of resources? 

Educating others about how our system works and writing better
documentation are, in my opinion, good uses of time because they make it
easier to work with us. I don't worry very much whether the people
asking questions and writing documentation are doing so because they
want to write software for Linux or Windows.

> Not the least in my mind is one of culture: I fought long and hard to
> get the principle of free and open added to the core principles of
> OLPC because I believe that (a) there is power in freedom--it really
> does make a difference to teachers and learners to know that they can
> be first-class citizens in the world of ideas [it is a contradiction
> to advocate expression and collaboration but put up barriers at the
> same time]; (b) there is efficiency in freedom--despite all of the
> deficiencies and all the mistakes, we've accomplished a tremendous
> amount in just two years and the potential to accomplish much much
> more.

Agreed in full, though I caution there may be some important obligations
of openness and freedom (contained in their intersection with justice,
love, and wisdom among others) which we could be meeting more fully.

Michael
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I certainly don't know enough about Windows to be able to answer your
>  question from the technical perspective. I do know that to launch an
>  effort to port to Windows will require resources above and beyond what
>  are currently available. Is that the best use of resources? There is
>  an argue to suggest that since so many people are running Windows,
>  that this would be the most efficient way to reach the most people.
>  But there are some negatives as well... many of which have been raised
>  earlier in this thread. Not the least in my mind is one of culture: I
>  fought long and hard to get the principle of free and open added to
>  the core principles of OLPC because I believe that (a) there is power
>  in freedom--it really does make a difference to teachers and learners
>  to know that they can be first-class citizens in the world of ideas
>  [it is a contradiction to advocate expression and collaboration but
>  put up barriers at the same time]; (b) there is efficiency in
>  freedom--despite all of the deficiencies and all the mistakes, we've
>  accomplished a tremendous amount in just two years and the potential
>  to accomplish much much more.

We all know that this is supposed to be an education program, not a
laptop program. But in reality it is an anti-poverty program, not an
education program, and indeed an anti-suffering, pro-human rights
project, not just an anti-poverty program. Laptops are the
infrastructure and education the means to alleviate human suffering on
the grand scale.

But it is not only material poverty that matters. Poverty of rights,
poverty of opportunity, poverty of means, poverty of power, all of
these are also essential problems. Software freedom is more important
than laptops for children in the long run. Of course Free Software on
laptops for all children is better than either alone.

All of this comes down to the age-old fight over education as a tool
of thought control in the manner of Plato's Republic, and education as
a tool of freedom, and freedom as a tool of education. The Prussians
are still ahead, but we are gaining, and they can't stop us.

Amartya Sen has a good take on the essential nature of the problem in
Development as Freedom. So do all the Constructivist and
Constructionist educators, and many other pioneers. See
Student-Centered Education on the Wiki for a few pointers.

>  -walter

-- 
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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Re: [Fwd: Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.]

[Martin Langhoff]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 9:12 AM, Aaron Konstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would suggest that you don't really understand the reason for
>  supporting open source. No software running on top of XP, for example,
>  will free of the pressures form MS to do what they want you to do. And
>  what they want you to do may have nothing to do with the desires of
>  teachers and students across the world.

There is another reason.

We *are* delivering computers to people unused to them. They are bound
to be considered magic gadgets -- so we *will* spawn a significant
cargo-cult around them. There are two options:

 - ensure that the users can figure out that they are free to tinker
with the whole stack
 - give them a corporate-branded black box

How many billions would MS give to a foundation that acts as a facade
for a MS-branded cultural colonization?

It's not wonder that the makers of "The gods must be crazy" put a Coca
Cola bottle in the middle of it. Are the rations handed out by UN
branded with Golden Arches?

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
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Torello Querci <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>  With a lot of friends we are create a legal association called "OLPC Italia"
>  to allow the Italian citizens to buy OLPC using G1G1.

There currently is no G1G1. Do you mean GiveMany? My organization
tried to buy from them, but concluded that we cannot work with the
program. The terms quoted change without notice. Brightstar, the
program manager, was shown to be incompetent at order entry and
customer service in the G1G1 program. The latest terms, for what they
are worth, were

* Cash in advance
* Delivery date to be decided after 60 days
* Delivery within the next nine months

This is due to Nicholas Negroponte's policy of making the price of the
laptop as low as possible, regardless of demand or any other
consideration. So parts orders and manufacturing runs have to be
fitted into the suppliers' schedules.

>  For us the most important thing is the "Educational Project" but sell the XO
>  with XP is not an educational project.

Just so. Students would miss out on being able to study the OS code,
the no-cost applications, and the freedom to modify anything to suit
their needs, notably including language support.

>  We accept Sugar as core of the user interface but which are the real benefits
>  to have Sugar on Windows instead to have Sugar on Linux?

Supposedly this would bring in Microsoft's mighty-muscled marketing
machine on our side. In reality, it would mean going over to their
side.

>  If is possible to use normal windows application on top Sugar+Windows the
>  educational project is broken because the developers what need to write a
>  program (program not activity) write it on windows because in this manner one
>  PC with windows can run it, and XO "XPzed" too  so why write code for
>  sugar? In this scenario Sugar is dead and OLPC became a Laptop organization

Sugar would not die, and will not die. If necessary, the community
will walk away from OLPC to start a new organization, and fork all of
the software. We would replicate git, Trac, lists, and Pootle, all of
which are under Free licenses. This has happened many times in the
FOSS development world. People at OLPC have been there and done that,
and in several cases gotten the t-shirt.

>  (for me of sure). If, otherwise, Sugar XPzed is not able to run normal
>  windows application I not understand why abandoned Linux to Windows  but
>  is the only choice to maintaining the original aim  ("Not a Laptop but an
>  Educational Project").
>
>  Regard the problem about flash, we need to thing that XO is not thing to be
>  use as normal PC for normal user  so we simply need to promote the
>  creation of education website that can be viewed from the XO.

We will have quite remarkable market power within a few years, if
laptop deployment growth continues at its current rate. Our students
will not have access to everything, but then nobody else has it
either. What we and they can access will keep us all plenty busy for
quite a while.

>  Last point is the need of clarity. If OLPC turn to this direction we are not
>  interested to sell a PC and prefer to spend our time in other manner. If OLPC
>  not thing to became a Laptop company we ask to understand how OLPC wants to
>  do this.

You will be welcome to join the fork, if it comes to that.

>  P.S. Sorry for my awful english

Mi scuzi, canto in Italiano, ma non parlo.

>  Regards,
>  Torello Querci

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Walter Bender]

I certainly don't know enough about Windows to be able to answer your
question from the technical perspective. I do know that to launch an
effort to port to Windows will require resources above and beyond what
are currently available. Is that the best use of resources? There is
an argue to suggest that since so many people are running Windows,
that this would be the most efficient way to reach the most people.
But there are some negatives as well... many of which have been raised
earlier in this thread. Not the least in my mind is one of culture: I
fought long and hard to get the principle of free and open added to
the core principles of OLPC because I believe that (a) there is power
in freedom--it really does make a difference to teachers and learners
to know that they can be first-class citizens in the world of ideas
[it is a contradiction to advocate expression and collaboration but
put up barriers at the same time]; (b) there is efficiency in
freedom--despite all of the deficiencies and all the mistakes, we've
accomplished a tremendous amount in just two years and the potential
to accomplish much much more.

-walter

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 5:24 PM, John Gilmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Considering the complete sentence, it is clear to me that this is a
>  > case of the reporter being confused by technology. We all know that
>  > Sugar could never run on Windows as well it as can run on Linux. The
>  > laptop might run Windows or Linux or both, but not Sugar on Windows.
>
>  Do "we all know" that, really?
>
>  Why couldn't Sugar activities run as well on Windows as they might on
>  Linux?  Windows is a pretty full OS.  Windows has networking,
>  processes, file systems, Python, GNU compilers, etc.  I worked on the
>  GNU compilers, and was rather surprised when one guy (DJ Delorie) put
>  in a large amount of work to make them run on DOS and Windows.  (He was
>  later hired by Cygnus and his port became Cygwin.)
>
>  Is there any *technical* reason why, with significant effort, somebody
>  couldn't port Sugar to run on MS-Windows?
>
> John
>
>  PS: I'm no fan of Microsoft, or Windows.  For the OLPC or for any
>  other purpose.
>
>
>
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[John Gilmore]

> Considering the complete sentence, it is clear to me that this is a
> case of the reporter being confused by technology. We all know that
> Sugar could never run on Windows as well it as can run on Linux. The
> laptop might run Windows or Linux or both, but not Sugar on Windows.

Do "we all know" that, really?

Why couldn't Sugar activities run as well on Windows as they might on
Linux?  Windows is a pretty full OS.  Windows has networking,
processes, file systems, Python, GNU compilers, etc.  I worked on the
GNU compilers, and was rather surprised when one guy (DJ Delorie) put
in a large amount of work to make them run on DOS and Windows.  (He was
later hired by Cygnus and his port became Cygwin.)

Is there any *technical* reason why, with significant effort, somebody
couldn't port Sugar to run on MS-Windows?

John

PS: I'm no fan of Microsoft, or Windows.  For the OLPC or for any
other purpose.

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Seth Woodworth]

Between Walter Bender, who practically lives at 1cc and has been part of the
entire development, and NN, who by all accounts is rarely in his office at
1cc, I say that the SD was just an offshoot of the ASIC chip.

Besides that's what what I've heard everyone else at OLPC say.  NN also said
that Windows was running on the XO months ago, which MS denied.

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Jonathan Corbet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Second, regarding Microsoft, I agree that if it is to be an open
> > platform, it should be open to everyone, including Microsoft. That
> > said, it is somewhat revisionist to suggest that the SD card was added
> > on behalf of Microsoft
>
> Such statements certainly are based on reporting like this:
>
>Speaking with Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen over e-mail,
>Negroponte said that an SD card slot was added to the OLPC
>machine so it could meet Windows' minimum performance
>requirements.
>
>"The XO always ran Windows... that is why we added the SD slot,"
>he said.
>
>http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/04/negroponte_olpc_1.html
>
> Or this:
>
>"Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO. We put
>the SD (secure digital) slot into our laptop over one year ago,
> for them," Negroponte said, explaining that the SD slot allows
>the XO's memory to be expanded, making it easier for users to
>run Windows.
>
>
> http://www.news.com/Negroponte-Windows-key-to-OLPC-philosophy/2100-1016_3-6215837.html
>
> Or this:
>
>Although the machine is preinstaled with Linux ut this doesn't
>mean that you can't run Windows on the machine, Negroponte
>said. " We put in an SD slot just for Bill," he quipped.
>
>http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2006/12/kicking_off_the.html
>(typos in original)
>
> Now the statement that the SD slot was added for Microsoft may be
> incorrect, but, given all the words that went around last year, it's
> probably not "revisionist" either.
>
> jon
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[Fwd: Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.]

[Aaron Konstam]

I would suggest that you don't really understand the reason for
supporting open source. No software running on top of XP, for example,
will free of the pressures form MS to do what they want you to do. And
what they want you to do may have nothing to do with the desires of
teachers and students across the world.

Currently, any software problems that occur in the f 7 base for sugar
can be dealt with by altering code that developers have access to. That
openness will not come from MS. If there is a problem with the
underlying operating system fixing the problem will depend on MS largess
which up to now has been minimal.
 Forwarded Message 
From: Carol Lerche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: devel-list 
Subject: Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:28:46 -0700



The OLPC Association has done amazing things with limited resources and
deserves to take great pride in this.  However, this Negroponte
quotation from the article seems correct to me:


He lamented that an overriding insistence on open-source had hampered
the XOs, saying Sugar "grew amorphously" and "didn't have a software
architect who did it in a crisp way." For instance, the laptops do not
support Flash animation, widely used on the Web.

"There are several examples like that, that we have to address without
worrying about the fundamentalism in some of the open-source community,"
he said. "One can be an open-source advocate without being an
open-source fundamentalist."

You have to prioritize your goals when they conflict.  The question to
consider -- is it really the case that having a 100% pure open source
platform is more important IN THE SHORT TERM than making a type of
content available that is ubiquitous as a format for delivering
educational content.  Gnash is simply not an equivalent product to the
Adobe player IN THE SHORT TERM and it would have been a pragmatic choice
to work hard to get Adobe to permit their flash player to be shipped
with the XO.  

By making these tradeoffs of upholding purity of open source when
teachers and school/ed ministry people obviously prioritize the content
ahead of the purity of the implementation,  one ends up in a place where
time is short and an MS port may be catching up.  Of course the target
audience will prefer the solution on which they can deliver the content
they want.  Essentially the attempt at total purity may result in a much
worse outcome with respect to the open source goal.  

Recriminations against Negroponte are less productive than learning from
the consequences of trying to achieve an overly ambitious constellation
of conflicting goals. Instead  reach the goals in priority order through
realistic, explicit, predictable and explainable phasing, as now seems
to be the plan.  Certainly, if Walter manages to get funding for a
project to expand sugar for other platforms it will assist in reaching
the final target.  More resources will be available to attack the
problems posed by adopting an entirely new user interface such as sugar,
while being asked to deliver applications and content that are the most
understandable part of the OLPC package to the adopters..

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===
You can always tell the people that are forging the new frontier.
They're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs.
===
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[C. Scott Ananian]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Jonathan Corbet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>  > Second, regarding Microsoft, I agree that if it is to be an open
>  > platform, it should be open to everyone, including Microsoft. That
>  > said, it is somewhat revisionist to suggest that the SD card was added
>  > on behalf of Microsoft
>
>  Such statements certainly are based on reporting like this:
>
> Speaking with Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen over e-mail,
> Negroponte said that an SD card slot was added to the OLPC
> machine so it could meet Windows' minimum performance
> requirements.
>
> "The XO always ran Windows... that is why we added the SD slot,"
> he said.
>
> http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/04/negroponte_olpc_1.html
>
>  Or this:
>
>
> "Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO. We put
> the SD (secure digital) slot into our laptop over one year ago,
> for them," Negroponte said, explaining that the SD slot allows
> the XO's memory to be expanded, making it easier for users to
> run Windows.
>
> 
> http://www.news.com/Negroponte-Windows-key-to-OLPC-philosophy/2100-1016_3-6215837.html
>
>  Or this:
>
> Although the machine is preinstaled with Linux ut this doesn't
> mean that you can't run Windows on the machine, Negroponte
> said. " We put in an SD slot just for Bill," he quipped.
>
> http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2006/12/kicking_off_the.html
> (typos in original)
>
>  Now the statement that the SD slot was added for Microsoft may be
>  incorrect, but, given all the words that went around last year, it's
>  probably not "revisionist" either.

I'm pretty sure Walter is suggesting that *Nicholas* is being
"revisionist", not the original poster (was that you, Jon?).
 --scott

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Jonathan Corbet]

Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Second, regarding Microsoft, I agree that if it is to be an open
> platform, it should be open to everyone, including Microsoft. That
> said, it is somewhat revisionist to suggest that the SD card was added
> on behalf of Microsoft

Such statements certainly are based on reporting like this:

Speaking with Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen over e-mail,
Negroponte said that an SD card slot was added to the OLPC
machine so it could meet Windows' minimum performance
requirements. 

"The XO always ran Windows... that is why we added the SD slot,"
he said.

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/04/negroponte_olpc_1.html

Or this:

"Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO. We put
the SD (secure digital) slot into our laptop over one year ago,
for them," Negroponte said, explaining that the SD slot allows
the XO's memory to be expanded, making it easier for users to
run Windows. 


http://www.news.com/Negroponte-Windows-key-to-OLPC-philosophy/2100-1016_3-6215837.html

Or this:

Although the machine is preinstaled with Linux ut this doesn't
mean that you can't run Windows on the machine, Negroponte
said. " We put in an SD slot just for Bill," he quipped.

http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2006/12/kicking_off_the.html
(typos in original)

Now the statement that the SD slot was added for Microsoft may be
incorrect, but, given all the words that went around last year, it's
probably not "revisionist" either.

jon
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Torello Querci]

With a lot of friends we are create a legal association called "OLPC Italia" 
to allow the Italian citizens to buy OLPC using G1G1.

For us the most important thing is the "Educational Project" but sell the XO 
with XP is not an educational project.

We accept Sugar as core of the user interface but which are the real benefits 
to have Sugar on Windows instead to have Sugar on Linux?
If is possible to use normal windows application on top Sugar+Windows the 
educational project is broken because the developers what need to write a 
program (program not activity) write it on windows because in this manner one 
PC with windows can run it, and XO "XPzed" too  so why write code for 
sugar? In this scenario Sugar is dead and OLPC became a Laptop organization 
(for me of sure). If, otherwise, Sugar XPzed is not able to run normal 
windows application I not understand why abandoned Linux to Windows  but 
is the only choice to maintaining the original aim  ("Not a Laptop but an 
Educational Project").

Regard the problem about flash, we need to thing that XO is not thing to be 
use as normal PC for normal user  so we simply need to promote the 
creation of education website that can be viewed from the XO.

Last point is the need of clarity. If OLPC turn to this direction we are not 
interested to sell a PC and prefer to spend our time in other manner. If OLPC 
not thing to became a Laptop company we ask to understand how OLPC wants to 
do this.


P.S. Sorry for my awful english


Regards,
Torello Querci
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 11:41 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Walter Bender wrote:
>  > First of all, just to clear, Flash does run on the laptop: there is a
>  > choice of both the Adobe Flash player and the FOSS Flash player,
>  > Gnash. We opted to install the Gnash player by default. Many of the
>  > problems people have with Flash are actually related to codecs rather
>  > than the player itself. We don't load proprietary codecs onto the
>  > machine by default, but they are available for download and some of
>  > our deployments in fact do opt to load some proprietary codecs--after
>  > of course obtaining the proper licenses. I see this approach as a
>  > reasonable compromise given the goals of the project. Apparently
>  > others see this as fundamentalism?
>  >
>  > Second, regarding Microsoft, I agree that if it is to be an open
>  > platform, it should be open to everyone, including Microsoft. That
>  > said, it is somewhat revisionist to suggest that the SD card was added
>  > on behalf of Microsoft: it was added at the same time as the camera
>  > because we had the opportunity while adding an ASIC necessary to
>  > improve NAND Flash performance. The fact that it facilitates the
>  > running of Windows was not the consideration at the time. I am not
>  > aware of any current effort to port Sugar to Windows; I don't know
>  > enough about Windows to know how much effort that would entail or even
>  > if it is possible.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_on_Windows gives two versions. I don't
care. I run coLinux when forced to use Windows for my employment. So
the next time that happens, I will merrily install the Sugar packages
in Ubuntu Hardy Heron inside coLinux.

There is little chance of running Sugar directly on Windows. Your best
bet is emulation.

For the time being, this is NOT going to be a one-click install
process. At the very least you will need to install Python and PyGTK
separately. Windows support for GTK is a bit confusing with multiple
versions, some with missing libraries which have to be sourced from
other sites. And then there is GECKO. And finally, the Sugar
environment that is built on all of it.

>  > Third, in regard to the performance, feature sets, etc., the OLPC
>  > software stack is immature--quite naturally, as it is a relatively new
>  > product and project. The software development roadmap for the project
>  > had included a phased approach where we first get a core feature set
>  > built; do some initial triage of bugs and bring some stability to the
>  > deployments; and then work to fine-tune performance. While have heard
>  > a lot of noise about performance in the media and from some members of
>  > the development community, it has not, in my experience been a major
>  > road-block in the school trials and deployments. There are lots of
>  > bugs and lots of things that could be improved upon, and these should
>  > certainly be addressed, but the characterizations being made in this
>  > thread do not reflect the realities of the OLPC deployments--the
>  > children and teachers are using the laptops and are learning.

Nicholas's call for greater efficiency in development and a crisper
architecture is rather silly. You can't architect a system whose
proper functioning is largely unknown when you start out. You have to
use incremental development with aggressive refactoring.

>  > Fourth and final point for the moment: it is important to make a
>  > distinction between the system software--drivers, power management,
>  > memory management, etc. and the Sugar user experience. It is not yet
>  > easy to always draw a clear line between them, but many of the
>  > performance problems* are not related to the choices we made regarding
>  > the UI, although, since the UI is how one experiences the laptop, they
>  > are felt there. I am not suggesting that there isn't room for
>  > improvement, but the call for dropping Sugar is not going to make as
>  > dramatic a difference in performance as is being suggested. And at
>  > what cost? Is the goal is simply to get laptops into the hands of as
>  > many children as possible? If that is the case, why have we been
>  > bothering to develop any software at all? And if others are making low
>  > cost laptops that run Windows, why don't those efforts fulfill that
>  > goal?

I could respond at length, but this is the choir here.

>  If we look at the problem as one of supply and demand, then the
>  perceived demand is for a certain mode of education (constructionism,
>  learning learning, etc.) and the (XO laptop + Mesh Network + Sugar +
>  Linux) is a vehicle to support that demand, the ultimate supply side
>  being the utility of this entire system as a whole. One of the major
>  components of the supply side is the horde of contributors on this
>  project. These aren't only the coders and patchers, but also the
>  documenters, advocates, and enthusiasts. Majority of the contribution
>  (in my understandi

Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Sameer Verma]

Walter Bender wrote:
> First of all, just to clear, Flash does run on the laptop: there is a
> choice of both the Adobe Flash player and the FOSS Flash player,
> Gnash. We opted to install the Gnash player by default. Many of the
> problems people have with Flash are actually related to codecs rather
> than the player itself. We don't load proprietary codecs onto the
> machine by default, but they are available for download and some of
> our deployments in fact do opt to load some proprietary codecs--after
> of course obtaining the proper licenses. I see this approach as a
> reasonable compromise given the goals of the project. Apparently
> others see this as fundamentalism?
>
> Second, regarding Microsoft, I agree that if it is to be an open
> platform, it should be open to everyone, including Microsoft. That
> said, it is somewhat revisionist to suggest that the SD card was added
> on behalf of Microsoft: it was added at the same time as the camera
> because we had the opportunity while adding an ASIC necessary to
> improve NAND Flash performance. The fact that it facilitates the
> running of Windows was not the consideration at the time. I am not
> aware of any current effort to port Sugar to Windows; I don't know
> enough about Windows to know how much effort that would entail or even
> if it is possible.
>
> Third, in regard to the performance, feature sets, etc., the OLPC
> software stack is immature--quite naturally, as it is a relatively new
> product and project. The software development roadmap for the project
> had included a phased approach where we first get a core feature set
> built; do some initial triage of bugs and bring some stability to the
> deployments; and then work to fine-tune performance. While have heard
> a lot of noise about performance in the media and from some members of
> the development community, it has not, in my experience been a major
> road-block in the school trials and deployments. There are lots of
> bugs and lots of things that could be improved upon, and these should
> certainly be addressed, but the characterizations being made in this
> thread do not reflect the realities of the OLPC deployments--the
> children and teachers are using the laptops and are learning.
>
> Fourth and final point for the moment: it is important to make a
> distinction between the system software--drivers, power management,
> memory management, etc. and the Sugar user experience. It is not yet
> easy to always draw a clear line between them, but many of the
> performance problems* are not related to the choices we made regarding
> the UI, although, since the UI is how one experiences the laptop, they
> are felt there. I am not suggesting that there isn't room for
> improvement, but the call for dropping Sugar is not going to make as
> dramatic a difference in performance as is being suggested. And at
> what cost? Is the goal is simply to get laptops into the hands of as
> many children as possible? If that is the case, why have we been
> bothering to develop any software at all? And if others are making low
> cost laptops that run Windows, why don't those efforts fulfill that
> goal?
>
>   

If we look at the problem as one of supply and demand, then the 
perceived demand is for a certain mode of education (constructionism, 
learning learning, etc.) and the (XO laptop + Mesh Network + Sugar + 
Linux) is a vehicle to support that demand, the ultimate supply side 
being the utility of this entire system as a whole. One of the major 
components of the supply side is the horde of contributors on this 
project. These aren't only the coders and patchers, but also the 
documenters, advocates, and enthusiasts. Majority of the contribution 
(in my understanding) is voluntary. It is this contributory goodwill 
that I'm afraid will shrivel away.

If one of the significant components of this project strays away from 
the FOSS principles 
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_on_free/open_source_software) there will 
most probably be a significant shift in mindshare. Perhaps there are 
those who will contribute to the project despite of its newfound 
proprietary underpinnings, but that group and its thinking will be quite 
different. I was a part of such a group many years ago (I have felt the 
pain of developing on a blackbox) and would prefer not to revisit such 
practices.

There are those on this list who would rather service the goal of 
education, even if it comes at a cost of going proprietary. Can there be 
a goal higher than FOSS? Do such people exist?  Yes, of course. I see 
them in my classes every semester :-) On the other hand, I am sure there 
are those who wouldn't touch it if it ran any form of Windows. I am also 
sure that there are those who are indifferent about the educational 
goal, but like the idea of being able to contribute to a public commons 
project, where the collective intellectual property will not be held 
captive by some constantly shifting EULA. It is the proportion of s

Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Mitch Bradley wrote:
> But in the steady 
> state, the
> web is the high-order bit, sufficient to qualify as education in and of 
> itself.

Well ... it *was* at one time -- a university library made up of 
electrons. But in my mind, that was long ago in a galaxy far away. Oh, 
sure, you can still spend time on the web in the university library. But 
now there's a red light district, shopping malls, gambling casinos, 
stalkers, bullying, con games, electronic gangs and thugs.

I've got my two G1G1 units and there are presumably two children 
somewhere who have the two Give One units. Don't get me wrong -- I think 
the *XO* is a positive force in the world. And I think it's *more* 
positive than what the WWW has become.

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Y . Sonoda]

Hi all!

This is Spiky, Japanese volunteer.

Reading through whole the discussion on Suger v.s. Windows,
(or whatever)
what I'm so afraid of is there's no discussion from the aspect of
the very root principle of OLPC, that is,
"Learning learning" or constructionism theory with which OLPC is
fundamentally going to help children to give them considerable
opportunities to enforce their own capability of learning and thinking.

I believe the all activities are firmly related with this one single
point of view and all issues or conflict, if exists, should be
carefully examined along with this.

With respect to Windows on XO, I think it is clear what is truth and
what is rumor, what did Mr.Negroponte meant with his words in any
publicity.

I believe Sugar was, is, and will be the greatest effort along with
OLPC principles, and constructionism point of view,
Etoys and other current activities on Sugar play very important
roles on it. This idea soon drives the simple conclusion that
Windows itself doesn't have to do with our activities.
It is just a box without the educational theory.

(Even if there could be the chance that some countries buy
windows version XO, it is still our victory, because they chose
XO platform for children's education, XO itself is also designed
with enormous amount of ideas based on OLPC principles.,
as Wall Street Journal article wrote as the words of Mr.
Negroponte last year.)

If something odd or weird, OLPC principles should be revisited
(especially, Learning learning and constructionism)
and then we all can go right on the main track.
And we can contribute our enormous power aggregating every
each piece of volunteers all over the world.

I still believe OLPC's principles are noble,
and its main track is consistent in its beginning.

Thanks.
Spiky
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Y . Sonoda]

> I believe Sugar was, is, and will be the greatest effort along with
> OLPC principles, and constructionism point of view,
> Etoys and other current activities on Sugar play very important
> roles on it. This idea soon drives the simple conclusion that
> Windows itself doesn't have to do with our activities.
> It is just a box without the educational theory.

I mean,
 "This idea soon derives the simple conclusion that ..."

Spiky
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Michael Stone]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:44:43AM +0200, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> The big problem is that most people see this as a Linux+Sugar vs.
> Windows decision. 

Presently, I'm not very concerned by the role that Windows plays in
OLPC's aims -- there's plenty of stuff to learn from and through Windows
systems. We can do much better on top of Linux but there exist people
who can make a credible showing on Windows too. 

The questions that I am actually wrestling with include: 

  Can I continue to work with Nicholas?

  Can I reasonably promote working with him to my friends?
  
  Does he have a credible analysis of the challenges facing us?

  Does he stand for goals and principles compatible with mine?

  Can his leadership supply the resources that I believe are necessary
  to fulfill these goals, to uphold these principles, and to overcome
  these challenges?
  
  (for example, does his leadership help to develop and retain
  intangibles like platform expertise and willingness to volunteer or
  does it squander them?)

For me, technology is negotiable. Long-term quality education is not.
Teamwork and community are not. Effective leadership is not. Nicholas'
comments seem to me to curtail these possibilities but we are both
fallible -- I may have misunderstood him. Time will bring clarity soon
enough for me.

Michael
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[C. Scott Ananian]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 9:41 PM, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 23.04.2008 03:09, C. Scott Ananian wrote:
>  In theory, mesh networking is a feature of the wireless firmware and
>  should work fine regardless of operating system choice.

In practice, this is manifestly not the case.
 --scott

-- 
 ( http://cscott.net/ )
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 23.04.2008 03:09, C. Scott Ananian wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 8:58 PM, Mitch Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>>  The laptops are even more wonderful with a child-friendly UI, loads of fun
>>  activities, and a non-proprietary software stack.  But in the steady
>>  state, the
>>  web is the high-order bit, sufficient to qualify as education in and of
>>  itself.
>> 
>
> But aren't we forgetting the connectivity aspect?  A laptop with a web
> browser and no web to browse doesn't seem to me to be very useful.
> The XO's promise for rural areas relies on its deployment strategy,
> mesh networking, and low power consumption.
>   

In theory, mesh networking is a feature of the wireless firmware and
should work fine regardless of operating system choice.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 2:29 PM, Ivan Krstić
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Apr 22, 2008, at 5:25 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote:
>
> >
> > Who says Negroponte is shifting? Certainly not Walter in any of his
> > public posts. Can't happen. We would all be out of here like a shot to
> fork Sugar. Nicholas is weird, but not utterly stupid.
>
>
>  "Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating system
> ... Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as many laptops as
> possible in children's hands."

OK, Ivan, I take it all back. "Men of one idea, like a hen with one
chick, and that a duckling."--Thoreau

I noticed before that Nicholas is overoptimizing on one single
variable (Number of computers delivered to children soonest) and not
looking at any of the other variables that affect how many computers
of what kind get to the most children in the long run. I didn't know
that it was this bad.

Who is organizing the fork? I assume that Red Hat will still be in. Or
do people want to wait until it's officially official?

>  -- via Associated Press
>  
>
>  --
>  Ivan Krstić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://radian.org

He lamented that an overriding insistence on open-source had hampered
the XOs, saying Sugar "grew amorphously" and "didn't have a software
architect who did it in a crisp way." For instance, the laptops do not
support Flash animation, widely used on the Web.

"There are several examples like that, that we have to address without
worrying about the fundamentalism in some of the open-source
community," he said. "One can be an open-source advocate without being
an open-source fundamentalist."

Besides rethinking the laptop's technology, Negroponte wants to get
OLPC moving more efficiently. An executive-search firm has been
looking for a chief executive for the group for more than a year.

:This is ridiculous in a dozen different ways. For one, the XO
hardware and software is the most productive product development
project I have ever seen. For another, when you can't find a CEO in
more than a year of searching, that should tell you something about
yourself.

I think the rest of us should go talk to Mark Shuttleworth. And Mary
Lou, of course.
-- 
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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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Mitch Bradley]

Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos wrote:
> Mitch Bradley wrote:
>> No, I'm saying that giving laptops to all the world's children is a 
>> Good Thing,
>> and worthy of being called an "education project", even if they don't 
>> have the
>> world's friendliest UI or free software.  And the reason for that is 
>> because
>> the web is so immensely valuable.
>>
>> The laptops are even more wonderful with a child-friendly UI, loads 
>> of fun
>> activities, and a non-proprietary software stack.  But in the steady 
>> state, the
>> web is the high-order bit, sufficient to qualify as education in and 
>> of itself.
>>   
> Mitch, I completely disagree with you on this. Browsing the web is 
> useful but doing so without being able to seamlessly communicate with 
> people that are in your "proximity" is a poor goal to reach. We should 
> be thinking bigger than just giving kids a windows box and ask them to 
> sign up to Facebook so that they can communicate with their friends.

Uh, yeah, and that is why I have been working days, nights, and weekends 
for the past 20 months trying to make the XO great.

I'm not saying that we should forget about all this other great stuff, 
I'm just disagreeing with the premise that laptops for children are 
worthless without all the embellishments.

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[C. Scott Ananian]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 8:58 PM, Mitch Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  The laptops are even more wonderful with a child-friendly UI, loads of fun
>  activities, and a non-proprietary software stack.  But in the steady
>  state, the
>  web is the high-order bit, sufficient to qualify as education in and of
>  itself.

But aren't we forgetting the connectivity aspect?  A laptop with a web
browser and no web to browse doesn't seem to me to be very useful.
The XO's promise for rural areas relies on its deployment strategy,
mesh networking, and low power consumption.
 --scott

-- 
 ( http://cscott.net/ )
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos]

Mitch Bradley wrote:
> No, I'm saying that giving laptops to all the world's children is a Good 
> Thing,
> and worthy of being called an "education project", even if they don't 
> have the
> world's friendliest UI or free software.  And the reason for that is because
> the web is so immensely valuable.
>
> The laptops are even more wonderful with a child-friendly UI, loads of fun
> activities, and a non-proprietary software stack.  But in the steady 
> state, the
> web is the high-order bit, sufficient to qualify as education in and of 
> itself.
>   
Mitch, I completely disagree with you on this. Browsing the web is 
useful but doing so without being able to seamlessly communicate with 
people that are in your "proximity" is a poor goal to reach. We should 
be thinking bigger than just giving kids a windows box and ask them to 
sign up to Facebook so that they can communicate with their friends.

Pol

-- 
Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos
Graduate student
Viral Communications
MIT Media Lab
Tel: +1 (617) 459-6058
http://www.mit.edu/~ypod/

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Mitch Bradley]

No, I'm saying that giving laptops to all the world's children is a Good 
Thing,
and worthy of being called an "education project", even if they don't 
have the
world's friendliest UI or free software.  And the reason for that is because
the web is so immensely valuable.

The laptops are even more wonderful with a child-friendly UI, loads of fun
activities, and a non-proprietary software stack.  But in the steady 
state, the
web is the high-order bit, sufficient to qualify as education in and of 
itself.



Walter Bender wrote:
> I am not sure what you are driving at Mitch: web browsers are
> available to fundamentalists of both camps. Are you suggesting that a
> proprietary browser will reach more children more quickly?
>
> -walter
>
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Mitch Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>>  I know quite a few children in the US who benefit from laptops running a
>>  proprietary stack.
>>
>>  Web access is the core capability that transforms the computer from a
>>  convenience to a near necessity.
>>
>>  Before the web, most people in developed countries had computers at work
>>  for doing "Office"
>>  stuff, but only a fraction of households had them.
>>
>>  "activities" will hold children's attention for some time, but in the
>>  long term, the desire to
>>  access all of the world's information will persist long after the
>>  activities become boring.
>>
>>  Suppose, as a thought experiment, that someone were to propose giving
>>  every child in the world
>>  a device that could do nothing but access the web.  Would you consider
>>  that a positive
>>  educational step?
>>
>>  I would.
>>
>>
>>
>>  ___
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>>
>> 

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Andres Salomon]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:28:20 -1000
Mitch Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

[...]
> 
> Suppose, as a thought experiment, that someone were to propose giving 
> every child in the world
> a device that could do nothing but access the web.  Would you consider 
> that a positive
> educational step?
> 
> I would.

Sure, you can give kids a glorified WebTV, but that's not what *I'm*
interested in.  Also, we're talking about a proprietary stack that
may or may not be locked down.  Who knows what they'll _actually_ have
access to?  I had hoped that at least with Linux, kids would be able to
dig into the internals and figure out ways around whatever roadblocks
their friendly government might put up; I don't see such a thing happening
with a proprietary stack.  Maybe it'll make a nice games platform, though:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/04/intel_classmate_the_rufus_revi.html
(The world needs more obesity)


If you're talking about giving kids a fast internet connection and a
completely unrestricted web browser, I'd agree that they'll benefit.
However, I expect OLPC to cave into whatever demands are made by
governments in order to further the goal of selling more laptops.


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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Sameer Verma]

Mitch Bradley wrote:
> I know quite a few children in the US who benefit from laptops running a 
> proprietary stack.
>
> Web access is the core capability that transforms the computer from a 
> convenience to a near necessity.
>
> Before the web, most people in developed countries had computers at work 
> for doing "Office"
> stuff, but only a fraction of households had them.
>
> "activities" will hold children's attention for some time, but in the 
> long term, the desire to
> access all of the world's information will persist long after the 
> activities become boring.
>
> Suppose, as a thought experiment, that someone were to propose giving 
> every child in the world
> a device that could do nothing but access the web.  Would you consider 
> that a positive
> educational step?
>
> I would.
>
> ___
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>   

None of what you have said above has anything to do with a proprietary 
stack. Why does the web experience have to be beneficial via a 
proprietary stack? The web is what it is because it conforms to open 
standards. HTML comes to mind...

Speaking of proprietary stack, remember AOL and Compuserve?

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Martin Langhoff]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Mitch Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  Suppose, as a thought experiment, that someone were to propose giving
>  every child in the world
>  a device that could do nothing but access the web.  Would you consider
>  that a positive
>  educational step?

It would be positive, but limited. Once you are reaching out to them,

 (a) You can give them that device with extra puzzles and tools

 (b) You have the certainty that you'll be seeding a degree of
cargo-cultism. Should the magic device be branded with corporate
logos? Should we use that sense of magic and turn it towards tinkering
and discovery that we can promote with a FOSS stack?

It is a significant responsibility.  I would be uncomfortable with the
XO showing _any_ corporative logos, be it MS, Adobe, RH, etc.

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
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Walter Bender]

I am not sure what you are driving at Mitch: web browsers are
available to fundamentalists of both camps. Are you suggesting that a
proprietary browser will reach more children more quickly?

-walter

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 8:28 PM, Mitch Bradley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>  I know quite a few children in the US who benefit from laptops running a
>  proprietary stack.
>
>  Web access is the core capability that transforms the computer from a
>  convenience to a near necessity.
>
>  Before the web, most people in developed countries had computers at work
>  for doing "Office"
>  stuff, but only a fraction of households had them.
>
>  "activities" will hold children's attention for some time, but in the
>  long term, the desire to
>  access all of the world's information will persist long after the
>  activities become boring.
>
>  Suppose, as a thought experiment, that someone were to propose giving
>  every child in the world
>  a device that could do nothing but access the web.  Would you consider
>  that a positive
>  educational step?
>
>  I would.
>
>
>
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Mitch Bradley]

I know quite a few children in the US who benefit from laptops running a 
proprietary stack.

Web access is the core capability that transforms the computer from a 
convenience to a near necessity.

Before the web, most people in developed countries had computers at work 
for doing "Office"
stuff, but only a fraction of households had them.

"activities" will hold children's attention for some time, but in the 
long term, the desire to
access all of the world's information will persist long after the 
activities become boring.

Suppose, as a thought experiment, that someone were to propose giving 
every child in the world
a device that could do nothing but access the web.  Would you consider 
that a positive
educational step?

I would.

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Joshua N Pritikin]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 08:00:06PM -0400, Andres Salomon wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:25:12 -0700
> Joshua N Pritikin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > At least Ivan quoted this part properly: "Negroponte said he was mainly 
> > concerned with putting as many laptops as possible in children's hands."
> > 
> > I don't know about you, but that makes sense to me. Carol Lerche is 
> > right: we need to be pragmatic and get this laptop into the hands of the 
> > children who can benefit even if that means our software stack is 
> > tainted with a little proprietary software.
> 
> The problem with this claim is the assumption that children *will* benefit
> with a laptop running a completely proprietary stack.  I remain
> unconvinced.  A laptop running a proprietary stack is not a goal that
> I'm interested in pursuing.

I'm with you, but the choice will be made by the teachers or by a 
Department of Education. Not by us.

Now the way to help the decision makers make the right choice (i.e. a 
free software stack), is to quickly realize the potential of Sugar + 
GNU/Linux. In some sense, it doesn't matter what we ship on the laptop 
(although I really want to ship free software). What matters is that we, 
the free software community, have a credible software solution for 
education.

That's why this whole conservation just seems like fear, uncertainty, 
and doubt (FUD). In a sense, OLPC as an organzation doesn't matter. What 
matters is creating a credible software solution for education. We can 
do that without OLPC. Of course, it will be much easier if OLPC has the 
same goals, and it appears that they do, at least in the short term. Why 
should we not give them the benefit of the doubt? What do we have to 
lose? All the GPL'd software that is written will still be there whether 
OLPC flourishes or fails. Let's help it flourish.

> There's a pretty massive difference between "We'll ship w/ Linux, a
> proprietary mesh driver, and a few proprietary apps", and "We're running
> XP".
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Andres Salomon]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:25:12 -0700
Joshua N Pritikin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 05:29:58PM -0400, Ivan Krstić wrote:
> > "Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating  
> > system ... Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as  
> > many laptops as possible in children's hands."
> > 
> > -- via Associated Press
> >  >  >
> 
[...]
> 
> At least Ivan quoted this part properly: "Negroponte said he was mainly 
> concerned with putting as many laptops as possible in children's hands."
> 
> I don't know about you, but that makes sense to me. Carol Lerche is 
> right: we need to be pragmatic and get this laptop into the hands of the 
> children who can benefit even if that means our software stack is 
> tainted with a little proprietary software.

The problem with this claim is the assumption that children *will* benefit
with a laptop running a completely proprietary stack.  I remain
unconvinced.  A laptop running a proprietary stack is not a goal that
I'm interested in pursuing.

There's a pretty massive difference between "We'll ship w/ Linux, a
proprietary mesh driver, and a few proprietary apps", and "We're running
XP".

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Walter Bender]

First of all, just to clear, Flash does run on the laptop: there is a
choice of both the Adobe Flash player and the FOSS Flash player,
Gnash. We opted to install the Gnash player by default. Many of the
problems people have with Flash are actually related to codecs rather
than the player itself. We don't load proprietary codecs onto the
machine by default, but they are available for download and some of
our deployments in fact do opt to load some proprietary codecs--after
of course obtaining the proper licenses. I see this approach as a
reasonable compromise given the goals of the project. Apparently
others see this as fundamentalism?

Second, regarding Microsoft, I agree that if it is to be an open
platform, it should be open to everyone, including Microsoft. That
said, it is somewhat revisionist to suggest that the SD card was added
on behalf of Microsoft: it was added at the same time as the camera
because we had the opportunity while adding an ASIC necessary to
improve NAND Flash performance. The fact that it facilitates the
running of Windows was not the consideration at the time. I am not
aware of any current effort to port Sugar to Windows; I don't know
enough about Windows to know how much effort that would entail or even
if it is possible.

Third, in regard to the performance, feature sets, etc., the OLPC
software stack is immature--quite naturally, as it is a relatively new
product and project. The software development roadmap for the project
had included a phased approach where we first get a core feature set
built; do some initial triage of bugs and bring some stability to the
deployments; and then work to fine-tune performance. While have heard
a lot of noise about performance in the media and from some members of
the development community, it has not, in my experience been a major
road-block in the school trials and deployments. There are lots of
bugs and lots of things that could be improved upon, and these should
certainly be addressed, but the characterizations being made in this
thread do not reflect the realities of the OLPC deployments--the
children and teachers are using the laptops and are learning.

Fourth and final point for the moment: it is important to make a
distinction between the system software--drivers, power management,
memory management, etc. and the Sugar user experience. It is not yet
easy to always draw a clear line between them, but many of the
performance problems* are not related to the choices we made regarding
the UI, although, since the UI is how one experiences the laptop, they
are felt there. I am not suggesting that there isn't room for
improvement, but the call for dropping Sugar is not going to make as
dramatic a difference in performance as is being suggested. And at
what cost? Is the goal is simply to get laptops into the hands of as
many children as possible? If that is the case, why have we been
bothering to develop any software at all? And if others are making low
cost laptops that run Windows, why don't those efforts fulfill that
goal?

-walter

* Ironically, the majority of the system-level problems we had
experienced are directly tied to the two proprietary code bases on the
laptop: the wireless firmware and the embedded controller firmware.
While there are efforts to replace these, OLPC itself has been
diligently working with both Marvell and Quanta to make the best of
the situation. To suggest that fundamentalism has impeded progress on
those two subsystems is not correct.
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Joshua N Pritikin]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 07:29:22PM -0400, Ivan Krstić wrote:
> On Apr 22, 2008, at 7:25 PM, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:
>> The laptop might run Windows or Linux or both, but not Sugar on  
>> Windows.
>
> That's not accurate.

Care to elaborate? Suppose Sugar was running on Windows. What's the 
benefit? Why is Sugar/Windows better than Sugar/GNU Linux?
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Ivan Krstić]

On Apr 22, 2008, at 7:25 PM, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:
> The laptop might run Windows or Linux or both, but not Sugar on  
> Windows.

That's not accurate.

--
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Joshua N Pritikin]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 05:29:58PM -0400, Ivan Krstić wrote:
> "Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating  
> system ... Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as  
> many laptops as possible in children's hands."
> 
> -- via Associated Press
>   >

Naughty Ivan, you are quoting out of context: "Eventually, Negroponte 
added, Windows might be the sole operating system, and Sugar would be 
educational software running on top of it."

Considering the complete sentence, it is clear to me that this is a case 
of the reporter being confused by technology. We all know that Sugar 
could never run on Windows as well it as can run on Linux. The laptop 
might run Windows or Linux or both, but not Sugar on Windows.

The article continues: "That might disappoint advocates of open-source 
software who helped bankroll OLPC and cheered the challenge it 
represented to Microsoft's dominance."

Sure, I would be disappointed. But let's look at that scenario. Suppose 
OLPC was bought out by Microsoft and all laptops came loaded with 
Windows. OK, at least we still have Sugar. The game changes thusly: How 
long will it take to make Sugar better than the proprietary 
alternatives?

But that's basically the same game we are playing, in any case. And we 
have been playing that game for decades and winning.

The article continues: "Wayan Vota, whose OLPC News blog reported 
Bender's departure Monday, said he feared Sugar would get neglected on 
XOs that run Windows."

Whose side is Wayan Vota on anyhow? I am not sure whether he is biased, 
but his ability to analyze news is nil. He's a rumor mill. He thrives on 
hyperbole and unconfirmed reports. Get a grip people.

At least Ivan quoted this part properly: "Negroponte said he was mainly 
concerned with putting as many laptops as possible in children's hands."

I don't know about you, but that makes sense to me. Carol Lerche is 
right: we need to be pragmatic and get this laptop into the hands of the 
children who can benefit even if that means our software stack is 
tainted with a little proprietary software.

By my judgment, I'm glad Richard Stallman isn't running OLPC. He would 
have delayed the launch until we have a GPL'd replacement for the mesh 
firmware. As it is now, we have a laptop which is more pure license-wise 
than any other laptop available at about half the cost of the 
competition. And we have had mesh networking in production for about six 
months. Who else has mesh networking? Nobody. That's not an ideal 
position; we should replace the firmware. None the less, it is a pretty 
good position.

To hold that position, we have got to stop wasting time discussing FUD 
and make the software work. As I noted, we have to do that anyway, even 
if we didn't have a lovely green laptop as a delivery platform. The race 
is on for educational software. Even when teachers are smart enough to 
prefer free software, teachers are going to use whatever software is 
available. Let's make free software available.
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Ivan Krstić]

On Apr 22, 2008, at 7:00 PM, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> It confirms that this has become a
> pure laptop project and not an education project as the official  
> mission
> states (stated?). Giving laptops to children is not an education
> project, it's giving laptops to children.

Which is why I left. The whole Sugar vs. XP brouhaha is merely  
misdirection.

--
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Martin Dengler]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 03:52:35PM -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> I always forget that when I reply the message does not go to the list.
> On the support-gang list there is quite a bit of discouragement over
> Walter leaving because Negroponte has decided to go the XP route with
> the XO. And he is in talks with MS$ to get a version of XP to run on the
> XO.
> 
> How may developers want to shift to developing for an XP based, rather
> than a sugar based , platform?

Isn't the question better XP vs. Linux, or perhaps Windows
Explorer/Shell vs. Sugar?  XP vs. Sugar is a conflation of the range
of possible development areas.

> Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Martin


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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Zjnue Brzavi]

"Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating
system ... Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as
many laptops as possible in children's hands."

..and credit cards with huge overdrafts for all. so this project IS
about the colonization of minds and expanding 'markets' (read
slavery).

the potential damage of a project with a core philosophy as rotten
should not be underestimated. are we not trying to cure a
fundamentally sick society by cultivating FREE thinking happy minds
with educational resources? ubuntu anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29
http://www.ubuntu.com/

it is time to get things right and if that means waiting a generation
or two for flash animation, it would be a small price to pay compared
to the alternative. if Gnash is not capable, xinf.org may soon be.

i aplaude people who are leaving and hope the community re-groups soon
elsewhere.

my 2 cents (..what an expression..)
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Martin Dengler]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 05:29:58PM -0400, Ivan Krstić wrote:
> On Apr 22, 2008, at 5:25 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote:
> > Who says Negroponte is shifting? Certainly not Walter in any of his
> > public posts. Can't happen. We would all be out of here like a shot  
> > to fork Sugar. Nicholas is weird, but not utterly stupid.
> 
> 
> "Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating  
> system ... Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as  
> many laptops as possible in children's hands."
> 
> -- via Associated Press
> 

That is/therin are some pretty damning quotes - as in, contrasting (in
my understanding) with the point of view of the 5th core principle of
the OLPC foundation.

I wonder if someone defaced/removed that "core principle" from the
wiki, would it be added back?

> Ivan Krstić <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://radian.org

Martin



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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 22.04.2008 23:29, Ivan Krstić wrote:
> On Apr 22, 2008, at 5:25 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote:
>   
>> Who says Negroponte is shifting? Certainly not Walter in any of his
>> public posts. Can't happen. We would all be out of here like a shot  
>> to fork Sugar. Nicholas is weird, but not utterly stupid.
>> 
>
>
> "Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating  
> system ... Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as  
> many laptops as possible in children's hands."
>
> -- via Associated Press
> 

Thanks for digging up that quote. It confirms that this has become a
pure laptop project and not an education project as the official mission
states (stated?). Giving laptops to children is not an education
project, it's giving laptops to children.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Alfonso de la Guarda]

In brief,

As Peruvian collaborator and open source developer, the issue of the
departure of Walter and rumors about Windows XP really worry me. In Peru
there are those who have worked with politicians and authorities speaks
about the freedoms that the OLPC / XO means, may lose that?
We need someone to tell us-officially-the position of the foundation and
thus be able to make our own decisions, but even if it comes FLISOL in Latin
America.

Thanks,


On 4/22/08, Carol Lerche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> The OLPC Association has done amazing things with limited resources and
> deserves to take great pride in this.  However, this Negroponte quotation
> from the article seems correct to me:
>
> He lamented that an overriding insistence on open-source had hampered the
> XOs, saying Sugar "grew amorphously" and "didn't have a software architect
> who did it in a crisp way." For instance, the laptops do not support Flash
> animation, widely used on the Web.
>
> "There are several examples like that, that we have to address without
> worrying about the fundamentalism in some of the open-source community," he
> said. "One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source
> fundamentalist."
> You have to prioritize your goals when they conflict.  The question to
> consider -- is it really the case that having a 100% pure open source
> platform is more important IN THE SHORT TERM than making a type of content
> available that is ubiquitous as a format for delivering educational
> content.  Gnash is simply not an equivalent product to the Adobe player IN
> THE SHORT TERM and it would have been a pragmatic choice to work hard to get
> Adobe to permit their flash player to be shipped with the XO.
>
> By making these tradeoffs of upholding purity of open source when teachers
> and school/ed ministry people obviously prioritize the content ahead of the
> purity of the implementation,  one ends up in a place where time is short
> and an MS port may be catching up.  Of course the target audience will
> prefer the solution on which they can deliver the content they want.
> Essentially the attempt at total purity may result in a much worse outcome
> with respect to the open source goal.
>
> Recriminations against Negroponte are less productive than learning from
> the consequences of trying to achieve an overly ambitious constellation of
> conflicting goals. Instead  reach the goals in priority order through
> realistic, explicit, predictable and explainable phasing, as now seems to be
> the plan.  Certainly, if Walter manages to get funding for a project to
> expand sugar for other platforms it will assist in reaching the final
> target.  More resources will be available to attack the problems posed by
> adopting an entirely new user interface such as sugar, while being asked to
> deliver applications and content that are the most understandable part of
> the OLPC package to the adopters..
>
>
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>


-- 


Alfonso de la Guarda
  COS
www.cos-la.org
www.delaguarda.info
   Telef. 97550914
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 22.04.2008 23:25, Edward Cherlin wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Aaron Konstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>> I always forget that when I reply the message does not go to the list.
>>  On the support-gang list there is quite a bit of discouragement over
>>  Walter leaving because Negroponte has decided to go the XP route with
>>  the XO. And he is in talks with MS$ to get a version of XP to run on the
>>  XO.
>> 
>
> I know about XP on the XO. Microsoft was working on it all last year.
> What's this about Negroponte shifting to XP? I know that there is a
> rumor about, but where I have seen it, it has just been a
> misinterpretation of the usual news. Negroponte is quoted,
>
> * OLPC chairman says laptop project could not promote openness if it
> was closed to Microsoft.
> * "Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO. We put the
> SD (secure digital) slot into our laptop over one year ago, for them."
>
> Who says Negroponte is shifting? Certainly not Walter in any of his
> public posts.
>
>   
>>  How may developers want to shift to developing for an XP based, rather
>>  than a sugar based , platform?
>> 
>
> Can't happen. We would all be out of here like a shot to fork Sugar.
> Nicholas is weird, but not utterly stupid.
>   

The big problem is that most people see this as a Linux+Sugar vs.
Windows decision. OLPC is simply fighting on too many fronts and new
developers generally do not tackle existing problems, but work on shiny
new features and reinvent the wheel.
I see a choice of at least:
- Linux + Sugar
- Linux + fast UI
- Windows XP lite (or whatever it is called)

My hope is that the second choice wins. If the first and the second
choice are identical some time in the future, even better!


Regards,
Carl-Daniel
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Carol Lerche]

The OLPC Association has done amazing things with limited resources and
deserves to take great pride in this.  However, this Negroponte quotation
from the article seems correct to me:

He lamented that an overriding insistence on open-source had hampered the
XOs, saying Sugar "grew amorphously" and "didn't have a software architect
who did it in a crisp way." For instance, the laptops do not support Flash
animation, widely used on the Web.

"There are several examples like that, that we have to address without
worrying about the fundamentalism in some of the open-source community," he
said. "One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source
fundamentalist."
You have to prioritize your goals when they conflict.  The question to
consider -- is it really the case that having a 100% pure open source
platform is more important IN THE SHORT TERM than making a type of content
available that is ubiquitous as a format for delivering educational
content.  Gnash is simply not an equivalent product to the Adobe player IN
THE SHORT TERM and it would have been a pragmatic choice to work hard to get
Adobe to permit their flash player to be shipped with the XO.

By making these tradeoffs of upholding purity of open source when teachers
and school/ed ministry people obviously prioritize the content ahead of the
purity of the implementation,  one ends up in a place where time is short
and an MS port may be catching up.  Of course the target audience will
prefer the solution on which they can deliver the content they want.
Essentially the attempt at total purity may result in a much worse outcome
with respect to the open source goal.

Recriminations against Negroponte are less productive than learning from the
consequences of trying to achieve an overly ambitious constellation of
conflicting goals. Instead  reach the goals in priority order through
realistic, explicit, predictable and explainable phasing, as now seems to be
the plan.  Certainly, if Walter manages to get funding for a project to
expand sugar for other platforms it will assist in reaching the final
target.  More resources will be available to attack the problems posed by
adopting an entirely new user interface such as sugar, while being asked to
deliver applications and content that are the most understandable part of
the OLPC package to the adopters..
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Ivan Krstić]

On Apr 22, 2008, at 5:25 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote:
> Who says Negroponte is shifting? Certainly not Walter in any of his
> public posts. Can't happen. We would all be out of here like a shot  
> to fork Sugar. Nicholas is weird, but not utterly stupid.


"Eventually, Negroponte added, Windows might be the sole operating  
system ... Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as  
many laptops as possible in children's hands."

-- via Associated Press


--
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Aaron Konstam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I always forget that when I reply the message does not go to the list.
>  On the support-gang list there is quite a bit of discouragement over
>  Walter leaving because Negroponte has decided to go the XP route with
>  the XO. And he is in talks with MS$ to get a version of XP to run on the
>  XO.

I know about XP on the XO. Microsoft was working on it all last year.
What's this about Negroponte shifting to XP? I know that there is a
rumor about, but where I have seen it, it has just been a
misinterpretation of the usual news. Negroponte is quoted,

* OLPC chairman says laptop project could not promote openness if it
was closed to Microsoft.
* "Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO. We put the
SD (secure digital) slot into our laptop over one year ago, for them."

Who says Negroponte is shifting? Certainly not Walter in any of his
public posts.

>  How may developers want to shift to developing for an XP based, rather
>  than a sugar based , platform?

Can't happen. We would all be out of here like a shot to fork Sugar.
Nicholas is weird, but not utterly stupid.

>  --
>  ===
>  For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. -- Alexander Pope
>  ===
>  Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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-- 
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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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Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Aaron Konstam]

I always forget that when I reply the message does not go to the list.
On the support-gang list there is quite a bit of discouragement over
Walter leaving because Negroponte has decided to go the XP route with
the XO. And he is in talks with MS$ to get a version of XP to run on the
XO.

How may developers want to shift to developing for an XP based, rather
than a sugar based , platform?
--
===
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. -- Alexander Pope
===
Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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