Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com writes: Maybe someone more deployment oriented should run for the Oversight Board to ensure we have better representation there (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance/Oversight_Board/2009-2010-candidates). I jumped in. I hesitated because I won't be reachable from now till August, 17th, and I will be poorly connected till the end of August. Let me know if that makes my application irrelevant. Regards, -- Bastien ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 23:46, Bert Freudenbergb...@freudenbergs.de wrote: On 30.07.2009, at 22:23, Martin Dengler wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 04:17:56PM -0300, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 28.07.2009, at 07:22, Martin Dengler wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 03:24:13PM +0545, Daniel Drake wrote: However, I feel like it could be better if the community (who I might even stretch to call customers) could have more influence. [...] What are the options for the community having more of an influence here? Influence on whom? Developers? There are no SugarLabs employed developers. But if we get feedback from the front line, from teachers actually using our software in the field, the volunteer developers I know struggle to find a way to make it easier for them. Nothing beats direct contact with children of course, but even meeting teachers from the deployments and hearing first-hand accounts of the problems (and successes!) is rather motivating. Reading these reports on a mailing list is less emotionally moving but still a great hint at how to prioritize one's spare time. I don't disagree with anything you said, but I'm struggling to see how it's relevant to the OP or my reply. Perhaps by the volunteer developers I know struggle to find a way to make it easier for them you're implying that we need to make it easier for volunteer developers to contribute? No, I meant the volunteer developers are motivated largely by feedback from users of their software. They then do all they can (sometimes even struggling) to help. At least that's what I see with the Etoys developers, which is similar to Sugar in that it's not a scratch-your- own-itch open-source project. I think both etoys and sugar can be seen as scratch-your-own-itch projects if we consider that people with their more basic needs covered feel the need of self-realization through having a positive impact in the lives of others. Open source developers of today are normally very well paid and well-considered in their environments, I think they have greater chances to feel the need for something more transcendent than fixing that annoying bug in their text editor of choice or writing their own window manager. So I agree that feedback from users will make more clear the impact that their work has and could serve to attract more contributors if well communicated. Regards, Tomeu - Bert - The problem is we get way too few feedback. Indeed. - Bert - Martin ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 04:17:56PM -0300, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 28.07.2009, at 07:22, Martin Dengler wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 03:24:13PM +0545, Daniel Drake wrote: However, I feel like it could be better if the community (who I might even stretch to call customers) could have more influence. [...] What are the options for the community having more of an influence here? Influence on whom? Developers? There are no SugarLabs employed developers. But if we get feedback from the front line, from teachers actually using our software in the field, the volunteer developers I know struggle to find a way to make it easier for them. Nothing beats direct contact with children of course, but even meeting teachers from the deployments and hearing first-hand accounts of the problems (and successes!) is rather motivating. Reading these reports on a mailing list is less emotionally moving but still a great hint at how to prioritize one's spare time. I don't disagree with anything you said, but I'm struggling to see how it's relevant to the OP or my reply. Perhaps by the volunteer developers I know struggle to find a way to make it easier for them you're implying that we need to make it easier for volunteer developers to contribute? The problem is we get way too few feedback. Indeed. - Bert - Martin pgphPf2S3MF5Z.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
On 30.07.2009, at 22:23, Martin Dengler wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 04:17:56PM -0300, Bert Freudenberg wrote: On 28.07.2009, at 07:22, Martin Dengler wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 03:24:13PM +0545, Daniel Drake wrote: However, I feel like it could be better if the community (who I might even stretch to call customers) could have more influence. [...] What are the options for the community having more of an influence here? Influence on whom? Developers? There are no SugarLabs employed developers. But if we get feedback from the front line, from teachers actually using our software in the field, the volunteer developers I know struggle to find a way to make it easier for them. Nothing beats direct contact with children of course, but even meeting teachers from the deployments and hearing first-hand accounts of the problems (and successes!) is rather motivating. Reading these reports on a mailing list is less emotionally moving but still a great hint at how to prioritize one's spare time. I don't disagree with anything you said, but I'm struggling to see how it's relevant to the OP or my reply. Perhaps by the volunteer developers I know struggle to find a way to make it easier for them you're implying that we need to make it easier for volunteer developers to contribute? No, I meant the volunteer developers are motivated largely by feedback from users of their software. They then do all they can (sometimes even struggling) to help. At least that's what I see with the Etoys developers, which is similar to Sugar in that it's not a scratch-your- own-itch open-source project. - Bert - The problem is we get way too few feedback. Indeed. - Bert - Martin ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
On 28.07.2009, at 07:22, Martin Dengler wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 03:24:13PM +0545, Daniel Drake wrote: However, I feel like it could be better if the community (who I might even stretch to call customers) could have more influence. [...] What are the options for the community having more of an influence here? Influence on whom? Developers? There are no SugarLabs employed developers. But if we get feedback from the front line, from teachers actually using our software in the field, the volunteer developers I know struggle to find a way to make it easier for them. Nothing beats direct contact with children of course, but even meeting teachers from the deployments and hearing first-hand accounts of the problems (and successes!) is rather motivating. Reading these reports on a mailing list is less emotionally moving but still a great hint at how to prioritize one's spare time. The problem is we get way too few feedback. - Bert - ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 14:58, Bastienbastiengue...@googlemail.com wrote: Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org writes: About having a person at every deployment, some months ago I started creating this list of contacts: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployment_Team/Places Thanks for the reminder. My idea was more to have only *one* person in Sugar responsible to get/filter/dispatch deployments feedback - just as Greg was answering requests from various horizons (cc'ing Greg to this thread.) Ok, thought you wanted both. Maybe this time we'll have more luck having people listed there? Yes - but I'm afraid having the role I mention above is the only way to activate the list in Deployment_Team/Places Could be, yes. Btw, why is this thread in sugar-devel instead of in IAEP? (Well, I'm just a bit cautious about threads jumps...) CC'ing IAEP. I think sugar-devel should be only for technical matters and iaep should be cc'ed for everything not strictly technical. Regards, Tomeu -- Bastien ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
2009/7/28 Philippe Clérié phili...@gcal.net: On Tuesday 28 July 2009 04:48:25 Tomeu Vizoso wrote: Yes, if deployers make very clear what is a priority for them and do so in a compelling way, I'm sure volunteer developers will make their plans accordingly. Perhaps the highest priority should be a Live CD/USB that is easily and reliably installable on the hard disk of a machine. I've now tried strawberry and Sugar on Fedora and neither is satisfactory; Sugar on Ubuntu does not work. The only thing that works is Sugar on a stick and that may not be a good solution. In fact, I think I'm on the verge of commiting a sin: take the path of least resistance and go with XP versions of the Mini 110. Yes, the SoaS team is working on this feature for their next release. Feel free to ask for details if you would like to help or do some early testing. More generally, I think that what is really missing in Sugar (and for that matter, OLPC) is a conversation between developers and educators. Last year I signed up for several lists on OLPC, including one for educators and one for research. There was no activity on either. I haven't tracked them so perhaps things have changed. I doubt it; there would be echoes on this list if they became more active. Well, you are writing to su...@lists.laptop.org, which used to be a list for sugar-specific subjects when OLPC developed Sugar. When the community took maintenance of Sugar, Sugar Labs was formed and new mailing lists were created at sugarlabs.org. su...@lists.laptop.org is now redirected to sugar-de...@sugarlabs.org, and this list is only for technical subjects specific to Sugar. Anything not so technical about Sugar should go to i...@sugarlabs.org, where will reach the bigger community. If you are interested in being involved in discussions with educators about Sugar and more, IAEP is the list to be. If you consult the archives, we have had very interesting discussions about learning with Sugar and its role in the classroom: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/ I'm sorry you got confused by this. Do you have any recommendation so we can make better known that OLPC isn't developing Sugar any more and that it's in Sugar Labs where Sugar is discussed? To all the participants in this thread: please move all discussions that are not strictly technical to IAEP. Otherwise we are excluding a very important part of our community and this is a critical subject. Thanks, Tomeu I am acutely aware of this absence because, as I've mentionned before, although I can handle the computer, I am totally out my depth in pedagogy. And the educators whom I'm working for want nothing to do with the computer. So there is a disconnect here and the issue is not being addressed. At any rate, despite my enthusiasm for OLPC and Sugar, it's not at all clear to me what the role of the computer is in a classroom. Which is why if I'm not told what to do I'm lost. Hope that helps. -- Philippe -- The trouble with common sense is that it is so uncommon. Anonymous ___ Sugar-devel mailing list sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:39 AM, Daniel Draked...@laptop.org wrote: quoting Tomeu from another thread (with no bad feelings at all): Sugar Labs has currently no resources to focus on anything, it depends on volunteers doing whatever they want. I chose to spend my time to make easier for more people to bring their knowledge and experience to Sugar and the community has no say on this. Perfectly reasonable answer and this kind of development model works well for open source projects, including this one. However, I feel like it could be better if the community (who I might even stretch to call customers) could have more influence. so..to create an open thread: What are the options for the community having more of an influence here? It depends on what you mean by influence. If you mean a producer - consumer relationship where Sugar Labs produces a produces a product and Deployments tell developers what they need? That is probably _not_ going to work. That model has never worked for open source projects. Open source does not mean free lunch. It is a development process which is particular effective when multiply parties are willing and able to work together to collaboratively create a product. What does work _very_ well is for consumers to shift their mindset from consumer to community participant. The two most clear cut examples of this are the kernel and Eclipse. A really funny example of this happened when Oracle wanted to get into the Linux business a few years ago. Oracle sent one of their lead developer to a major conference (I can't remember which) to present a laundry list of stuff the the kernel community should do for them. Their approach was 'We are smarted than you and richer than you, and more powerful than you. You should be overjoyed that we sent someone to tell you how much you suck.' That turned out not to bet the best approach. Over the past couple of years, Oracle has become one of the leading contributors to the kernel. Oracle on Linux is now the preferred platform. Influence is directly correlated to contribution. One would be to somehow get sugarlabs to hire people, and somehow process customer feedback and assign technical tasks to payroll developers. Are there others? I have attempted to contact several people at OLPC for information regarding contacts at deployments to set up something like that. The responses were either 'Our deployments are none of your business' or silence. When organizations like Red Hat, Fedora and Solution Grove have bent over backward to help Sugar Labs, does it come as a surprise that more progress has been made on SoaS than projects which are more interesting to OLPC. Having now visited 3 large deployments I feel frustrated that most of the features and changes entering sugar are not increasing deployability or increasing the educational impact of the platform. General technical and usability improvements are always needed (and are always of value) but I feel that the balance is wrong and I feel that I have not been very successful in getting community members to understand the needs of deployments. If you are interested in 'Community Members' focusing on XO deployments, I would suggest identifying and engaging participants who have direct interest in solving those problems to participate directly in the Sugar development process... Thus becoming 'Community Members.' FWIW, over the next six months I would like to expand Sugar Lab's to focus to supporting and working with deployments. But, I will continue to encourage the two principles of: 1. Implementation over theory. 2. Contribution over consumption. david Daniel ___ Sugar-devel mailing list sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Sugar-devel] community influence on development
Apologies for jumping back to the beginning of the thread. Daniel makes some good point here on a theme that have been raised repeatedly over the lifetimes of both the Sugar project and OLPC. On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 5:39 AM, Daniel Draked...@laptop.org wrote: quoting Tomeu from another thread (with no bad feelings at all): Sugar Labs has currently no resources to focus on anything, it depends on volunteers doing whatever they want. I chose to spend my time to make easier for more people to bring their knowledge and experience to Sugar and the community has no say on this. Perfectly reasonable answer and this kind of development model works well for open source projects, including this one. However, I feel like it could be better if the community (who I might even stretch to call customers) could have more influence. so..to create an open thread: What are the options for the community having more of an influence here? One would be to somehow get sugarlabs to hire people, and somehow process customer feedback and assign technical tasks to payroll developers. Are there others? Short term, it seems we should be amplifying what does work: we have a vibrant developer community in IRC that is extremely responsive. Is there some way to get more deployment feedback directly into that channel? Mid term, we had had some discussions about how to organize small teams of teachers (deployers) a while back, where we designated a role for liaison. Getting these liaisons to participate in the mailing lists (sur and iaep) would be a start. Long term, having a more formal mechanism may be useful. A person designated to the role of liaison to deployments. But I would hope we could come up with a more distributed model, which has no single point of failure. Local Labs should be part of the solution as well. In the meanwhile, following Caroline and Greg's lead re Sugar on a Stick, those of you who don't feel you are being heard, please make pages in the wiki (and file tickets in trac.). Give us a head ups re your concerns on iaep or sur. Join the community. Maybe someone more deployment oriented should run for the Oversight Board to ensure we have better representation there (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance/Oversight_Board/2009-2010-candidates). Having now visited 3 large deployments I feel frustrated that most of the features and changes entering sugar are not increasing deployability or increasing the educational impact of the platform. General technical and usability improvements are always needed (and are always of value) but I feel that the balance is wrong and I feel that I have not been very successful in getting community members to understand the needs of deployments. Daniel, could you start the ball rolling by being more explicit about some specific unmet needs of deployments that might be actionable? thanks. -walter -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
