--- On Thu, 9/24/09, DancesWithCars <danceswithcars(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From: DancesWithCars <danceswithcars(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: XO Special interest group at Sugar Labs
To: "Yioryos Asprobounitis" <mavrothal(a)yahoo.com>
Cc: fedora-olpc-list(a)redhat.com, "David Farning"
<dfarning(a)sugarlabs.org>, "iaep" <iaep(a)lists.sugarlabs.org>
Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009, 6:45 AM
I'm not sure about the hardware
issues
mentioned below, as new to some of these lists,
but if there is an installed base of XO-1 computers
with special hardware like the touchpad
with 2 extra areas that were never implemented,
why not develop applications for those,
even if the XO-1.5 and XO-2 plans don't
include them?
What are you going to tell the kids
with XO-1s when the XO-1.5 come out?
What is the consolation prize?
Knowing more about it, and
being further up the learning curve?
Also, the battery issues will get worse,
as the hardware gets older, so testing
and determining when need new battery,
as a computer without power isn't much
fun.
Repairing hardware gets more crucial
as machines get older.
Being more inventive with what you have
instead of this is the shiny new machine,
so going deeper into the system,
maybe programming instead of just
using. Or more time with the learning
content.
Even as a ebook reader, getting new
content, creating new content,
maybe more translating content?
I still think
flossmanuals.net
needs indexing and other layout stuff,
under the hood, or however parallel,
LyX makes some assumptions,
and does some of that but not
the wiki and social stuff up top,
so [La]TeX classes and styles might be
a good contribution, finding
objavi and booki source code,
etc...
These are all very valid points. However, is not clear to me if you imply that they should
be prioritized over the updating of the os/sugar or not. I hope not since some of these
may even benefit from an updated OS (touchpad, battery, other hardware related patches) as
opposed to an unsupported one (Fedora 9).
On the other hand being a voluntary process is hard to tell to people "you do this
instead of that". You can certainly try to convince them, and I think you do a good
job on that :-)
The requirements for testing a new build
is some extra XO-n hardware for testing,
and a high speed connection, if giving
new .isos builds out to the world,
or access to some place that would,
plus the time and knowledge to
make the changes, find bugs,
report them, etc.
Again I'm not sure what this means. That is trivial? That a "beta" quality
OS should be delivered to the students/deployments and let them debug it? Other?
And if 'It's An Eduction Project"
are we teaching self reliance
and how to do builds, make your
own constructionist style or
whatever teaching paradigm fits
the locals? Or forcing dependence
upon others?
Again trying to read between the lines... I'm sure that "locals" have their
hands full trying to make the best of the available hardware/software, adapt it to their
needs and build their own apps when needed. I would also guess that if the current Fedora
9-based OS is a blocker to paramount needs they may try to update it themselves.
However, providing a better option as the F11/Sugar0.84+ is, in no way is in contrast with
the "educational project". For one is _not_ a "computer education"
project. So "upgrade your OS", is by no means a priority. Is welcome, but in no
way required.
Expecting a 9-12 years old on the other hand to come up with the solutions is conceivable
but nothing to depend on, either.
Finally the fact that if you give someone a fishing pole will eat fish all his/her life,
does not preclude that you can not give them a fishing boat to get bigger fish, nor it
implies they should built one.
They may as well build a boat by themselves but the goal here is to get as much and as
good fish as possible given the needs.
Finally self reliance is an important factor. However like everything else in teaching it
must be build gradually, in the right order and by experience. Assigning tasks that will
be never completed guaranties that you will build self depreciation rather than self
reliance.
And as you said "is an educational project".
If I read your comments wrong, my apologies.
My $.02 USD - costs of ownership/
&& giving back.
On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Yioryos Asprobounitis
<mavrothal(a)yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Now, that's an excellent idea!
> However, the crucial thing before any extensive
building/testing starts is to address some major issues that
would stop most people from using/testing F11/Sugar.84+.
Namely the Xorg geode video driver, the camera and the
battery monitor. These will primarily need developers.
> Having these components in place then a daily build
bug fixing/reporting system would be more valuable since
more people may be willing to give it a try, identifying the
"minor" issues that may eventually allow a
deployment-quality release.
> If this is going to be an OLPC, Fedora or SL project,
I think is irrelevant. XO-1 is an EOL machine that runs an
OS/UI developed by "some other" organization. Is literally
orphan (besides these limited efforts) so any "adopter"
should be welcome. Whoever sets it up should be good to go.
With almost a million users is the biggest educational
linux/sugar implementation and worths every attention.
>
> --- On Mon, 9/21/09, David Farning <dfarning(a)sugarlabs.org>
wrote:
>
>> From: David Farning <dfarning(a)sugarlabs.org>
>> Subject: Re: XO Special interest group at Sugar
Labs
>> To: fedora-olpc-list(a)redhat.com
>> Cc: "iaep" <iaep(a)lists.sugarlabs.org>
>> Date: Monday, September 21, 2009, 7:36 PM
>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:41 PM,
>> Peter Robinson <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi David,
>> >
>> > On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:48 PM, David
Farning <dfarning(a)sugarlabs.org>
>> wrote:
>> >> For the past several months the
OLPC/Sugar Labs
>> ecosystem has been
>> >> getting requests to provide releases of
more
>> recent versions of Sugar
>> >> on the XO.
>> >>
>> >> The leading effort in this direction
seems to be
>> the F11-XO1 project.
>> >> I would like to like to invite F11-XO1 to
become
>> part of the XO SIG.
>> >> I have been trying to articulate the
project goals
>> and gather momentum
>> >> across several groups.
>> >> 1. OLPC as a downstream.
>> >> 2. Sugar Labs as a focus point.
>> >> 3. Various ecosystem leaders to do pilots
with
>> current versions of Sugar on XOs.
>> >> 4. Various testers to provide user level
testing.
>> >>
>> >> The goal of this groups is not to
_fragment_ the
>> existing efforts.
>> >> The goal is bring the various efforts
together to
>> form a critical mass
>> >> to help pull this propel forward.
>> >
>> > As far as I'm aware there is no F11-XO1
project, I'm
>> aware of a couple
>> > of different projects to get the latest Sugar
releases
>> on the XO.
>> > - The SoaS on XO which is being run my Martin
Dengler
>> in conjunction
>> > with SoaS and SL (that's where its all
hosted).
>> > - The OLPC project to get Fedora 11 on both
the XO-1.5
>> and XO-1 which
>> > is being handled by Steven M. Parrish (and
Daniel
>> Drake / Chris Ball)
>>
>> This confusion is part of what I am hoping to
clear up by
>> create a
>> single clearly defined project.
>>
>> I have heard back from many of the people working
on the
>> various
>> projects. the work flow seems to be:
>> 1. Sugar development team creates platform.
>> 2. Fedora packagers package Sugar... and
everything else
>> required to
>> make a disto.
>> 3a. SoaS takes packages and turns them into a Soas
image.
>> 3b. Soas is getting pretty well test via test days
and
>> deployments
>> such as the GPA.
>> 4a. Steven take the Fedora packages adds the XO
specific
>> bit and turns
>> them into xo builds.
>> 4b. limited testing for xo builds.
>>
>> Because of time restrictions, the F11 on XO effort
seems to
>> be
>> reactive. They take the output from cjb and the
>> fedora packages and
>> create builds. I believe that the XO SIG could
help
>> generate interest
>> and attract more developers and testers to the
project.
>>
>> > Both projects are cross pollinated and use
components
>> of work done by
>> > both as well as myself and other Fedora
upstream
>> people. I don't
>> > believe there's much difference between them
as where
>> possible I
>> > believe most stuff is pushed upsteam. There
is no
>> current Fedora based
>> > project working on this directly due to the
down
>> stream projects.
>> >
>> > I have my own build that I use but that
isn't
>> generally published and
>> > is mostly to test core fedora for dependency
bloat and
>> breakages.
>>
>> Would it be useful if we started by combining your
work and
>> Stevens
>> into an automatic build system. This could help
>> identify breakages.
>> Then we could create a release cycle of alpha and
beta and
>> final
>> releases.
>>
>> By creating the daily builds and widely
broadcasting the
>> various
>> releases, we can engage a larger community of
testers.
>>
>> david
>>
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--
DancesWithCars
leave the wolves behind ;-)