Sugar on a Stick

What is Sugar on a Stick?

Sugar on a Stick is a Fedora-based operating system featuring the award-winning Sugar Learning Platform and designed to fit on an ordinary USB thumbdrive ("stick"). Learn more about the project and the principles behind it at our main user-facing Spin webpage.

Want to use Sugar on a Stick?

If you'd like to try out Sugar on a Stick, check out the main Sugar on a Stick Spin Page - it's where our software downloads, usage instructions, and support information lives. After you've tried out Sugar on a Stick, we hope you'll come back here and join our community of contributors to help us make the next release even better.

Want to contribute to Sugar on a Stick?

You're in the right place! This page is a contributors portal to the project, and contains everything you need to get started in becoming part of the Sugar on a Stick community.

New contributors start here!

Welcome! We're excited that you want to help us bring the Sugar Learning Platform to chlidren around the world. No prior experience with computers or educational technology is required - in fact, we actively encourage a diversity of backgrounds, ages, and perspectives. See the Joining Sugar on a Stick page for instructions on how to get started. You may also want to check out the Sugar on a Stick project page on OpenHatch, or attend one of our Sugar on a Stick meetings.

What can you do?

There are three main ways you can contribute to the Sugar on a Stick community. We work closely with our upstreams, Sugar Labs and the Fedora Project.

Get Activities on the Stick

We're always looking for help with all aspects of the Sugar on a Stick release process. Here are a few things you can do: Test Sugar on a Stick and help us find bugs and think of ways the project could be better. When you find a bug or think of an enhancement, file a ticket! No technical experience required. Help make it easier for others to test Sugar on a Stick by writing test cases. If you've run a test case, you can write a test case. Fix a bug or add a feature to an existing Activity, or to sugar-core itself. See How to fix an Activity bug and How to fix a sugar-core bug to get started. Basic Python programming skills - or the desire to learn - are all that's needed. Package Sugar Activities for Fedora. If you're a Fedora Packager or want to become one, help in this area is something we desperately need - it's a trickier thing to learn, but rewarding once you get the hang of it. Review Activities for inclusion in the build - check submitted Activities against our SoaS Activity Criteria and help us choose what gets included in the next release! No prior experience needed - we do reviews during our weekly meetings and will teach you how.

Get Sticks into Schools

Deployments all over the world need many different types of help as they work through the Sugar on a Stick deployment process - we need help building resources for all deployments to use, supporting those deployments, and helping new deployments start, as well as gathering stories and feedback from deployments so that we can make the next version of Sugar on a Stick even better. Some things you can do to help: "It's a wiki: Edit away!" is often said in open source communities. Almost nothing is set in stone and can't be undone. So if you've got ideas how to make instructions clearer and more accessible to our users, just go for it! We produce official documentation such as the Creation Kit or the Customization Guide. If you've an idea how to make them better, why don't you jump in and create a patch? Creating these nifty text files is simple - instructions live in the Documentation SOP. Interested in starting a deployment or helping a specific one (with anything from pedagogical design to technical support to funding logistics)? Introduce yourself on the deployment lists for Sugar Labs and One Laptop Per Child and we'll get you connected with some teachers on the ground. We're looking for some people to help us assemble tools for our support team to use. Email the Sugar on a Stick mailing list if you're interested.

Get Contributors

Contributors are the lifeblood of the Sugar on a Stick community - we work hard to bring a playful mindset of teaching, learning, and meaningful work to the children we aim to reach, and we aim to keep that mindset in our own work and community as well. Welcoming and teaching new contributors or all types, building the resources they need, and teaching them how to empower others in their turn is one of the most important things you can do; it is everyone's responsibility to help build our community, one person at a time. Some things you can do: Edit this page and Joining Sugar on a Stick. Is there something we could do to make the "getting started" process easier? You don't have to ask permission to edit; just do it! Help us fill in our remaining task-starter pages: Sugar on a Stick release process, How to fix an Activity bug, How to fix a sugar-core bug, and Sugar on a Stick deployment process/ Point out starter tasks on OpenHatch - fill in questions and ideas for beginner jobs, and point newcomers towards them. Watch for introductions on the mailing list, and send welcome emails to new contributors (copy the list, so we can see what advice a newcomer has gotten so far). Hang out with us on IRC: #sugar. This is the place where users join when using IRC Activity. Help them past initial trouble and provide instant help!

What's happening?

Meetings

We have weekly meetings on IRC - see Sugar on a Stick meetings for more information, including logs from past meetings. Attending a meeting is a great way for newcomers to get started.

Release schedule

Our release schedule is based on the Fedora release schedule. We are currently working on the release of v.3.0 Mirabelle, scheduled for release on May 25, 2010. The next Sugar on a Stick version will be based on the Fedora 14 release schedule.

The schedule below is a draft and has not yet been approved. It will be discussed after the Mirabelle release.

2010-05-25	Sugar on a Stick v.3.0 Mirabelle released
	Planning & Development Begins
2010-07-27	Feature Freeze (all features have to be approved and in a satisfying state.)
2010-08-03	Alpha Change deadline (all changes will have to be pushed by this time. pending submissions are insufficient.)
2010-08-17	Alpha Release
2010-09-07	Beta Change deadline (all changes will have to be pushed by this time. pending submissions are insufficient.)
2010-09-21	Beta Release
2010-10-12	Final Freeze (all changes have to be pushed. no further changes permitted.)
2010-10-14	Compose Release Candidate
2010-10-26	Sugar on a Stick v.4.0 Final Release

Contributor stories

To find out what other contributors are doing, check out Planet Sugar Labs, where contributors to Sugar Labs and the Sugar on a Stick project aggregate their blogs. You can also add your own blog to the Planet.

Related work

There are other portable Sugar distributions that have similar goals that you may be interested in checking out. While these projects are not part of Sugar on a Stick, we watch them closely and try to work with them when possible (or at least we're trying to learn!)