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[[Category:Activity Team]]

[[Category:Activity Team]]

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== Zero Sugar Distribution ==

== Zero Sugar Distribution ==

Sugar Services provides transparent for users and convenient for activity developers method to support activity dependencies across varying platforms (and their varying dependencies) as well as across Sugar releases. In other words, Services is a common deployment system for activity developers needs.

Sugar Services provides a method that is transparent for users and convenient for activity developers to support activity dependencies across varying platforms (and their varying dependencies) as well as across Sugar releases. In other words, Services is a common deployment system for activity developers' needs.

See [[Documentation Team/Services/Scalable development model|Scalable development model]] to know more about initial purposes of Sugar Services.

See [[Documentation Team/Services/Scalable development model|Scalable development model]] to learn more about the initial intentions for Sugar Services.

== Workflows ==

== Workflows ==

Sugar Services looks different depending upon your point of view:

Sugar Services look different depending upon your point of view:

=== Users ===

=== Users ===

In the case of a poor Internet connection (and implemented [[Features/Zero_Install_integration|Zero Install integration]] feature), users can switch to offline mode and won't encounter any changes in their regular workflow. Switching to online mode brings additional progress bar to the launch dialog for activities that have pending/not-yet-downloaded/out-dated activity dependencies.

In the case of a poor Internet connection (and a [[Features/Zero Sugar Activities|Zero Sugar Activities]]-implemented feature), users can switch to offline mode and they won't encounter any changes to their regular workflow. Switching to online mode will bring an additional progress bar to the launch dialog for activities that have pending/not-yet-downloaded/out-dated activity dependencies.

=== Activity developers ===

=== Activity developers ===

Sugar Services makes sense for activities that have non-Sugar Platform dependencies or support more then one Sucrose release cycle.

Sugar Services make sense for activities that have non-Sugar Platform dependencies or support more then one Sucrose release cycle.

To utilize the benefits of Services, activity developer need only to [[Activity Team/Documentation/Services/Activity Developers Guide|mention]] all services that their activity is using. Services infrastructure will provide specified services (and specified versions) for the activity and [[Documentation_Team/Services/Activity_Developers_Guide#Attaching_dependencies_to_activity|will let activity know]] about them.

To utilize the benefits of Services, activity developers need only to [[Activity Team/Documentation/Services/Activity Developers Guide|mention]] all services that their activity is using. The Services infrastructure will provide specified services (and specified versions) for the activity and [[Documentation_Team/Services/Activity_Developers_Guide#Attaching_dependencies_to_activity|the service will let the activity know]] about them.

Sugar Services let activity developers:

Sugar Services will let activity developers:

* use dependencies that are not intended to be included to [[0.86/Platform_Components|Sugar Platform]]

* use dependencies that are not intended to be included in the [[0.86/Platform_Components|Sugar Platform]],

** including libraries that are used by only a few activities; or

** include libraries that are used by only a few activities; or

** have shorter or longer release/support schedules than Sucrose;

** have shorter or longer release/support schedules than Sucrose;

* deploy dependencies that are specific to particular activity; for example, some Python activities include C libraries—by using Services, an activity developer need not bundle these binaries, they could be used as regular activity dependencies.

* deploy dependencies that are specific to a particular activity; for example, some Python activities include C libraries—by using Services, an activity developer need not bundle these binaries, they could be used as regular activity dependencies.

See [[Documentation_Team/Services/Activity Developers Guide|Activity Developers Guide]] to know how to add service dependencies to your activity.

See the [[Documentation_Team/Services/Activity Developers Guide|Activity Developers Guide]] to know how to add service dependencies to your activity.

=== All Sugar developers ===

=== All Sugar developers ===

Services are intended to decentralize Sugar development process. If you have some idea in mind, you can start pushing it through the Sucrose release queue to get it in the next (maybe not nearest) release. However, since the release process is binary—either your feature is included or not—Services offers more flexibility. For example:

Services are intended to decentralize the Sugar development process. If you have some idea in mind, you can start pushing it through the Sucrose release queue to get it into an upcoming (maybe not the nearest) release. However, since the release process is binary—either your feature is included or not—Services offers more flexibility. For example:

* some features are of arguable general benefit; Sugar Services would allow interested end users to efficiently test (and even deploy) such features;

* some features are of arguable general benefit; Sugar Services would allow interested end users to efficiently test (and even deploy) such features;

* some feature are only stable in limited environments; Sugar Services would allow deployment in limited environmets without the risk of destabilizing the rest of Sugar.

* some feature are only stable in limited environments; Sugar Services would allow deployment in limited environmets without the risk of destabilizing the rest of Sugar.

* letting users of all deployed Sucrose releases benefit from your new feature instead of having it only in a specific (latest) Sucrose release; for example [[Documentation_Team/Services/Activity_Triggers|Activity Triggers]] services;

* letting users of all deployed Sucrose releases benefit from your new feature instead of having it only in a specific (latest) Sucrose release; for example [[Documentation_Team/Services/Activity_Triggers|Activity Triggers]] services;

See [[Activity Team/Documentation/Services/Service Developers Guide|Service Developers Guide]] to know how to create service.

See [[Activity Team/Documentation/Services/Service Developers Guide|Service Developers Guide]] to learn how to create a service.

=== GNU/Linux distributions ===

=== GNU/Linux distributions ===

The [[0.86/Platform_Components|Sugar Platform]] cannot grow endlessly e.g. installing sugar from packages should not fetch a half of all available packages including several UI toolkits, several programming languages etc., so components like Qt or Ruby are (at least at present) out of Sugar Platform list. But with Sugar Services, activities can still use such dependencies by installing them from native packaging systems by demand and without bundling binaries.

The [[0.86/Platform_Components|Sugar Platform]] cannot grow endlessly, e.g., installing sugar from packages should not fetch half of all available packages including several UI toolkits, several programming languages, etc., so components like Qt or Ruby are (at least at present) out of the Sugar Platform list. But with Sugar Services, activities can still use such dependencies by installing them from native packaging systems on demand and without bundling binaries.

See [[Documentation_Team/Services/Native_packages_usage|Native packages usage]] to know how to utilize native packages in your activity or service.

See [[Documentation_Team/Services/Native_packages_usage|Native packages usage]] to know how to utilize native packages in your activity or service.

* It is ''not'' intended to cure all ills.

* It is ''not'' intended to cure all ills.

* It is ''not'' "must have" for activity developers; use it only if you really [[#Work_flows|need]] it.

* It is ''not'' a "must have" for activity developers; use it only if you really [[#Work_flows|need]] it.

* Is is ''not'' a replacement for GNU/Linux distributions Sugar packaging efforts; Sugar Services places no need for special treatment regarding dependencies as part of the [[0.86/Platform_Components|Sugar Platform]].

* Is is ''not'' a replacement for GNU/Linux distributions' Sugar packaging efforts; Sugar Services places no need for special treatment regarding dependencies as part of the [[0.86/Platform_Components|Sugar Platform]].

* It is ''not'' intended to be used to support large packages (such as Qt or Firefox) in parallel with distributions. Sugar Services should ''not'' be used to avert scenarios such as ''"It is too bad that you don't have Firefox-3.5 in your three-year-old distribution and cannot run last Browse activity."'' In such cases, we should require that users update their distribution and Sugar Platform to more recent versions.

* It is ''not'' intended to be used to support large packages (such as Qt or Firefox) in parallel with distributions. Sugar Services should ''not'' be used to avert scenarios such as ''"It is too bad that you don't have Firefox-3.5 in your three-year-old distribution and cannot run the latest Browse activity."'' In such cases, we should require that users update their distribution and Sugar Platform to more recent versions.

=== How is Sugar Services different? ===

=== How is Sugar Services different? ===

* ''From the point of view of [http://0install.net/ 0install]:'' Sugar Services is just a method to create 0install infrastructure; think about "apt" vs. "dpkg" or "yum" vs. "rpm". In other words, Sugar Services are an analog of [http://0install.net/0release.html 0release] command localized to Sugar needs.

* ''From the point of view of [http://0install.net/ 0install]:'' Sugar Services is just a method to create a 0install infrastructure; think about "apt" vs. "dpkg" or "yum" vs. "rpm". In other words, Sugar Services are an analog of the [http://0install.net/0release.html 0release] command localized to Sugar needs.

* ''From the point of view of [http://www.packagekit.org/ PackageKit]:'' PackageKit provides a distribution-agnostic method to install already packaged software. Via 0install, Sugar Services let users install unpackaged software as well. More over, 0install will use PackageKit to install missed dependencies if they present in user's distribution.

* ''From the point of view of [http://www.packagekit.org/ PackageKit]:'' PackageKit provides a distribution-agnostic method to install already packaged software. Via 0install, Sugar Services let users install unpackaged software as well. Moreover, 0install will use PackageKit to install missing dependencies if they present in a user's distribution.

* ''From the point of view of GNU/Linux distributions'': see the 0install [http://0install.net/goals.html original goals].

* ''From the point of view of GNU/Linux distributions'': see the 0install [http://0install.net/goals.html original goals].

Start your exploration with:

Start your exploration with:

* [[Documentation Team/Services/Activity Developers Guide|Activity Developers Guide]] to get instructions how to use already created services

* [[Documentation Team/Services/Activity Developers Guide|Activity Developers Guide]] to get instructions how to use the already created services.

* [[Documentation Team/Services/Service Developers Guide|Service Developers Guide]] how to build new service or wrap upstream project to make it useful for sugar developers

* [[Documentation Team/Services/Service Developers Guide|Service Developers Guide]] for how to build a new service or wrap an upstream project to make it useful for sugar developers.

Or open [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Category:Services/Documentation documentation] category.

Or open the [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Category:Services/Documentation services documentation] category page.

== List of services ==

== List of services ==

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{{Special:PrefixIndex/{{PAGENAME}}/}}

To see entirely list of services, go to http://download.sugarlabs.org/services/.

To see the entire list of services, go to http://download.sugarlabs.org/services/.

== TODO ==

== TODO ==