Difference between revisions of "Sugar Labs/Current Events"

Revision as of 09:45, 17 March 2010

What's new

This page is updated each week (usually on Monday morning) with notes from the Sugar Labs community. (The digest is also sent to the community-news at sugarlabs.org list, blogged at walterbender.org, and archived here.) If you would like to contribute, please send email to walter at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit planet.sugarlabs.org.)

Sugar Digest

1. Simon Schampijer announce that our 0.88 Release Candidate is ready for testing. We are in "Code Freeze", only critical bug fixes can be landed now. Any testing would be greatly appreciated. You can access the latest bits for testing using sugar-jhbuild (update and build) or downloading a Sugar-on-a-Stick image from http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/soas/. There is also a Karmic-based ppa for use on Ubuntu (See Community/Distributions/Ubuntu#Sugar-0.88_on_Ubuntu_9.10_.28karmic.29).

Simon has begun pulling together release notes (See 0.88/Notes).

Many thanks to Simon, our release manager, and the many community members who have contributed to this release, including Sascha Silbe and Aleksey Lim, both of whom have been relentless in closing tickets.

It is worth noting that many of the new features and "under-the-hood" improvements in this release have come from "local lab" efforts. For example, teams in Uruguay and Paraguay have led much of the development efforts. This is due in large part to the steadfastness of Tomeu Vizoso and Bernie Innocenti, both of whom have been working hard to help local efforts better integrate with the Sugar upstream project. This highly distributed model, where problems are identified on the ground and largely addressed locally, but then integrated with the upstream project is a powerful and sustainable model for Sugar.

2. Tim McNamara, our Google Summer of Code coordinator has been hard at work. He has submitted our application and is now busy with the recruitment process. You can learn more about how you might participate in this year's program by visiting Summer_of_Code. Please help spread the word to potential candidates.

3. Josh Williams has been working on a new skin for our wiki. See http://wiki-devel.sugarlabs.org/ to get a sense of where he is heading. The new theme is simple, clean, and more in keeping with the Sugar style used on our other sites.

In the community

4. LIBREPLANET begins on Friday, 19 March. You can learn more about these three dats of Free Software activism at http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/LibrePlanet2010. (I'll be participating in the program on Saturday.)

5. Ken Haase, a former colleague of mine at MIT, has been working on a new ebook reader that may be of interest to the Sugar community. You can play with it by visiting http://sbooks.net. It is built in Javascript and it has offline reading capabilities as well, which, with Lucian Branescu's patches to Browse (which hopefully will land in Release 0.90), it might make a very interesting Sugar activity. Ken is also developing a site for having children add metadata to ebooks (See http://beebooks.org for more details).

Help wanted

6. We are now advertising some "new easy to fix tickets" on http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ for anyone looking for an introductory Sugar-related programming project. (Developers, you can use the tag "sugar-love" to get tickets added to the list.

7. Bernie and Stefan Unterhauser (dogi) have asked if anyone would be willing to step forward to take over maintanence of any of the following:

http://planet.sugarlabs.org/ (and switch it to Planet Venus!)
http://git.sugarlabs.org/ (major upgrade needed!)
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/ (not a lot of work)
http://www.sugarlabs.org/ (major revamp needed, maybe with Drupal)

Tech talk

8. Bert Freudenberg has been working on Sugar-Journal integration of Scratch.

9. Matt Gallagher has been working on Gnome-desktop integration of Turtle Art.

Sugar Labs

Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list.

Community News archive

An archive of this digest is available.

Planet

The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.

Sugar in the news

18 Feb 2010	LWN – Karma targets easier creation of educational software
05 Feb 2010	iprofesional – La PC barata de Negroponte desembarca en la Argentina para pelear contra Intel
14 Jan 2010	AALF – Open Systems for Broader Change
14 Dec 2009	xconomy – Sugar gets sweeter
10 Dec 2009	Ars Technica – Sugar software environment gets sweeter with version 2
09 Dec 2009	Wired – New Sugar on a Stick Brings Much Needed Improvements
08 Dec 2009	engadget – Sugar on a Stick OS goes to 2.0, gets Blueberry coating and creamy Fedora 12 center (video)
07 Dec 2009	Teleread.org – Sugar on a Stick: What it means for e-books and education
27 Nov 2009	CNET Japan – 「コードを見せて、もっと良くなるよ」と言える子どもが生まれる--Sugar Labsが描く未来
16 Nov 2009	zanichelli – software libero a scuola
12 Nov 2009	opensuse.org – openSUSE 11.2 Released
07 Nov 2009	My Broadband News – Mandriva 2010 packs a punch [and Sugar]
06 Nov 2009	GhanaWeb – Open education and an IT-enabled economic growth in Ghana: Musings of a dutiful citizen
09 Oct 2009	interdisciplines – OLPC and Sugar: mobility through the community
08 Oct 2009	IBM developerWorks – 10 important Linux developments everyone should know about
01 Oct 2009	OLPC France – Interview Walter Bender au SugarCamp
25 Sep 2009	The Inquirer – One Laptop per Child marches on
18 Sep 2009	Groklaw – The Role of Free Software in Education
18 Sep 2009	Reuters – Sugar Labs and Free Software Foundation Celebrate Software Freedom Day
17 Sep 2009	ICTDev.org – Dream Again with One Laptop per Child
26 Aug 2009	Latinux – Azúcar en una memoria USB
03 Aug 2009	Wired: Geek Dad – Inventing a New Paradigm: SugarLabs and the Sugar UI
30 Jul 2009	Zanichelli – Sugar on a Stick: imparare insieme
23 Jul 2009	Everything USB – RecycleUSB.com - Donate your Flash Drives for a Good Cause
22 Jul 2009	OLPC France – Sugar : mauvaise presse et mise au point
13 Jul 2009	Spiegel Online – Das zuckersüße Leichtbau-Linux
07 Jul 2009	ComputerWorldUK – Gran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts
06 Jul 2009	Windows Forest – USBメモリなどから“OLPC”用のOSを利用できる「Sugar on a Stick」が無償公開
02 Jul 2009	Howard County Library – Sugar on a Stick
27 Jun 2009	Deutschlandfunk – Süßes für die Kleinen: Sugar ist Linux speziell für Kinder (in Deutsch)
26 Jun 2009	EduTech – Sugar on a stick, and other delectables (praise for the lowly USB drive)
26 Jun 2009	Ars Technica – Sugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms
24 Jun 2009	BBC – OLPC software to power aging PCs
24 Jun 2009	Technology Review – $100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC
15 Jun 2009	TechSavvyKids – Episode 10 FOSSVT: Sugar on a Stick (audio)
10 Jun 2009	LWN.net – Sugar moves from the shadow of OLPC
27 May 2009	LWN.net – Activities and the move to context-oriented desktops (subscriber link)
27 May 2009	Business Wire – Dailymotion Launches Support for Open Video Formats and Video HTML Tag
01 May 2009	Guysoft – Nokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar
29 Apr 2009	El Mercurio – Así se vivió la fiesta del software libre
27 Apr 2009	ostatic – Sugar on a Stick: Good for Kids' Minds (and School Budgets)
25 Apr 2009	Free Software Magazine – The Bittersweet Facts about OLPC and Sugar
24 Apr 2009	Ars Technica – First taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform
22 Apr 2009	Betanews – Beta of Live USB Sugar OS opens
27 Mar 2009	Mass High Tech – Google promotes summer open-source internships
18 Mar 2009	Metropolis – A Good Argument
16 Mar 2009	Laptop Magazine – Sugar Labs’ New Version of Sugar Learning Platform Is Netbook and PC Ready
16 Mar 2009	Market Watch – Sugar Labs Nonprofit Announces New Version of Sugar Learning Platform for Children, Runs on Netbooks and PCs
14 Feb 2009	OLPC Learning Club – DC – Learning Learning on a Stick
05 Feb 2009	xconomy – Sugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
26 Jan 2009	Linus Magazine – Sugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
19 Jan 2009	Feeding the Penguins – The status of Sugar, post-OLPC
16 Jan 2009	OLPC News – Sugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
12 Jan 2009	Bill Kerr – thoughts about olpc cutbacks
07 Jan 2009	Ars Technica – OLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
06 Jan 2009	OLPC News – An Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
30 Dec 2008	OLPC News – Sugar Labs Status at Six Months
22 Dec 2008	The GNOME Project – Sugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
16 Dec 2008	Feeding the Penguins – Sugar git repository change
14 Dec 2008	NPR – Laptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
13 Dec 2008	NPR – Laptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
09 Dec 2008	SFC – Sugar Labs joins Conservancy
31 Oct 2008	Linux Devices – An OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
10 Oct 2008	Feeding the Penguin – Sugar on Ubuntu
21 Sep 2008	Groklaw – Interview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
17 Sep 2008	Bill Kerr – Sugar Labs
16 Sep 2008	Open Source – Sugar everywhere
28 Aug 2008	OLPC News – An answer to Walter Bender's question 22
20 Aug 2008	OLPC News – Sugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
08 Aug 2008	Investor's Business Daily – 'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
06 Aug 2008	OLPC News – Twenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
18 Jul 2008	Bill Kerr – evaluating Sugar in the developed world
28 Jun 2008	OLPC News – A Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
18 Jun 2008	PC World – OLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
17 Jun 2008	Datamation – If Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
11 Jun 2008	LinuxInsider – The Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
06 Jun 2008	Bill Kerr – untangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
06 Jun 2008	Open Education – Walter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
06 Jun 2008	BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
05 Jun 2008	Code Culture – The Distraction Machine
05 Jun 2008	BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
27 May 2008	The New York Times – Why Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
26 May 2008	Ars Technica – OLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
22 May 2008	BetaNews – Linux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
16 May 2008	OSTATIC – OLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
16 May 2008	PCWorld – Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
16 May 2008	MHT – Bender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
16 May 2008	News.com – Sugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
16 May 2008	Feeding the Peguins – The future of Sugar
16 May 2008	Sugar list – A few thoughts on SugarLabs
16 May 2008	xconomy – Bender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
16 May 2008	BBC – '$100 laptop' platform moves on
15 May 2008	OLPC wiki – Dual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
16 May 2008	Softpedia – Bender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI

Press releases

See our Press Page

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 This page is updated each week (usually on Monday morning) with notes from the Sugar Labs community. (The digest is also sent to the community-news at sugarlabs.org list, blogged at [http://walterbender.org/ walterbender.org], and [[Sugar Labs/Current Events/Archive|archived here]].) If you would like to contribute, please send email to [[User:walter|walter]] at sugarlabs.org by the weekend. (Also visit <span class="plainlinks">[http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet.sugarlabs.org].</span>)
-===Sugar Digest===
+==Sugar Digest==
-. activities.sugarlabs.org (ASLO) has been the subject of much discussion of the past few weeks. One thread has been in regard to making ASLO a place where not only Sugar developers upload their activities, but where Sugar learners upload the media objects that they create with Sugar activities. For example, a place for children to upload and share their Turtle Art projects or Physics simulations. A second thread has been in regard to whether or not to allow activities to be uploaded onto ASLO that contain non-Sugar dependencies. An example might be an architecture-specific binary file that is included in a .xo bundle or simply a dependence on a library that is not part of the core Sugar distribution. The arguments for such restrictions have to do with robustness and user experience. We don't want users to download activities that subsequently don't run, either because of an architecture mis-match or a missing dependency. We also want to be very careful about automatically pulling in dependencies because bandwidth and local storage are extremely limited for many Sugar users. However, from the beginning, Sugar has accommodated activities with dependencies external to the Sugar core: Etoys, Write, and Browse being three examples. And with the growth of the netbook market and innovations such as Sugar on a Stick, it is inevitable that Sugar users will be using a wide variety of architectures. (For example, OLPC is exploring the use of ARM processors in their laptops.) And, while we want to provide a consistent and substantial learning experience within Sugar itself, the extent to which we can be inclusive of other learning activities gives Sugar users the ability to reach further than they would otherwise. None of this suggests that we are abandoning the idea of a learning platform that provides a collection of affordances to the learner, such as the Journal, collaboration, and view source; Sugar (Sucrose and Fructose) is mostly written in Python with a consistent user experience across all of its activities; but our learning community should not have artificial walls and ceiling.
+. Simon Schampijer announce that our 0.88 Release Candidate is ready for testing. We are in "Code Freeze", only critical bug fixes can be landed now. Any testing would be greatly appreciated. You can access the latest bits for testing using sugar-jhbuild (update and build) or downloading a Sugar-on-a-Stick image from http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/soas/. There is also a Karmic-based ppa for use on Ubuntu (See [[Community/Distributions/Ubuntu#Sugar-0.88_on_Ubuntu_9.10_.28karmic.29]]).
-In a [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2010-March/022819.html post] that ties the two threads together, Ben Schwartz wrote:
+Simon has begun pulling together release notes (See [[0.88/Notes]]).
-:If Sugar is working as intended, 99% of Activities will be crap. This is because the purpose of Sugar is to invite novices to engage actively in software development. Novices make bad stuff, and we want to install and run that stuff.
+Many thanks to Simon, our release manager, and the many community members who have contributed to this release, including Sascha Silbe and Aleksey Lim, both of whom have been relentless in closing tickets.
-Or put another way, we want our learners to engage in creating and debugging, sharing their creations and engaging in a dialog about their creations. Developers learn by doing and so do children. ASLO is not just a portal for developers, it is a portal for learners.
+It is worth noting that many of the new features and "under-the-hood" improvements in this release have come from "local lab" efforts. For example, teams in Uruguay and Paraguay have led much of the development efforts. This is due in large part to the steadfastness of Tomeu Vizoso and Bernie Innocenti, both of whom have been working hard to help local efforts better integrate with the Sugar upstream project. This highly distributed model, where problems are identified on the ground and largely addressed locally, but then integrated with the upstream project is a powerful and sustainable model for Sugar.
-Aleksey Lim (alsroot) solicited a policy statement from SLOB regarding the hosting of activity bundles with non-Sugar dependencies on activities.sugarlabs.org.
+. Tim McNamara, our Google Summer of Code coordinator has been hard at work. He has submitted our application and is now busy with the recruitment process. You can learn more about how you might participate in this year's program by visiting [[Summer_of_Code]]. Please help spread the word to potential candidates.
-The Sugar Oversight Board passed a motion that: (1) Bundles with non-Sugar dependencies be clearly marked in ASLO; (2) We work towards a mechanism for supporting access to non-Sugar dependencies—a specific endorsement of being open; and (3) We do not restrict ASLO while we progress towards #2.
+. Josh Williams has been working on a new skin for our wiki. See http://wiki-devel.sugarlabs.org/ to get a sense of where he is heading. The new theme is simple, clean, and more in keeping with the Sugar style used on our other sites.
-Mel Chua raised the question of support. I argued that this was a question orthogonal to architecture and dependencies, but that we clearly should make it clear to our user community that certain activities are supported. We'll be discussing the details at our next meeting.
+===In the community===
+. LIBREPLANET begins on Friday, 19 March. You can learn more about these three dats of Free Software activism at http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/LibrePlanet2010. (I'll be participating in the program on Saturday.)
+. Ken Haase, a former colleague of mine at MIT, has been working on a new ebook reader that may be of interest to the Sugar community. You can play with it by visiting http://sbooks.net. It is built in Javascript and it has offline reading capabilities as well, which, with Lucian Branescu's patches to Browse (which hopefully will land in Release 0.90), it might make a very interesting Sugar activity. Ken is also developing a site for having children add metadata to ebooks (See http://beebooks.org for more details).
-. We are pulling together our Google Summer of Code proposal and will be looking for mentors from the community. If you are interested in being a mentor, please contact Tim McNamara (timclicks on IRC; paperless AT timmcnamara DOT co DOT nz).
+===Help wanted===
-===In the community===
+. We are now advertising some "new easy to fix tickets" on http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ for anyone looking for an introductory Sugar-related programming project. (Developers, you can use the tag "sugar-love" to get tickets added to the list.
+. Bernie and Stefan Unterhauser (dogi) have asked if anyone would be willing to step forward to take over maintanence of any of the following:
+* http://planet.sugarlabs.org/ (and switch it to Planet Venus!)
+* http://git.sugarlabs.org/ (major upgrade needed!)
+* http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/ (not a lot of work)
+* http://www.sugarlabs.org/ (major revamp needed, maybe with Drupal)
+===Tech talk===
+. Bert Freudenberg has been working on Sugar-Journal integration of Scratch.
-. Things are moving quickly in Argentina. Gonzalo Odiard has been blogging about their progress in La Rioja at [http://godiard.blogspot.com/ 1] (Also see [http://www.idukay.edu.ar/dirprimaria/ 2])
+. Matt Gallagher has been working on Gnome-desktop integration of Turtle Art.
 ===Sugar Labs===
-. Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see [[:File:2010-Feb-27-Mar-5-som.jpg|SOM]]).
+<gallery>
+:File:2010-Mar-6-12-som.jpg|Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list.
+</gallery>
-=== Community News archive ===
+== Community News archive ==
 An '''[[Sugar Labs/Current Events/Archive|archive]]''' of this digest is available.