Oversight Board/2010/Meeting Log-2010-03-26

<mchua> SLOBs in an hour?

• mchua:heads to do those overdue to-do items before then

<mchua> SeanDaly: wrt the trademark call - who would you say *must* be there? I have you, Walter, and Karen right now.

SeanDaly: And we'll try to get as many of the other SLOBs on the line as possible, but it's the sort of thing where... for instance, if I can't make it, that's ok, but if you can't make it, the call shouldn't be at that time.

<SeanDaly> Hi mchua, what trademark call would that be?

<mchua> SeanDaly: The one I was supposed to schedule last week :)

SeanDaly: In advance of you coming to Boston, we were going to try a conference call to discuss the trademark question, hopefully with Karen (or some lawyer who groks trademark law) present, to see if we can figure things out in advance of the in-person SLOBs fest in April.

<SeanDaly> ok i see

<mchua> SeanDaly: one of my action items from http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/Meeting_Log-2010-03-12 that got bumped later last week.

<SeanDaly> jt4sugar has offered to work up a Marketing position paper on the issue

<mchua> ...did I just say "in advance" twice? Yes. Yes I did.

• mchua:may need to get more sleep.

<SeanDaly> the main opposition is coming from cjb

<mchua> SeanDaly: Ok, I'll add Chris to the "must be on the call" list - anyone else?

<walterbender> in my discussions with Karen, this is more of a policy issue than a legal one... we need to decide on a plocy and she will help us with the legal details afterward...

yes, cjb is a must

<SeanDaly> I believe his position is that vetting potential tm licensees is counter to the principles of free software

hi walterbender

<walterbender> hi SeanDaly

<mchua> We'll gather resources and publish notes and questions and an agenda and such before the meeting so folks not on the call can chime in... things like John's position paper will be uber-helpful for that.

<SeanDaly> it's a bit of a leap of faith issue

<mchua> (Hurrah to John for writing that up, btw - I'm looking forward to reading it. It's a new way of thinking, for me.)

• mchua:nods

<SeanDaly> mchua: whoa, it's still just an idea as of 2 days ago ;-)

<mchua> SeanDaly: Yep, hence the "looking forward to it" ;)

<SeanDaly> cjb says: why do tm any differently from software?

<mchua> cjb: Would you be willing to represent that viewpoint on the call?

I can think of a few others (myself included) who seem to agree with cjb, but I think he's probably the person among us who can make the best case for it and is likely to be able to schedule something in.

<SeanDaly> whereas, without the possibility of guarding tm, most marketing efforts go out the window

<mchua> SeanDaly: How helpful would it be to hear from other FOSS projects with tm policies why they made the choices that they did?

<SeanDaly> software<> trademarks (just ask Toyota)

<mchua> Directly, I mean? (We've been citing other projects as examples, but that's different from someone who's made this decision before come in and answer questions.)

s/come/coming

s/answer/answering

<SeanDaly> mchua: only helpful FOSS projects on this issue are the successful ones, which means Firefox and maybe Ubuntu

<mchua> Okay, how helpful would it be to ask those people?

• mchua:hopes Fedora is successful - it's certainly served Red Hat well, in any case. ;)

<mchua> Though I know your criteria may be different from mine. ;)

<SeanDaly> ubuntu is a special universe because of Canonical funding model

<mchua> Sure, and they still have a trademark and policies around it.

<SeanDaly> with funds like we could certainly go quite far in brand building

Firefox the far better example

they came from 0% marketshare to 10, 20, 30% with very high brand recognition

<mchua> SeanDaly: btw, do you read Chris Grams's blog? You might enjoy it - http://darkmattermatters.com/

• mchua:nods
• SeanDaly:looking

<SeanDaly> very interesting will need to follow that

<mchua> he writes about branding and marketing and open source, and has some interesting perspectives on it... might also be a good person to ask.

<SeanDaly> mozilla took a "mindshare" drubbing following the iceweasel controversy

well, any marketer worth her salt will try to explain to everyone else why you need to guard your tms

<mchua> I don't think Chris would disagree with that.

(Either Chris Grams or Chris Ball.)

I think the only thing cjb and others have been trying to point out is that there are different ways of guarding trademarks, and we may want to consider options that most companies usually don't (or won't).

<SeanDaly> No, ChrisB disagrees with that I'm afraid

<mchua> We can wait for him to get back and then ask. :)

• mchua:needs to get some breakfast, brb

<SeanDaly> licensing to anybody with an e-mail isn't gusarding any tm, in my view

guarding

What I want to do is not Firefox's model, either, so there are limits to the inspiration that can be drawn from that side

<walterbender> mchua: back from breakfast?

SeanDaly: are you still here?

• mchua:just got back, cleaning up goals section

<walterbender> bernie: left for caapupe yet?

cjb up and about yet?

haven't seen tomeu yet today

or Adam

hmm... not a quorum yet... of course, yet again I forgot to send a reminder

• walterbender:needs a reminder to send reminders

<mchua> walterbender: You could use an automatic email thingy like http://lettermelater.com.

<mchua> At some point I want to hack up a web frontend for a cron job to do that sort of thing - it's useful enough that there should be a FOSS version, but I haven't found one.

(that's on my long list of "hacks that would be cool but which I don't have time to do," thought.)

er, though.

<SeanDaly> hi i'm here

caffeinated

<walterbender> just the three of us...

SeanDaly, mchua: bernie is preparing a note to SoaS re Blueberry respin

<SeanDaly> walterbender: no ticket yet since plan not finalized... I may wish to swing through NYC to see family, if so will try to meet Gerald A

<walterbender> The gist of the idea is to get someone in the community to take over maintenance of older builds and keep them current with the Fedora patches...

• mchua:nods

<mchua> that's a soas decision though, not a slobs one, right?

<SeanDaly> walterbender: older SoaS builds?

<walterbender> mchua: (a) we are not in a SLOBs meeting yet; (b) marketing would want to know about this

• sdziallas:is lurking.

<SeanDaly> (b) for sure

• SeanDaly:greets sdziallas

<mchua> walterbender: aye, just pointing it out :)

• sdziallas:waves to SeanDaly

<walterbender> actually, anyone who wants to is able to make a respin of SoaS; it is FOSS after all :)

so a question is one of marketing and branding... and one of sustainability

<sdziallas> walterbender: bernie is very welcome to do that :) - we've been discussing the naming of such a respin, though.

<walterbender> sdziallas: agreed. needs to be discussed. I was just giving Sean a heads up that this was on the table

<sdziallas> yup yup :)

<walterbender> Personally, I think it is a win that people are willing to pick up and maintain the older spins...

<mchua> +1

<sdziallas> walterbender: I agree with this, clearly. It'd be very helpful. If this really includes maintainance and taking of bugs and stuff for the release, it'd be awesome.

<walterbender> and I think that keeping Blueberry current with the Fedora patches takes a lot of pressure off of the Mirabelle effort

• sdziallas:can't type today. "taking *care* of bugs". sorry.

<mchua> I think the thing to keep an eye on would be making sure the Blueberry-respin convo/tickets/etc. goes to the Blueberry-respin maintainer, not to sdziallas (who's out for the next month anyway).

s/goes/go

• mchua:has no grammar skillz today

<walterbender> Correct me if I am wrong, but Fedora, like other distros, tends to issue patches after releases, because the release is never perfect

<sdziallas> certainly ;)

<mchua> Yep, we've got updates.

• SeanDaly:has patched Fedora 12 300+ times, and it's a pain in the neck since I have no connectivity at home

<walterbender> so in some sense, the prior release, with patches, would tend in the short term to be more stable

<mchua> (Some people say too many updates, but... that's another discussion.)

<walterbender> so let me pose a strawman for discussion sake

<cjb> oops, sorry I'm late

<walterbender> we make clear in our marketing that we have the latest and greatest, Mirabelle, and a stable version of Blueberry.

• SeanDaly:greets cjb

<walterbender> cjb: we were waiting for a quorum, so we didn't start the meeting yet.

<cjb> cool. Reading scrollback, that's not quite my view on TMs:

<SeanDaly> Mirabelle not latest & greatest unless Activities in there....

• SeanDaly:will stand corrected

<cjb> I make a strong distinction between TM use for software redistribution, and TM use for everything else (products, websites)

I have no quarrel with manual review of TM use for products or websites

<mchua> Well, latest and greatest for a certain audience. I think fewer Activities is better right now, but I'm an engineer. ;)

"latest and greatest for contributors looking for a stable platform to build upon," perhaps.

<cjb> I do think that a free software product that demands manual TM review is not really a free software project, because the TM license is effectively subverting the freedoms that the free software copyright license is trying to give

<SeanDaly> mchua: no dispute there, just not for teachers

cjb: the code is free though

<mchua> SeanDaly: No dispute there - you're right, it's not for teachers.

<walterbender> mchua: but a respin of Blueberry (with SDZ's latest helper CD) would be a good tool for teachers.

and if we can relieve sdziallas of some of the support burden, all the better.

so I pose it as a challenge to marketing how to communicate this idea

• SeanDaly:fully supports lightening sdz burden

<cjb> SeanDaly: yeah, it's true. I still think it's problematic, though.

<SeanDaly> walterbender: if not suitable for teachers, my idea to

skip mass-media campaign and do community-contributor recruitment campaign instead

<cjb> (so, to summarize: I don't want to license our trademarks to anyone with an e-mail address under any circumstances, I want to license our trademarks to anyone with an e-mail address who is merely trying to take advantage of their free-software freedom to distribute our code)

<SeanDaly> issue then is numbering, nontrivial for marketing success

<mchua> So - community-contributor recruiting is the sort of thing I do for $dayjob. I could try to take some of that on.

I'm not good at the marketing-to-users thing; that's why SeanDaly is magical. :) But I can get people to help.

The thing is - and maybe I'm nitpicking here - it's going to be confusing to contributors to not call Mirabelle v.3.0, at least for internal development.

<SeanDaly> not magical, just doing marketing with marketing approach (not engineering approach hee hee)

<mchua> Because for us, the folks working on it, it's a very different thing from v.2.0 Blueberry.

It won't be the third thing Marketing markets, but it's the third thing engineering's working on.

I'm not sure how to resolve that, though.

SeanDaly: *grin* well, I think marketers doing marketing are magical, because you folks do things that I can't understand - it's great to see.

<walterbender> SeanDaly: personally, I think that we should stick with v3 simply because we will keep consistent with all the other numbering schemes... and with Cloudberry, v4, we can explain to those who ask about v3 that it was a stablization effort and a time to fold our work into the Fedora framework as oppose to a mass release.

<SeanDaly> mchua: given the choice between possibly confusing the handful of people working on SoaS, and the hundreds of thousands of teachers we are trying to reach, i would prefer the former risk

<cjb> tomeu: hey hey

<walterbender> I could #startmeeting, I suppose

<SeanDaly> I still remember SoaS-1, SoaS-2 (which became v1 as you remember)

<tomeu> hi, my irc client disconnected without telling me so :/

<walterbender> and pull the backlog into the notes on the wiki for reference.

1. startmeeting

<SeanDaly> hi tomeu

<meeting> Meeting started at 11:28 UTC. The chair is walterbender.

Commands Available: #TOPIC, #IDEA, #ACTION, #AGREED, #LINK

<walterbender> could everyone please wave :)

• tomeu:waves
• cjb:wave
• SeanDaly:does the wave

<walterbender> our wave is bouncing back and forth across the Atlantic

<SeanDaly> standing waves

• tomeu:imagines a tsunami of brown sugar

<walterbender> We've been discussing SoaS and TM... I'd like to also discuss the general topic of sustainability.

• mchua:waves

<walterbender> but let's focus on SoaS discussion for a moment.

1. topic SoaS

<mchua> walterbender: what's the rest of the agenda? soas and tm is all?

<walterbender> mchua: + sustainability

<sdziallas> that sounds like I should be paying attention ;)

<walterbender> I don't know that we have any decisions to make today, but I want to make sure people on the board have a heads up as to what is going on... lots.

• mchua:digs up links to mailing list threads

-->|:CanoeBerry (~Canoe@pool-98-116-147-84.nycmny.fios.verizon.net) has joined #sugar-meeting

<walterbender> re SoaS, just to let people know, sdziallas has set into motion a Fedora "spin" for Mirabelle

<mchua> #link http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2010-March/010395.html

<walterbender> This has ramifications short term and long term.

<mchua> That's the IAEP thread that links to the other ones.

1. link http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/soas/2010-March/000934.html

<walterbender> alas the thread got split on different lists

there is a marketing version as well.

<mchua> yeah, the link to the marketing thread is in the iaep email.

• walterbender:suggests as an aside to try to keep the thread unified if possible in the future

<walterbender> In any case, there is a more recent discussion not yet on the lists about a team separate from the SoaS team that may be willing to pick up support and maintenance of Blueberry.

<tomeu> so maintenance of a stable branch?

<walterbender> yes...

with the Fedora patches for F12 included

<tomeu> cool, I presume it's because they use it?

<walterbender> yes

<tomeu> great, that's good news for the sustainability front, as well

<walterbender> I agree

<sdziallas> I guess there's three things going on (+1 not to throw everything altogether)

and yes, I'm happy if somebody wanted to take that off my shoulders :)

<walterbender> so we were just talking about the marketing implications... and we can take the rest of that discussion back to the lists...

<SeanDaly> it sounds like great news... Activities are a moving target

<walterbender> but the point is that a good thing is happening and we should celebrate it and amplify it if we can.

<tomeu> walterbender: great idea

<walterbender> anything else for this topic we should discuss now?

<tomeu> we need to learn to replicate that in other areas

<SeanDaly> we've cited local Labs in PR previously, we need to demonstrate that we have a plan for scaling

<walterbender> tomeu: +1

SeanDaly: we should do a feature on the .py team...

<tomeu> btw, seems like the argentinan local lab is doing awesome stuff, but I don't have time to read the archives of their list now

<walterbender> they are off the charts productive

<SeanDaly> walterbender: I like the idea, since our PR has historically been weak in Spanish speaking countries (my bad I don't speak es !)

<walterbender> another aside: I meet with the MoE of .ar in a few weeks. I will coordinate with the .ar lab

<SeanDaly> great

<tomeu> great, I think they are working more with the municipal government in buenos aires

• mchua:*really* appreciates walterbender writing these sorts of things up in weekly reports, btw!

<walterbender> SeanDaly: I think we can find someone who speaks Spanish :)

<mchua> it's hard for me to keep up with all that's going on otherwise

<SeanDaly> reminder, my idea for joint OLPC PR is to showcase AR project

<tomeu> when we have a deployment team with regular meetings, I hope everybody be more aware of what happens locally

<walterbender> SeanDaly: and PY!!

tomeu: do you know if Ceibal uses IRC the way Paraguay does?

1. olpc-paraguay uses the meeting bot... etc. all their meetings are on freenode

so it is easy to interact with them in #sugar too

<mchua> To tie this into the sustainability discussion - how can we tap the contributor growth in these deployments to help us spread the load?

I know tomeu and bernie and others have been doing a lot of great work and outreach with them

<tomeu> walterbender: don't think they use irc internally

<walterbender> mchua: this is the point of highlighting the .py example...

<tomeu> walterbender: but esteban and daniel_c are in #sugar often

<walterbender> they are very systemic in their approach.

<mchua> but there seems to still be more of a bridge that could be made - core folks are still overloaded with basic tasks, it seems

ah, okay/

• mchua:sits back to listen about .py and such

<walterbender> tomeu: I don't want to diminish the .ar efforts :)

<SeanDaly> Yes .py too

<walterbender> it is cool that we have some great examples emerging... time to let the world know so they can emulate

<tomeu> walterbender: hmm, can you extend? what plays .ar here?

<walterbender> tomeu: I think that in Argentina, many of the same good things that are happening in Paraguay are also beginning to happen.

<tomeu> ah, could be

though I think they talk more often of the plan ceibal as an example

<walterbender> they just need to steal bernie for a while :)

<SeanDaly> bernie, roving Sugar ambassador

<tomeu> we should talk with gonzalo about all this, no point in us speculating what's going on there

• walterbender:heads south in October...

<walterbender> tomeu: well, I try to read their list archive... not pure speculation :)

anyway, we should move on...

briefly discuss TM?

cjb and SeanDaly were exchanging some perspectives earlier.

but can I propose an Action for marketing: to talk with .py re some PR?

• mchua:just sent a message to the SLOBs list re: scheduling a TM discussion call - will forward to iaep momentarily.

<SeanDaly> walterbender: sure

<walterbender> (and maybe a profile of our roving ambassador?)

<tomeu> walterbender: ah ok

<walterbender> #Action: Marketing will discuss with .py a PR plan to highlight their local-lab efforts.

1. topic TM

<cjb> hm, not sure how to talk about TMs more. oh, I could be clear that the latest TM policy draft on the wiki is fine with me.

<walterbender> #action: mchua will organize the voice meeting to discuss TM prior to the April face-to-face meeting.

<bernie> hello

<walterbender> cjb: I think we have exhausted our ability to discuss this topic in low-bandwidth media

<cjb> walterbender: sure, I agree.

<walterbender> bernie: ciao... do you have the backlog?

<tomeu> hi bernie

<sdziallas> hi bernie

<bernie> walterbender: yes

<SeanDaly> TM issue is a motivator for my Boston visit, I am finding imits to electronic communication

• bernie:reads

<SeanDaly> hi bernie

<walterbender> ok, so maybe we leave it at that.

<cjb> walterbender: (I think it might actually be just because we understand each other's position pretty well by now, rather than because we're not communicating well.)

<walterbender> cjb: I am not sure...

cjb: in any case, we aren't finding any middle ground

<cjb> yeah

<SeanDaly> there's an article-of-faith issue: I maintain that I can't grow the brand wiithout TM licensee vetting; like coding with no compiler

<cjb> (sometimes that just means it's time to make a decision somehow)

<walterbender> but after the face to face, it is time to give a vote and live with our decisions for a while, me thinks

<cjb>:*nod* I see.

<SeanDaly> I also maintain that it's in our interest to know testers & deployers, to get feedback & grow community

my problem is, everyone can vote marketing out of effective existence

<tomeu> in sugar we code a lot without compilers :p

faith-based computing

<bernie> sdziallas: I'll follow up with an email where I clearly explain what the goal is and why I think the naming should suggest continuation rather than forking.

<cjb> SeanDaly: I think you just have to make it as clear as possible -- hopefully the face-to-face helps -- that that's what you think they'll be doing.

<walterbender> SeanDaly: that is of course a serious consideration in the discussion.

<SeanDaly> what we're trying to do is edge-of-envelope, so as stated earlier it may be I am too ambitious for growing awareness

tomeu: touché !!

<sdziallas> bernie: that sounds fair! I'm looking forward to it :) (and I'm pretty confident that we'll have it work out)

• walterbender:though he said code without "computers"

<SeanDaly> I could have said computers... back in high school students wrote code in little notebooks since timeshare limited :D

<tomeu> heh

<walterbender> so let's grab a few remaining minutes to discuss sustainability.

• walterbender:hated punch card and batch programming :(

<walterbender> not the way to do iterative design

1. topic sustainability

I got two more grant rejections this week: from the NSF and the DML grant

I am questioning this as a model for us

<cjb> aw, sorry to hear.

<SeanDaly> ouch

any feedback concerning rejection reasons?

<walterbender> we haven't really tried the EU programs yet... maybe we could win there?

SeanDaly: nothing useful from the NSF and nothing at all from DML

part of this is a communications problem...

<SeanDaly> I neglected to debrief SLOBs on my OSOR meeting

in a phrase, they are very interested in us but consider it early days to promote us; want third-party studies re 1to1 effectiveness and Sugar as good 1to1

EU has vast number of programs

OSOR would be great reference in any EU application, and they are willing to work with us when we wish

<walterbender> I am still holding out hope for the USAID grant for a local lab in Pakistan... it would be a great model

<tomeu> in europe, I would partner with some organization that has already experience getting eu grants

<SeanDaly> walterbender: communications problem, can you elaborate?

<tomeu> but I wonder why we would need grants when: - our current operational costs are very low, - sugar is widely used and their deployers increasingly depend on SLs' operations

<walterbender> well, we have so much going on that it is hard to make clear in a grant proposal what is the relevant aspect to that grant...

<SeanDaly> tomeu: yes, since arriving back in FR last summer I have started developing contacts in FLOSS edu; lots of stuff going on & following my Solutions Linux prez I have been invited to 2 other conferences

<cjb> tomeu: funding travel to in-person confs would be a good use of grants

<walterbender> tomeu: well, I have been very specific in the what I am trying to get money for: meetings, media, specific development tasks that wouldn't happen otherwise...

<SeanDaly> tomeu: marketing/promotion/pr is expensive, I've been paying those myself but I can't go on like that

tomeu: and if we could advertise, things couls move very quickly with teachers

<walterbender> but no luck on any of these (well, actually, the Nokia grant came through but got fumbled in our interactions with the SFC)

<tomeu> cjb: yeah, but if we stop having developers, we won't have nobody to fly around

<walterbender> I want to be able to give out SoaS because it is still a roadblock for teachers to make sticks, for example...

<SeanDaly> travel funds would certainly be very useful

<tomeu> SeanDaly: I'm more worried now about keeping our current capacity than about growing it in quite open-ended ways

<walterbender> tomeu: building more relationships like you have with Collabora would go a long ways towards helping us with the status quo

and with growth...

<tomeu> basically, my main problem is that our community keeps talking about things we want to be done, but I don't think we talk enough about who will do it and for how long

<SeanDaly> tomeu: our current capacity is stretched thin and we need to grow contributors as a priority

<walterbender> tomeu: there are many exceptions to that assertion...

<tomeu> walterbender: hmm, I think collabora is kind of a one-time donation, not really sustainable

<mchua> Yeah... we have resource scarcity, but tend to need other kinds of resources more.

(er, that was re: tomeu's much earlier comment on "why do we need grants?")

<tomeu> walterbender: well, it's the impression I have

<mchua> (my screen, apparently, failed to scroll.)

<walterbender> tomeu: I agree... but getting 3rd parties interested in sustaining projects I think is part of our strategy...

<SeanDaly> I have become convinced we should recruit in schools - high schools & universities - through professors (cf jt4sugar kit proposal)

<walterbender> tomeu: those will come and go and local labs will be more consistent

<mchua> One question I wanted to raise - and this may not be the right forum for it, so I'm happy to take it elsewhere - is resources for Sugar core development itself.

<tomeu> walterbender: yes, but I think that if we have possibilities that are more sustainable, we should focus on those

<mchua> Most of our marketing has been about deployment-facing products, like Activities and SoaS.

<walterbender> SeanDaly: that too... I get lots of help these days out of Jeff Elkner's group, for example

<tomeu> mchua: I would call it maintenance

<mchua> But sugar-core needs love, and attention, and resources to - do folks working on sugar-core feel like they're getting enough of that?

<tomeu> mchua: we have lots of developers, few maintainers

<mchua> tomeu: ok, help with maintenance, then

• bernie:has to drop off again :-(

<walterbender> tomeu: is there a project where it is otherwise?

<mchua> Okay, then maybe that's another recruiting thing to look into... sugar-core maintainers.

(conbributor recruiting as opposed to user marketing.)

<tomeu> walterbender: there are projects in which downstreams understand they need to contribute to maintenance

<walterbender> tomeu: that is a different matter and one where I think we are in need of better communication

<SeanDaly> recruitment of contributors, and reaching out to millions of teachers, are very separate projects although of course common thread

<tomeu> walterbender: yes, it's a matter of communication

<walterbender> tomeu: we are getting better cooperation from OLPC these days, for example

<tomeu> SeanDaly: you aren't very likely to get volunteer maintainers

walterbender: yes, OLPC groks it

<SeanDaly> tomeu: another model then? obtain funding -> hire contract engineers?

<tomeu> SeanDaly: the maintainers should be employees of deployers

SeanDaly: because deployers know what is important and what not

and they are spending lots of money in downstream engineering work

<walterbender> tomeu: I think people would be more willing to maintain if they had more feedback from the end users... I cannot keep up with the TA feedback, so I am very attentive to that project...

<tomeu> that wouldn't be efficient if there weren't maintainers where to pool their work

<SeanDaly> a bit chicken-and-egg, since no large Sugar deployments yet outside OLPC

<tomeu> SeanDaly: what's the problem with OLPC deployments?

SeanDaly: they are already spending money in engineering, they are giving for granted that volunteers will always maintain sugar. and that's wrong

<SeanDaly> tomeu: is there a problem? I thought latest Sugar not on any OLPC machines

<tomeu> and we need to explain them that it's wrong and which risks they are running

SeanDaly: I interpreted "a bit chicken-and-egg, since no large Sugar deployments yet outside OLPC" as if olpc deployments couldn't contribute to maintenance

<cjb> tomeu: hi

<SeanDaly> tomeu: my mistake, I assumed OLPC deployments runnning older Sugar

<cjb> not sure what you mean -- Sayamindu's maintaining 0.84 for us at the moment, and that's what we're shipping

(he's an employee)

oh! maybe you mean the *deployments* are assuming they don't have to maintain Sugar, rather than OLPC itself?

• walterbender:needs to go in a few minutes... I'll do an #endmeeting so I don't block the channel.

<cjb> I think it's true that a lot of deployments don't really know how they'd meaningfully maintain Sugar, they'd much rather do it through OLPC somehow

<tomeu> cjb: well, any downstreams, but deployers have bigger engineering resources in total than olpc

<cjb> I see

<walterbender> let me just say for the record that there are some other sustainability issues in addition to maintenance... a related one, for example, is testing. And documentation.

<tomeu> cjb: that would work as well

<cjb> yeah, I agree that deployers should help out with Sugar maintenance more

<tomeu> cjb: I guess some deployments will want to grow local capacity, others not

<cjb> tomeu: I think some just really don't know how to start doing that

(and I don't know either)

<walterbender> tomeu: but we are seeing examples of that... .py for example.

<tomeu> cjb: in any case, they have told me they want to contribute to upstream

cjb: but it's very hard to explain these things to their bosses

<cjb> yeah

<tomeu> they just cannot believe we are doing what we are doing by free

it blows thier minds

<tomeu> so there's a work to be done there that takes time

<cjb> walterbender: I should get going in a few mins too

• mchua:has to leave soon

<SeanDaly> testing, documentation, ... -> even helpline, through for example for-profits in ecosystem

<walterbender> ok...

1. endmeeting

<meeting> Meeting finished at 12:19.

Logs available at http://me.etin.gs/sugar-meeting/sugar-meeting.log.20100326_1128.html