Sugar Labs/Current Events

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. We celebrated Thanksgiving here in the U.S. this past week. It is a time for family, food, and what we call "football" in North America. In my family, I am always tasked with making desserts: pies, cakes, tarts, and cookies. (This year, I made a pumpkin-praline pie, a pecan pie--which morphed into a pecan cobbler, a chocolate-mousse pie, a Key-Lime pie, an apple tart, a fruit tart, hermits, oatmeal cookies, and a coffee cake. I will share my recipes with anyone who is interested.)

I cannot remember a time when I wasn't cooking. It has always been an adventure because I cannot keep a recipe in my head and I cannot resist experimenting. (I should consider using a laser cutter to print the recipes on my pies.) Call it kitchen chemistry or Constructionism in the kitchen. Either way, it is authentic learning.

2. Simon Schampijer, the Sugar Release Manager, has put together a detailed set of pages in the wiki outlining our policy and process for proposing new Sugar features. "The main goal of the feature policy is to make systematic and predictable the process by which community ideas on how Sugar should evolve get transformed into actionable proposals."

Simon and I have been discussing the scope of this policy in IRC. It is appropriate and customary for the Release Manager to set policy, but I would like to see the process followed more generally, as it provides a structure that the Activity Team can also leverage as part of the on-going Sugar activity update process. Activities updates wouldn't be tied to Sucrose release cycle, but it provides a nice framework for community feedback and makes clear the roles of ideation, implementation, and packaging and maintenance.

(For more background on FOSS project development, check out Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software.)

In the community

3. Carlos Mauro defended his thesis this week. His topic was: Evaluación de la OLPC con Ingeniería de Usabilidad.

Help Wanted

4. Wade Brainerd has observed that while the download counts on activities.sugarlabs.org are very high, the review counts are very low. For example, Typing Turtle has nearly 50,000 downloads but only two reviews. You are encouraged to write reviews. We would especially like to hear from deployments.

In the community

5. I'll be giving the keynote at the World Netbook Summit in Paris next week.

Tech Talk

6. Simon has refined the Sugar 0.88 Roadmap A detailed discussion can be found here.

7. Aleksey Lim has been leading an interesting discussion on 0install to cover situations such as:

• activities that have dependencies that are not included in the Sugar Platform;
• building and installing activity-specific binaries; and
• running non-Sugar applications that are not well packaged in GNU/Linux distributions.

Sugar Labs

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

Community News archive

An archive of this digest is available.

Planet

The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.

Sugar in the news

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

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