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. It was busy week: Simon, Aleksey, Sascha, and Tomeu have been working around the clock on putting the finishing touches on the new 0.86 release of Sugar while Gary has been trying to keep pace with testing and documentation. It is looking great. I kept busy too: chacing a few more bugs in Turtle Art; writing a grant proposal with help from David, David, and Caroline to the Wal-Mart foundation (seeking support to run teacher workshops and do outreach); meeting with a team from Babson who will help us develop a plan for how to present Sugar to school districts; a panel at the Harvard Kennedy School to a gathering of entrepreneurs in technology and development, ‘Beyond Mobile: The Next Generation of Technology for Empowerment’; an article in Groklaw (with lots of help from Sean); and a presentation at Software Freedom Day.
I did have a chance to do some reading: Bahktiar Mikhak posted a link to an old paper by Seymour Papert, "Computer Criticism vs. Technocentric Thinking". He wrote it almost 30-years ago and I had last read it more than 10-years ago, but it is still relevamt today.
My favorite quote from the paper is: "The context for human development is always a culture, never an isolated technology."
Another gem: "If you ask, 'What does a LOGO practitioner need to know?' the answer goes beyond the ability to use and teach LOGO. The practitioner needs to be able to talk about LOGO, to criticize it, and to discuss other people's criticisms." .replace('LOGO','Sugar')
2. I have a bit more to report regarding last week's meeting at the Interamerican Development Bank. The afternoon discussion ended on an interesting note: what if anything should we be doing regarding curriculum development? Again Papert: "Science as inquiry rather than as answers". More concretely, when we first set up the teacher workshops in Peru we challenged the teachers on the first day to come up with a way to enhance something from the national curriculum by using Sugar to be presented on the final day of the workshop. We didn't give them a curriculum—they already had that from the ministry of education. Rather, we wanted them to engage in a process of inquiry. They rose to the challenge and engaged in a collaborative discussion of discovery throughout the week-long event.
Papert's version: "Using the computer not as a 'thing in itself' that may or may not deliver benefits, but as a material that can be appropriated to do better whatever you are doing (and which will not do anything if you are not!)"
A final word from Papert: "Do Not Ask What LOGO Can Do To People, But What People Can Do With LOGO." .replace('LOGO','Sugar')
3. A few of us were on IRC Friday evening discussing with Rubén Rodríguez Pérez his effort to port Sugar to Trisquel. By the time I got to the venue for the Boston celebration of Software Freedom Day, I had gotten this email:
- Hello everybody,
- The Sugar+Trisquel beta is ready for testing, many thanks to Aleksey Lim and everyone in the #sugar and #fsfsys channels who helped us to get it. The current release is a fully free live CD based in Sugar 0.84, running on top of Trisquel-edu 2.2.1 LTS "Robur" (which is itself Hardy based). We will soon build one with Trisquel 3.0, for better hardware support.
- We are very excited with this collaboration, as it will be a new and fully libre way to distribute Sugar, and also a powerful tool to include in our educational operating system Trisquel Edu.
- Highlights:
- -Installable live CD, with MD5 self-checking utility.
- -Persistent user data in live-usb sessions, usb-creator included.
- -Boot menu with 30 selectable languages.
- -LTSP thin client support using a Trisquel Edu server.
- -Sugar style artwork, screenshots attached.
- It is a work in progress, but stable enough to be used and get some tests. The artwork is also a proof of concept and can be easily changed. We would be pleased if you send us your impressions and advices.
- Known bugs in this release:
- -No sound in flash videos
- -No network selector
- The i686 iso image can is here:
- http://devel.trisquel.info/trisquel-sugar_2.2.1-beta_i686.iso
- Enjoy!
- Rubén.
Tech Talk
4. Bryan Berry announces on behalf of the Karma team that KARMA 0.1 has been released. See [1] for details.
5. Marten Vijn announced that there is new global mirror for Sugar available at http://sugarlabs.cdn.cacheboy.net/
Sugar Labs
6. Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list (Please see SOM).
An archive of this digest is available.
Planet
The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.
Sugar in the news
| 18 Sep 2009 |
Groklaw – The Role of Free Software in Education
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| 18 Sep 2009 |
Reuters – Sugar Labs and Free Software Foundation Celebrate Software Freedom Day
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| 17 Sep 2009 |
ICTDev.org – Dream Again with One Laptop per Child
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| 26 Aug 2009 |
Latinux – Azúcar en una memoria USB
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| 03 Aug 2009 |
Wired: Geek Dad – Inventing a New Paradigm: SugarLabs and the Sugar UI
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| 23 Jul 2009 |
Everything USB – RecycleUSB.com - Donate your Flash Drives for a Good Cause
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| 22 Jul 2009 |
OLPC France – Sugar : mauvaise presse et mise au point
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| 13 Jul 2009 |
Spiegel Online – Das zuckersüße Leichtbau-Linux
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| 07 Jul 2009 |
ComputerWorldUK – Gran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts
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| 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
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| 02 Jul 2009 |
Howard County Library – Sugar on a Stick
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| 27 Jun 2009 |
Deutschlandfunk – Süßes für die Kleinen: Sugar ist Linux speziell für Kinder (in Deutsch)
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| 26 Jun 2009 |
EduTech – Sugar on a stick, and other delectables (praise for the lowly USB drive)
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| 26 Jun 2009 |
Ars Technica – Sugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms
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| 24 Jun 2009 |
BBC – OLPC software to power aging PCs
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| 24 Jun 2009 |
Technology Review – $100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC
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| 15 Jun 2009 |
TechSavvyKids – Episode 10 FOSSVT: Sugar on a Stick (audio)
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| 10 Jun 2009 |
LWN.net – Sugar moves from the shadow of OLPC
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| 27 May 2009 |
LWN.net – Activities and the move to context-oriented desktops (subscriber link)
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| 27 May 2009 |
Business Wire – Dailymotion Launches Support for Open Video Formats and Video HTML Tag
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| 01 May 2009 |
Guysoft – Nokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar
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| 29 Apr 2009 |
El Mercurio – Así se vivió la fiesta del software libre
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| 27 Apr 2009 |
ostatic – Sugar on a Stick: Good for Kids' Minds (and School Budgets)
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| 25 Apr 2009 |
Free Software Magazine – The Bittersweet Facts about OLPC and Sugar
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| 24 Apr 2009 |
Ars Technica – First taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform
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| 22 Apr 2009 |
Betanews – Beta of Live USB Sugar OS opens
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| 27 Mar 2009 |
Mass High Tech – Google promotes summer open-source internships
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| 18 Mar 2009 |
Metropolis – A Good Argument
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| 16 Mar 2009 |
Laptop Magazine – Sugar Labs’ New Version of Sugar Learning Platform Is Netbook and PC Ready
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| 16 Mar 2009 |
Market Watch – Sugar Labs Nonprofit Announces New Version of Sugar Learning Platform for Children, Runs on Netbooks and PCs
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| 14 Feb 2009 |
OLPC Learning Club – DC – Learning Learning on a Stick
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| 05 Feb 2009 |
xconomy – Sugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
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| 26 Jan 2009 |
Linus Magazine – Sugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
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| 19 Jan 2009 |
Feeding the Penguins – The status of Sugar, post-OLPC
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| 16 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – Sugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
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| 12 Jan 2009 |
Bill Kerr – thoughts about olpc cutbacks
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| 07 Jan 2009 |
Ars Technica – OLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
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| 06 Jan 2009 |
OLPC News – An Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
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| 30 Dec 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugar Labs Status at Six Months
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| 22 Dec 2008 |
The GNOME Project – Sugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
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| 16 Dec 2008 |
Feeding the Penguins – Sugar git repository change
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| 14 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
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| 13 Dec 2008 |
NPR – Laptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
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| 09 Dec 2008 |
SFC – Sugar Labs joins Conservancy
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| 31 Oct 2008 |
Linux Devices – An OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
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| 10 Oct 2008 |
Feeding the Penguin – Sugar on Ubuntu
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| 21 Sep 2008 |
Groklaw – Interview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
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| 17 Sep 2008 |
Bill Kerr – Sugar Labs
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| 16 Sep 2008 |
Open Source – Sugar everywhere
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| 28 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – An answer to Walter Bender's question 22
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| 20 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Sugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
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| 08 Aug 2008 |
Investor's Business Daily – 'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
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| 06 Aug 2008 |
OLPC News – Twenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
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| 18 Jul 2008 |
Bill Kerr – evaluating Sugar in the developed world
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| 28 Jun 2008 |
OLPC News – A Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
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| 18 Jun 2008 |
PC World – OLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
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| 17 Jun 2008 |
Datamation – If Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
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| 11 Jun 2008 |
LinuxInsider – The Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
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| 06 Jun 2008 |
Bill Kerr – untangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
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| 06 Jun 2008 |
Open Education – Walter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
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| 06 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
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| 05 Jun 2008 |
Code Culture – The Distraction Machine
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| 05 Jun 2008 |
BusinessWeek – OLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
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| 27 May 2008 |
The New York Times – Why Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
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| 26 May 2008 |
Ars Technica – OLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
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| 22 May 2008 |
BetaNews – Linux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
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| 16 May 2008 |
OSTATIC – OLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
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| 16 May 2008 |
PCWorld – Bender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
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| 16 May 2008 |
MHT – Bender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
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| 16 May 2008 |
News.com – Sugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
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| 16 May 2008 |
Feeding the Peguins – The future of Sugar
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| 16 May 2008 |
Sugar list – A few thoughts on SugarLabs
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| 16 May 2008 |
xconomy – Bender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
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| 16 May 2008 |
BBC – '$100 laptop' platform moves on
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| 15 May 2008 |
OLPC wiki – Dual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
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| 16 May 2008 |
Softpedia – Bender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI
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Press releases
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