Bernie Innocenti

not really me

e-mail: bernie AT codewiz DOT org

IRC: _bernie, hanging on #sugar on FreeNet

Jabber: bernie AT codewiz DOT org (yes, I run my own Jabber server ;-)

Contact info: http://www.codewiz.org/ContactInformation

Personal homepage: http://www.codewiz.org/

Blog: http://www.codewiz.org/wiki/

Resume: http://www.codewiz.org/wiki/CurriculumVitae (somewhat outdated)

LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=5159373 (somewhat outdated)

Old OLPC projects: http://www.codewiz.org/wiki/OneLaptopPerChild

I'm a volunteer working for the Sugar Labs team.

Until February 2008, I was a full-time volunteer developer at OLPC. My job was hacking X, the base Fedora OS, the Linux kernel, some i18n and input work. Later on, until April 2008, I was CTO of OLPC Europe and traveled around to present our project to government officials and dignitaries. Curremtly, I'm a volunteer at | OLE Nepal in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Oversight Board Platform

To position itself as THE educational environment of the future, Sugar needs to grow a larger user and developer base. This is only possible by transforming Sugar into a truly community-driven project with its own independent identity.

Goals for Sugar Labs

1. Further enhance our public-facing web presence and development infrastructure;

2. Work with multiple hardware and OS vendors to make Sugar available to the widest-possible user base;

3. Foster the creation of companies and groups offering professional Sugar consulting and outsourcing;

4. Continue to enroll volunteer community members in key roles of our infrastructure and public relations;

5. Raise funding to sponsor developer meetings and our presence at major international events.

Anti-goals for Sugar Labs

1. Hire a large team of software developers – this would end up discouraging outside contributors;

2. Brew a custom OS platform – we work with distributors, we don't compete against them;

3. Let Sugar Labs become unfairly biased towards specific partners – that would undermine our relationships with other partners;

4. Trade project autonomy for funding or support – we're glad to offer our services, not our souls.

Personal agenda

I'm exploring the possibility to build a small team of Sugar hackers that would offer consulting services such as porting to specific hardware platforms or development of features. Internet would be our office.

Over the next few years, computers will become central in world education. This will in turn stimulate the creation of a florid industry offering hardware, software, and contents for the specific needs of schools.

Sugar has a great competitive advantage over any proprietary offering on the horizon and it has a huge momentum. This is why I also see Sugar as a rewarding business opportunity to invest in.

On openness

Openness will be our greatest and most lasting strength.  If we shy away
from it now it will never return.
 -- Samuel Klein