Deployment Team/Meetings/2008-10-01/Logs

<walter> Good morning everyone

<dirakx1> good morning ;)

<walter> Or afternoon to those of you on the other side of the Atlantic.

<walter> I have a few topics for today: the Lima sprint; the small deployment guide; LiveUSB

<walter> Are there other things people want to add?

• erikos can only listen sporadically, since he has another meeting next door

<dirakx1> nope i have only some comments but nothing further to add.

<walter> Shall we start with the Lima sprint?

<dirakx1> yes.

<walter> I spoke with Hernan last night. (I don't know if he can join us today)

<walter> He said he could arrange a meeting room with internet access at the university.

<walter> He may also be able to arrange some lodging

<walter> We need to get back to him regarding dates and numbers

<walter> (I still haven't looked into changing my flight--I better to that)

<dirakx1> ok..i have his gmail contact..

<dirakx1> which time do you have your flight?

<dirakx1> time/date

<walter> Presently, I am not scheduled to arrive in Lima until mid-week.

<dirakx1> so like 23th october?

<walter> 11PM on the 21st.

<dirakx1> ok..i'll make arrangements to book my flight to that also.

<walter> I'd like to switch it to arriving Sunday night, the 19th, so we can use M/T to work

<dirakx1> that date.

<dirakx1> M/T ?

<walter> There is a 3-day conference at the university beginning on Wednesday that I need to attend.

<walter> So I though we could get started on Monday.

<dirakx1> yes the game jam!

• andresambrois (n=aa@r190-135-183-150.dialup.adsl.anteldata.net.uy) has joined #sugar-meeting

<walter> The game jam and a FOSS meeting as well.

<dirakx1> i've spoked to samuel. and olpc has offer to refund my tickets.

<walter> Great.

<walter> Will you be traveling from Colombia?

<walter> Maybe they could sponsor Yama too?

<dirakx1> yes.

<walter> I think he could come if someone could take care of his travel.

<dirakx1> olpc is going to sponsor also sebastian silva from chile.

<walter> Great. All for the game jam too?

<dirakx1> yeah!

<dirakx1> i don't know yama.

<dirakx1> i'll have to ask

<walter> So it sounds like 5-6 people for the book jam?

<walter> Yama is in Bolivia.

<dirakx1> ok.

<dirakx1> yes like 5-6 people.

<walter> I'll let Hernan know and I'll try to move my ticket to fly on Sunday.

<walter> I'll ask Hernan to recommend lodging.

<dirakx1> ok i can do that also.

<dirakx1> fine..copy me on that if you can.

<dirakx1> so we have to divide time between the jam/conf and the book sprint..

<walter> Maybe you and I can spend a few minutes with the flossmanual translation tools before hand

<dirakx1> yeah that would be ok.

<walter> Adam Hyde may be able to walk us through the process.

<dirakx1> perfect

<walter> I'll ping Adam and ask when a good time to do it would be.

<dirakx1> nice.

<dirakx1> do you know if other besides olpc can sponsor yama to come to Peru?

<walter> Also, we should see if we can recruit a few locals to participate.

<walter> I'm working on raising money for such things, but I don't have any yet.

<cjb> Morning all.

<dirakx1> i have received some mails from local devs, so i guess they'll join us also.

<dirakx1> cjb: morning

<dirakx1> walter: ok

<walter> I'll also ping Carla to see if she may be able to join us. (She couldn't attend today's meeting as she is in the air)

<dirakx1> i can contact claudia urrea..to meet us next time, she is in the learning team also.

<walter> Claudia is running a workshop in Venezuela this month, I think. But for Schlumberger, not OLPC.

<walter> But it would be great if she could join us too.

<dirakx1> ok.

<walter> So maybe I should ask Hernan for a room big enough for 10 people.

<dirakx1> that seems fine to me. i guess the uni will have one to suit our needs.

<dirakx1> any more issues related to the peru conf?

<walter> Not that I can think of. I've written to Adam to see if there are any issues re the tools.

• aa has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out))

<walter> We could try to do some prep work if people have time--generating some screen shots, etc.

<dirakx1> yeah that's fine.

<walter> My second topic is more of a question: how do we light a fire under the small deployment guide?

<dirakx1> walter: i've pinged the educators and some pedagogical institutions about that..

<walter> It was very clear from the Open Minds conference I attended that lots of people are interested in Sugar (and OLPC), but they don't know how to get stated.

<dirakx1> but not much of retroalimentation yet.

<walter> A simple step-by-step guide would be of great utility.

<walter> I am going to try to walk a Boston public school through the process of converting a computer lab using USB keys.

<walter> I'll try to document the process in detail.

<dirakx1> but why can't they get started?..or what were their issues regarding to that?.

<walter> I really believe making that as easy and painless as possible is key to their willingness to try the more ambitious deployments of laptops.

<dirakx1> regarding live usb's that would be of great help..

<walter> The laptop deployment is easier, because everything is prepackaged and in a known state.

<walter> the random computer lab with a random configuration of hardware, software, and network is probably impossible

<walter> but we'll give it a try--because the teachers are willing to take such a risk.

<dirakx1> in a workshop we had in colombia the situation was solved working with live cds..

<walter> but the Live USB situation is anything but stable yet.

<dirakx1> yeah, i guess we need to put more work into that.

<walter> LiveCD is great for a demo or a workshop, but not a real trial, unless there is some trick to saving user data

<walter> DId you use the Ubuntu LiveCD? With the old Sugar bits?

<dirakx1> yeah that's the problem ..

<dirakx1> yes..

<dirakx1> IIRC

<walter> The Boston trial is interesting because they want the kids to run Sugar at home too.

<walter> The same USB key would move the data back and forth and they are very excited about having a jabber connection for the kids at home.

<dirakx1> wow..that's cool we can extract info of great value there.

<walter> But we are still not quite there in terms of packaging. I think we'll need to do a lot of fine-tuning, which we can document and hopefully learn from.

<dirakx1> ok...i'm going to take a note of that ;).

<dirakx1> i've done a little work on debian packaging but there is a lot of work to do in that field.

<dirakx1> but back into the small deployment discussion..

<walter> One important thing to capture are all the roadblocks people are experiencing so that we can begin to address them.

<dirakx1> i'm expecting some retroalimentation about the work that has been happening in the field in Colombia by a pedagogical foundation.

<walter> I've heard many, but haven't done a good job of writing them down.

<dirakx1> i'm expecting that educators can help on that...but i think that they are not to much adjusted to wikis and irc maybe?

<walter> Some of it is pedagogical, but most is bureaucratic.

<walter> Yes. We need the educators' input.

<dirakx1> bureaucratic in what sense?.

<walter> Not wanting to change anything on the computers they already have...

<dirakx1> ah..ok.

<dirakx1> that's bad.

<walter> It is what makes LiveUSB so attractive. But it is an imperfect solution.

<dirakx1> yes, so far.

• andresambrois is now known as aa

<dirakx1> so we need to put work into that ;).

<walter> Greg and the Fedora team is making some progress and I think Morgan is back on the case with Ubuntu...

<dirakx1> cool.

<dirakx1> so..a conclusion of the meeting could be that we have to wait and keep on trying for a better feedback?.

<walter> While we are waiting, we should be gathering data regarding potential pitfalls.

<dirakx1> yeah..

<dirakx1> one pitfall is that lack of understanding of communication tools..

<dirakx1> for example IRC and wikis.

<dirakx1> so we can start from that.

<dirakx1> i'll put some notes on the small deployment page related to that

<walter> OK.

<walter> Anything else for today?

<walter> You had some comments?

<dirakx1> and i'll keep on pinging about feedback...and some more deeply involved besides OLPC-sur

<dirakx1> one positive thing is that we are seeing more involvement on the OLPC-sur mailist related to teachers..so that's good.

<walter> Yes. OLPC-Sur has been a great resource.

<dirakx1> we will see...i think we need more time to socialize ideas and communication.

<dirakx1> but a key subject is that the educators need to use some other resources to share their ideas.

<dirakx1> more conferences like openmind are needed!

<dirakx1> that's all :).

<walter> OK. I did hear back from Adam and he can help us get started. Also, I just got my flight switched to the 20th.

<walter> I mean the 19th.

<dirakx1> i'll book my flight to 19th also, then.

<walter> I'll let Hernan know and be back in touch about the Lima details.

<dirakx1> walter: great thanks.

<walter> OK. Talk to you all later.

<dirakx1> bye all.