Changes

Sugar Labs has inherited many of its goals from the OLPC project. The goal of OLPC is to bring the ideas of Constructionism to scale in order to reach more children. A particular focus is on children in the developing world [Reference needed here]. In order to meet that goal, Sugar, which was originally developed for OLPC, was by necessity a small-footprint solution that required few resources in terms of CPU, memory, storage, or network connectivity. The major technical change on focus from the OLPC project is that Sugar Labs strives to make the Sugar desktop available to multiple platforms, not just the OLPC hardware. The major ethical challenge Sugar Labs has is to keep supporting with high quality software and equivalent tools to the OLPC ecosystem.

Sugar Labs has inherited many of its goals from the OLPC project. The goal of OLPC is to bring the ideas of Constructionism to scale in order to reach more children. A particular focus is on children in the developing world [Reference needed here]. In order to meet that goal, Sugar, which was originally developed for OLPC, was by necessity a small-footprint solution that required few resources in terms of CPU, memory, storage, or network connectivity. The major technical change on focus from the OLPC project is that Sugar Labs strives to make the Sugar desktop available to multiple platforms, not just the OLPC hardware. The major ethical challenge Sugar Labs has is to keep supporting with high quality software and equivalent tools to the OLPC ecosystem.

Sugar Labs^® is a volunteer-driven member project of Software Freedom Conservancy. Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) is a not-for-profit charity that helps promote, improve, develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects. Conservancy provides a non-profit home and infrastructure for FLOSS projects. This allows FLOSS developers to focus on what they do best — writing and improving FLOSS for the general public — while Conservancy takes care of the projects' needs that do not relate directly to software development and documentation.

Sugar Labs^® is a volunteer-driven member project of Software Freedom Conservancy. Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) is a not-for-profit charity that helps promote, improve, develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects. Conservancy provides a non-profit home and infrastructure for FLOSS projects. This allows FLOSS developers to focus on what they do best — writing and improving FLOSS for the general public — while Conservancy takes care of the projects' needs that do not relate directly to software development and documentation.

 

Sugar Labs® is supported by donations and is constantly seeking funding to accelerate development of Sugar. We do occasionally raise money for paid student internships as well.

As with any other non profit, the practice of '''charity''' means the voluntary giving of help to those in need, as a humanitarian act.  

As with any other non profit, the practice of '''charity''' means the voluntary giving of help to those in need, as a humanitarian act.  

Sugar is not a 100% volunteer effort. The OLPC project has supported many developers along Sugar's history and many initiatives to allocate resources to support professional services (such are Activity Central, OLPC Australia, etc) have been tried. In the same way, many of the packages that make doable a Sugar distribution are re-cycled from other libre software projects that may or may not be the results of volunteers efforts.  

Sugar is not a 100% volunteer effort. The OLPC project has supported many developers along Sugar's history and many initiatives to allocate resources to support professional services (such are Activity Central, OLPC Australia, etc) have been tried. In the same way, many of the packages that make doable a Sugar distribution are re-cycled from other libre software projects that may or may not be the results of volunteers efforts.  

Sugar development and maintenance is incumbent upon its community and hence we strive to provide as much control as possible to our community members, including our end-users. Towards these ends, we chose the GPL as our primary license. Support of Sugar and Sugar Activities core packages is coordinated at the Development mailing list [Reference required here].

 

Sugar development and maintenance is incumbent upon its community and hence we strive to provide as much control as possible to our community members, including our end-users. (In fact, one of our assertions is that by enabling our users to participate in the development of the tools that they use will lead to deeper engagement in their own learning.)

 

Towards these ends, we chose the GPL as our primary license. It has been said of the GPL that it “restricts my right [as a developer] to restrict yours [as a user and potential developer]”, which seems ideal for a project that wants to engage a broad and diverse set of learners. But at Sugar Labs we go beyond the usual goals of FOSS: a license to make changes to the code is not enough to ensure that users make changes.  

We also strive to provide the means to make changes. Our success in this goal is best reflected in the number of patches we receive from our Community. (We achieve this goal through providing access to source code and development tools within Sugar itself. We also actively participate in workshops and internship programs such as Sugar Camps, Google Summer of Code, Outreaching, and Google Code-In.)

We also strive to provide the means to make changes. Our success in this goal is best reflected in the number of patches we receive from our Community. (We achieve this goal through providing access to source code and development tools within Sugar itself. We also actively participate in workshops and internship programs such as Sugar Camps, Google Summer of Code, Outreaching, and Google Code-In.)

===Who supports Sugar?===

===Who supports Sugar?===

A very cool team of volunteers takes care of our infrastructure such as the wikis, mailing lists, localization platforms, etc. The organizational rules are constantly crafted by the team at the Sugar Labs Oversight Board.  

A very cool team of volunteers takes care of our infrastructure such as the wikis, mailing lists, code repositories, localization platforms, etc. The organizational rules are constantly crafted by the team at the Sugar Labs Oversight Board.  

 

 

Sugar Labs, we envisioned as a supporting platform for multiple “Local Labs”—hence the name “Sugar Labs”, plural—support in terms of local-language localization, training, curriculum development, and customizations. This model is growing slowly as there are some active local communities (e.g., Educa Paraguay, OLPC France, Sugar Labs Colombia and Sugar Labs Perú) that continuously work closely with their communities. There are also individual volunteers, such as Tony Anderson and T.K. Kang, who help support individual schools in Rwanda and Malaysia. An open question is what is needed  to support our users and supporters over the long term?  

An open question is what is needed  to support our users and supporters over the long term?  

===What is next for Sugar?===

===What is next for Sugar?===