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But eventually—albeit with some intervention on my part—the discussion turned towards how to modify the Turtle Art activity. I put together a tutorial (See [[Patching_Turtle_Art|Patching Turtle Art]]) with the hope that not only would I be satisfying the immediate needs of the teachers, but also, showing them that in fact they could, themselves, make the necessary changes to the program to meet their needs. I am hoping that I didn't make it too easy for them and that some of them will risk making changes—creating new instruments. The beauty of FOSS is that if the permutation group doesn't allow you to "trisect an angle", you can always modify the group. A dialog between teachers and developers has begun. The next step is for some of the teachers to become developers.

But eventually—albeit with some intervention on my part—the discussion turned towards how to modify the Turtle Art activity. I put together a tutorial (See [[Activities/Turtle_Art/Patching|Patching Turtle Art]]) with the hope that not only would I be satisfying the immediate needs of the teachers, but also, showing them that in fact they could, themselves, make the necessary changes to the program to meet their needs. I am hoping that I didn't make it too easy for them and that some of them will risk making changes—creating new instruments. The beauty of FOSS is that if the permutation group doesn't allow you to "trisect an angle", you can always modify the group. A dialog between teachers and developers has begun. The next step is for some of the teachers to become developers.

What is the connection the XP announcement? Simply that it is a real shame that Microsoft is not using their vast resources to expand the opportunities for children by reaching to places not already being serviced by OLPC. Regardless of the merits of XP, they could have immediate and lasting impact by covering a space outside of the range of the Peruvian permutation group. Pamela Jones and Sean Daly wrote a more thorough analysis of the XP story for Groklaw (See [http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080920181151638 Interview with Walter Bender from Sugar Labs]).

What is the connection the XP announcement? Simply that it is a real shame that Microsoft is not using their vast resources to expand the opportunities for children by reaching to places not already being serviced by OLPC. Regardless of the merits of XP, they could have immediate and lasting impact by covering a space outside of the range of the Peruvian permutation group. Pamela Jones and Sean Daly wrote a more thorough analysis of the XP story for Groklaw (See [http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080920181151638 Interview with Walter Bender from Sugar Labs]).

2. Oversight board: The Sugar Labs oversight board met on IRC this week. Highlights include a report that final agreement between Sugar Labs and the SFC has been approved; the creation of the BugSqaud; the creation of the deployment team pages; and the unveiling of a new Sugar Labs logo ([[MarketingTeam/Logo]]).  [[Sugar_Labs/OversightBoard/Meeting_Minutes-2008-09-19|Minutes can be found in the wiki]]. The next meeting is scheduled for Friday, 3 October at 14.00 (UTC).

2. Oversight board: The Sugar Labs oversight board met on IRC this week. Highlights include a report that final agreement between Sugar Labs and the SFC has been approved; the creation of the BugSqaud; the creation of the deployment team pages; and the unveiling of a new Sugar Labs logo ([[Marketing Team/Logo]]).  [[Oversight Board/Meeting_Minutes-2008-09-19|Minutes can be found in the wiki]]. The next meeting is scheduled for Friday, 3 October at 14.00 (UTC).

There is an email thread ([http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2008-September/001779.html|"Executive Director - some benefits and risks"]) for discussing the pros and cons of having an executive director. Please share your thoughts with the community.

There is an email thread ([http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2008-September/001779.html|"Executive Director - some benefits and risks"]) for discussing the pros and cons of having an executive director. Please share your thoughts with the community.

3. Roadmap: Marco Pesente Gritti and Simon Schampijer have been documenting the discussion of our 0.84 goals in the wiki ([[DevelopmentTeam/Release/Roadmap/0.84#Goals|here]]). They have assigned owners and peers to all groups and started to assign owners to each feature. You can find orphaned items under "Unassigned" in each section. Please give them a home.

3. Roadmap: Marco Pesente Gritti and Simon Schampijer have been documenting the discussion of our 0.84 goals in the wiki ([[Development Team/Release/Roadmap/0.84#Goals|here]]). They have assigned owners and peers to all groups and started to assign owners to each feature. You can find orphaned items under "Unassigned" in each section. Please give them a home.

4. Amazability: Kenneth Ingham is preparing to release Adept1, a natural-language speech-based product under a GPLv3 license (See [http://www.amazability.com/about.htm amazability.com]). He is looking for help; please contact him at ken AT amazability.com.

4. Amazability: Kenneth Ingham is preparing to release Adept1, a natural-language speech-based product under a GPLv3 license (See [http://www.amazability.com/about.htm amazability.com]). He is looking for help; please contact him at ken AT amazability.com.

8. Developers meeting: The next Sugar developers meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 25 September at 14.00 (UTC). At this meeting, we want to form the Sugar Labs Bugsquad, a quality assurance (QA) team for Sugar. The squad will keep track of current bugs and try to make sure that major bugs do not go unnoticed by developers. You do not need any programming knowledge to be in the Bugsquad; in fact it is a great way to return something to the Sugar community if you cannot program. The Sugar Labs bugsquad is modeled on the [http://developer.gnome.org/projects/bugsquad GNOME bugsquad].

8. Developers meeting: The next Sugar developers meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 25 September at 14.00 (UTC). At this meeting, we want to form the Sugar Labs Bugsquad, a quality assurance (QA) team for Sugar. The squad will keep track of current bugs and try to make sure that major bugs do not go unnoticed by developers. You do not need any programming knowledge to be in the Bugsquad; in fact it is a great way to return something to the Sugar community if you cannot program. The Sugar Labs bugsquad is modeled on the [http://developer.gnome.org/projects/bugsquad GNOME bugsquad].

9. Design meeting: Eben Eliason reports that the first design meeting was a bit more technical than anticipated, but we did make some progress on a visual clipboard API and icon reviews [[DesignTeam/Meetings#Thursday_September_18.2C_2008_-_15.30_.28UTC.29|Minutes can be found in the wiki]].

9. Design meeting: Eben Eliason reports that the first design meeting was a bit more technical than anticipated, but we did make some progress on a visual clipboard API and icon reviews [[Design Team/Meetings#Thursday_September_18.2C_2008_-_15.30_.28UTC.29|Minutes can be found in the wiki]].

10. API documentation: David Farning has been leading an effort to document the Sugar API. With help from Pauli Virtanen, Janet Swisher, and Marco Pesenti Gritti, we now have a wiki-based tool (See [http://sugarlabs1.xen.prgmr.com]). Follow the instructions at [http://sugarlabs1.xen.prgmr.com/pydocweb/wiki/getting_started/ getting started]. Don't worry about being perfect, someone will come along and clean up the docstrings before they are committed back to the git tree. (The patches are flowing into the git tree correctly, but if you find bugs, please let us know: this is the first time pydocweb has been used "in the wild.")

10. API documentation: David Farning has been leading an effort to document the Sugar API. With help from Pauli Virtanen, Janet Swisher, and Marco Pesenti Gritti, we now have a wiki-based tool (See [http://sugarlabs1.xen.prgmr.com]). Follow the instructions at [http://sugarlabs1.xen.prgmr.com/pydocweb/wiki/getting_started/ getting started]. Don't worry about being perfect, someone will come along and clean up the docstrings before they are committed back to the git tree. (The patches are flowing into the git tree correctly, but if you find bugs, please let us know: this is the first time pydocweb has been used "in the wild.")