Sugar Labs/Current Events

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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. I have fallen way behind in my blogging about Sugar Labs: the combination of too much travel and too much time consumed with repairing my house from flood damage has taken its toll. I'll try to touch on a medley of topics today, referring to various email threads on the lists for more details. (Also, the 'o' key on my keyboard has become flaky—please forgive me any typs.)

Perhaps the most exciting news over the past few weeks has been the numerous announcements about One Laptop per Child programs sprouting up around the world. There was an announcement of a significant program in the Middle East; an initiative in East Africa; and when I heard him speak in Miami last week, the president of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, spoke about one laptop per child as a legacy he wants to leave for his country. In every case, these are Sugar-based initiatives. It is invigorating to see this steady increase in the application of our efforts to provide great learning opportunities for children. (Kudos to Sean Daly and the Marketing Team for their efforts in getting the word out.)

The Sugar-on-a-Stick team is very close to releasing Mirabelle, which is based on Fedora 13 and Sugar 0.88. It is an exciting release because it is both a great effort in terms of content and process. There has been a productive dialog between the packaging team, the developers, testers, and the user community; as a result, we are converging on a more sustainable process and we are better meeting the needs of our users. Many thanks, especially to Peter Robinson, Tom Gilliard, Caryl Bigenho, Mel Chua, James Cameron, Frederick Grose, and Sebastian Dziallas.

The Paraguay team is wrapping up their work on porting Fedora 11/Sugar 0.84 to the XO 1.0 hardware. This is important because it will allow deployments to migrate there installed base of machines to the same system being deployed on the XO 1.5 machines, making the overall support and maintenance problem more tractable. The team has also backported a number of bug fixes and features, such as 3G support, needed by deployments. It is a great example of downstream working with upstream.

2. Dogi (Stefan Unterhauser), Adam Holt, and I were in Rochester this week for a series of events at RIT: the OLPC Users Group Meeting; the Dean's Lecture Series (I talked about why learning is so important; video); and the Imagine RIT Innovation Festival. Our host was Stephen Jacobs. We spent some quality time with his students, whom are in project teams, developing two Sugar Activities: OVC (a video chat system being developed in collaboration with the National Institute for the Deaf), and Fortune Hunter, an adventure game geared towards 4th Grade mathematics. The great thing about the program at RIT is the way in which the student projects are being integrated into the global Sugar initative. I've asked Steve to share his "secret sauce" with other universities so that the model can spread.

One concrete outcome of the visit is the establishment of a Sugar "Story Team". Remy D of the RIT Storytelling Team has volunteered to lead the effort. Another tangible outcome is that three of the servers donated to Sugar Labs from the Wikipedia Foundation have a new home at RIT. Dogi worked with Steve's students to bring them up to speed on how to maintain the servers.

3. The Sugar Oversight Board had an opportunity to meet face to face, along with about 10 community members whom happened to be in the Cambridge area. In addition to breaking bread together, we discovered that we had consensus regarding the on-going trademark debate. We'll be discussing and voting on the final wording of the policy next time we meet in IRC and will be summarizing (a) how the decision was made; (b) why it was made; (c) what alternatives were considered; (d) how it fits in with the Sugar Labs mission; (e) how it impacts the Sugar; and (f) how it impacts the Sugar community. Stay tuned.

4. There has been a renewed and intense discussion about maintenance over the past few weeks. (The topic is an important one both to Sugar Labs and our downstream partners.) Our developer and release teams have been striving towards a set of well-documented procedures for making Sugar a project "with continuity, with an adequate progression in stability and new features and with a development process that gives them some control." You can follow the latest thread of the discussion here.

Help wanted

5. We are seeking to revitalize the deployment team and as a consequence, we are seeking community leaders who can play a role in organizing meetings on a regular basis. It is not necessary to be fluent in all of the issues, rather, we need someone who will help shepard the various parties into discussion once every few weeks. This is a critical, missing piece of our strategy to keep open the channels of communication between Sugar Labs and its upstream and downstream partners.

In the community

6. There have been regular meetings of the OLPC Learning Team on irc.mibbit.net channel #olpc-learning led by Joy Riach. The meetings are held on Thursdays at 10 AM EST (14 UTC) and are conducted in both English and Spanish. (Summaries of past meetings will be posted—I'll report the details when they are available.)

Tech talk

7. I have been working with OLPC on a "high-school" keyboard for the OLPC XO 1.5. I designed "non-membrane" keyboards in File:OLPC-1.5-es-non-membrane.svg Spanish and File:OLPC-1.5-us-non-membrane.svg English (US/International).

8. The Infrastructure Team is in the process of migrating some services to some new hardware. We should expect some brief downtime and better long-term stability as a result.

Sugar Labs

Gary Martin has generated a SOM from the past week of discussion on the IAEP mailing list.

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Community News archive

An archive of this digest is available.

Planet

The Sugar Labs Planet is found here.

Sugar in the news

14 Apr 2010 National Science FoundationXO Laptops Inspire Learning In Birmingham, Alabama (video)
02 Apr 2010
15 Mar 2010 nbc13.comBirmingham City students opt to spend spring break in class, XO computer camps (video)
18 Feb 2010 LWNKarma targets easier creation of educational software
05 Feb 2010 iprofesionalLa PC barata de Negroponte desembarca en la Argentina para pelear contra Intel
14 Jan 2010 AALFOpen Systems for Broader Change
03 Jan 2010 Educacion 2.0PLAN CEIBAL, El Libro
14 Dec 2009 xconomySugar gets sweeter
10 Dec 2009 Ars TechnicaSugar software environment gets sweeter with version 2
09 Dec 2009 WiredNew Sugar on a Stick Brings Much Needed Improvements
08 Dec 2009 engadgetSugar on a Stick OS goes to 2.0, gets Blueberry coating and creamy Fedora 12 center (video)
07 Dec 2009 Teleread.orgSugar on a Stick: What it means for e-books and education
27 Nov 2009 CNET Japan「コードを見せて、もっと良くなるよ」と言える子どもが生まれる--Sugar Labsが描く未来
16 Nov 2009 zanichellisoftware libero a scuola
12 Nov 2009 opensuse.orgopenSUSE 11.2 Released
07 Nov 2009 My Broadband NewsMandriva 2010 packs a punch [and Sugar]
06 Nov 2009 GhanaWebOpen education and an IT-enabled economic growth in Ghana: Musings of a dutiful citizen
09 Oct 2009 interdisciplinesOLPC and Sugar: mobility through the community
08 Oct 2009 IBM developerWorks10 important Linux developments everyone should know about
01 Oct 2009 OLPC FranceInterview Walter Bender au SugarCamp
25 Sep 2009 The InquirerOne Laptop per Child marches on
18 Sep 2009 GroklawThe Role of Free Software in Education
18 Sep 2009 ReutersSugar Labs and Free Software Foundation Celebrate Software Freedom Day
17 Sep 2009 ICTDev.orgDream Again with One Laptop per Child
26 Aug 2009 LatinuxAzúcar en una memoria USB
03 Aug 2009 Wired: Geek DadInventing a New Paradigm: SugarLabs and the Sugar UI
30 Jul 2009 ZanichelliSugar on a Stick: imparare insieme
23 Jul 2009 Everything USBRecycleUSB.com - Donate your Flash Drives for a Good Cause
22 Jul 2009 OLPC FranceSugar : mauvaise presse et mise au point
13 Jul 2009 Spiegel OnlineDas zuckersüße Leichtbau-Linux
07 Jul 2009 ComputerWorldUKGran Canaria Desktop Summit: a Study in Contrasts
06 Jul 2009 Windows ForestUSB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
02 Jul 2009 Howard County LibrarySugar on a Stick
27 Jun 2009 DeutschlandfunkSüßes für die Kleinen: Sugar ist Linux speziell für Kinder (in Deutsch)
26 Jun 2009 EduTechSugar on a stick, and other delectables (praise for the lowly USB drive)
26 Jun 2009 Ars TechnicaSugar on a Stick brings sweet taste of Linux to classrooms
24 Jun 2009 BBCOLPC software to power aging PCs
24 Jun 2009 Technology Review$100 Laptop Becomes a $5 PC
15 Jun 2009 TechSavvyKidsEpisode 10 FOSSVT: Sugar on a Stick (audio)
10 Jun 2009 LWN.netSugar moves from the shadow of OLPC
27 May 2009 LWN.netActivities and the move to context-oriented desktops (subscriber link)
27 May 2009 Business WireDailymotion Launches Support for Open Video Formats and Video HTML Tag
01 May 2009 GuysoftNokia N810 Running OLPC Sugar
29 Apr 2009 El MercurioAsí se vivió la fiesta del software libre
27 Apr 2009 ostaticSugar on a Stick: Good for Kids' Minds (and School Budgets)
25 Apr 2009 Free Software MagazineThe Bittersweet Facts about OLPC and Sugar
24 Apr 2009 Ars TechnicaFirst taste: Sugar on a Stick learning platform
22 Apr 2009 BetanewsBeta of Live USB Sugar OS opens
27 Mar 2009 Mass High TechGoogle promotes summer open-source internships
18 Mar 2009 MetropolisA Good Argument
16 Mar 2009 Laptop MagazineSugar Labs’ New Version of Sugar Learning Platform Is Netbook and PC Ready
16 Mar 2009 Market WatchSugar Labs Nonprofit Announces New Version of Sugar Learning Platform for Children, Runs on Netbooks and PCs
14 Feb 2009 OLPC Learning Club – DCLearning Learning on a Stick
05 Feb 2009 xconomySugar Beyond the XO Laptop: Walter Bender on OLPC, Sucrose 0.84, and “Sugar on a Stick”
26 Jan 2009 Linus MagazineSugar Defies OLPC Cutbacks
19 Jan 2009 Feeding the PenguinsThe status of Sugar, post-OLPC
16 Jan 2009 OLPC NewsSugar on Acer Aspire One & Thin Client via LTSP
12 Jan 2009 Bill Kerrthoughts about olpc cutbacks
07 Jan 2009 Ars TechnicaOLPC downsizes half of its staff, cuts Sugar development
06 Jan 2009 OLPC NewsAn Inside Look at how Microsoft got XP on the XO
30 Dec 2008 OLPC NewsSugar Labs Status at Six Months
22 Dec 2008 The GNOME ProjectSugar Labs, the nonprofit behind the OLPC software, is joining the GNOME Foundation
16 Dec 2008 Feeding the PenguinsSugar git repository change
14 Dec 2008 NPRLaptop Deal Links Rural Peru To Opportunity, Risk (Part 2)
13 Dec 2008 NPRLaptops May Change The Way Rural Peru Learns (Part 1)
09 Dec 2008 SFCSugar Labs joins Conservancy
31 Oct 2008 Linux DevicesAn OLPC dilemma: Linux or Windows?
10 Oct 2008 Feeding the PenguinSugar on Ubuntu
21 Sep 2008 GroklawInterview with Walter Bender of Sugar Labs
17 Sep 2008 Bill KerrSugar Labs
16 Sep 2008 Open SourceSugar everywhere
28 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsAn answer to Walter Bender's question 22
20 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsSugarize it: Intel Classmate 2
08 Aug 2008 Investor's Business Daily'Learning' Vs. Laptop Was Issue
06 Aug 2008 OLPC NewsTwenty-three Questions on Technology and Education
18 Jul 2008 Bill Kerrevaluating Sugar in the developed world
28 Jun 2008 OLPC NewsA Cutting Edge Sugar User Interface Demo
18 Jun 2008 PC WorldOLPC Spin-off Developing UI for Intel's Classmate PC
17 Jun 2008 DatamationIf Business Succeeds with GNU/Linux, Why Not OLPC?
11 Jun 2008 LinuxInsiderThe Sweetness of Collaborative Learning
06 Jun 2008 Bill Kerruntangling Free, Sugar, and Constructionism
06 Jun 2008 Open EducationWalter Bender Discusses Sugar Labs Foundation
06 Jun 2008 BusinessWeekOLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy
05 Jun 2008 Code CultureThe Distraction Machine
05 Jun 2008 BusinessWeekOLPC: The Open-Source Controversy
27 May 2008 The New York TimesWhy Walter Bender Left One Laptop Per Child
26 May 2008 Ars TechnicaOLPC software maker splits from X0 hardware, goes solo
22 May 2008 BetaNewsLinux start-up Sugar Labs in informal talks with four laptop makers
16 May 2008 OSTATICOLPC's Open Source Sugar Platform Aims for New Hardware
16 May 2008 PCWorldBender Forms Group to Promote OLPC's Sugar UI
16 May 2008 MHTBender jumps from OLPC, founds Sugar Labs
16 May 2008 News.comSugar Labs will make OLPC interface available for Eee PC, others
16 May 2008 Feeding the PeguinsThe future of Sugar
16 May 2008 Sugar listA few thoughts on SugarLabs
16 May 2008 xconomyBender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
16 May 2008 BBC'$100 laptop' platform moves on
15 May 2008 OLPC wikiDual-boot XO Claim: OLPC will not work to port Sugar to Windows.
16 May 2008 SoftpediaBender Launches Sugar Labs for Better Development of OLPC's Sugar UI

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