[IAEP] Library collections and content for Sugar by outsiders.

[David Farning]

On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 7:48 PM, C.W. Holeman II
<cwhii_cplo at julianlocals.com> wrote:
> I have just looked over http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs
> The words "library", "collection" and "content" appear once in a section on
> translating content.
>
> I have posted a number of messages to this list in the last couple of
> months related to the ease of outsiders contributing content for Sugar.
> My personal interest was to find how to adjust my software, Emle -
> Electronic Mathematics Laboratory Equipment (http://emle.sf.net), to
> fit into the Sugar environment. I have run into a number of bumps.
> Though I may be able to over come these issues they make it rather
> non friendly to outsiders.
>
> With all of the efforts in the recent months, content contribution is still
> hard to figure out especially if one is not in the XO owners club which
> is the case for most outsiders that have existing content that could be
> used in Sugar.

Sugar Labs is entirely a voluntary project.  We, luckily, have a few
developers that are being paid by third parties.  Everything else,
from infrastructure to documentation, is done by volunteers.

It is pretty hard to interest people in developing content when: a.
They have no platform on which to develop.  b. There are relatively
few users of the platform in the developer's area. Content tends to be
quite specific to countries for reasons of language, culture, and
legislation.

For the past six months we have focused entirely on developing,
supporting, and distributing the Sugar platform. The Sugar Labs
development team has stabilized and is releasing progressively better
software on a fixed cycle. Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Suse, and
Mandriva have invested both volunteer and paid engineers to package
and support Sugar.

We are now ready to start getting Sugar into the hands of writers,
developers, and users through deployments.  Over the next several
months we will be focusing heavily on establishing Local Labs as
deployment catalysts.  A Local Lab is not required for a deployment.
But, a Local Labs will help generate the critical mass of support
necessary for a self sustaining deployment.

Finally, by spring, the Local Labs formation process should be self
sustaining.  Then we can focus on activities and content.  This is
probably not the answer that you, or any one else, wanted to hear.
With a finite amount of resources there is only so much we can work on
at once.  We have to focus our effort on what will have the most
significant long term impact.

On the other hand, I could be completely wrong about all of the above:(
david