[IAEP] On OLPC and Sugar collaboration (Was: Schedule for SugarCamp?)

[Bernie Innocenti]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> I know you'll find this split controversial, but this is what a lot of
> people asked for.  I also think defining independent -- but
> interoperable -- roadmaps will result in higher quality results.
> 
> We can ensure that periodic (or continuous) integration is part of the
> equation.

One important clarification on my stand for those who read from
remote (Scott knows these things already):

 * I strongly feel that OLPC and Sugar Labs should remain
   independent entities, but collaborate closely;

 * I often visit the OLPC headquarters to talk with people
   and work on Sugar Labs related stuff.  As a result, I hope,
   some of our reciprocal misunderstandings have been cleared;

 * We expressly welcome any OLPC employee or contractor as a
   member of the Sugar community -- we already have 2 OLPC
   chairs in the board;

 * When I and the other Sugar developers say "Sugar", we
   intend the Sucrose modules as defined here:
   http://sugarlabs.org/go/Taxonomy;
   Not the whole OS distro with Sugar installed on it.
   Surprisingly, naming has been a major source of confusion!

 * From a governance PoV: regardless of who handed the individual
   paychecks, the Sugar team has functioned for over 2 years as
   an self-sufficient unit.  They are all senior engineers, with
   Marco being their lead and the interface OLPC can use for
   feature requests.

 * From a branding PoV: in order for Sugar to attract a wider
   user and developer base, it needs to stop looking like a
   subproduct of OLPC.

 * From an engineering PoV: like any medium/large scale project,
   Sugar needs more regular, more predictable, time-based releases.
   This does not necessarily make it harder to meet the
   requirements of its primary downstream distributor.

Scott and I disagree on the last 2 points.  Although I trust we both
want Sugar to live long and prosper.

A few months ago, there was a lot of flaming about Sugar 0.82.0
being released too early, or being too buggy, or lacking some features
desired by OLPC.

Part of this criticism is certainly funded: 0.82 was the first release
cycle entirely coordinated Sugar Labs.  But many would agree that 0.82
was a *huge* leap forward done in just 6 months by a very resource
constraint team of 3 full-time developers.

If we plan well at the meeting and then follow the plan closely, next
release will roll out much smoother.  And if, as a result of new
partnerships, we could put a few more people working on Sugar, things
would progress a lot faster.

-- 
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
 \X/  Sugar Labs       - http://www.sugarlabs.org/