[IAEP] Library content, the largest future group of contributors

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 1:09 PM, C.W. Holeman II
<cwhii_cplo at julianlocals.com> wrote:
> Here are some comments on the Sugar Camp Brainstorm session.
> Sugarcamp (http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugarcamp_proposal) had a link to:
>
> http://sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mchua/proposals#Sugarcamp_brainstorm
>
>> SugarLabs the easiest open education/educational technology
>> community for people (especially new volunteers) to contribute to.

That should be true, but people tell us they can't find out how yet. I
have just now asked that a link to the Participant page be added to
the left-column menu on the Wiki, and have cleaned up and added links
in some of the material for new users.

The essential introductory information is on the page
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Participate. We need to add to it.

We are creating mailing lists, Wiki pages, and a newsletter. There is
an IRC channel, #olpc-content.

We need to write some documentation. I have discussed this with Walter
and with Adam Hyde of FLOSS Manuals. We either need funding or a team
of seven or eight volunteers who are willing to take the time to do
it. It may be possible to use the FM book sprint method if we can
gather all of the questions and draft answers. It may be that we will
need to do several manuals over time, for developers, textbook
authors, and content creators. It may be that some of the information
changes too frequently for book publication, and we need to think of
some other systematic way to make it easily available.

The most important step is for everybody with unanswered questions to ask them.

> That is good and needed goal.
>
> My experience in trying to simply take my existing content
> (http://emle.sf.net) and package it as a library content bundle
> indicates to me that it is not easy for a new outsider to contribute.
> Emle works on Firefox.
>
> I installed Sugar on Ubuntu and tried Emle on the Sugar Browse activity
> which worked. Then I packaged Emle according to the documentation
> on the OLPC and Sugar Labs sites. The problem came when I tried to
> test my packaging.

What went wrong?

> The issues for new outsiders:
>
> - There is documentation and notes that assume an XO machine vs Sugar
> running on an Ubuntu system.

Actually, you should test software using an emulated XO in VMWare or qemu.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulation

> - What is supposed to be the same and what is expected to be different?

Many things do not work on Ubuntu at present. Do not use it for
testing new Activities.

> - Hardware issues one could assume.
> - The opening page on XO is "OLPC Library" vs "about:blank" on Ubuntu.
> - Was the opening page a bug or an improperly installed Sugar?
> - Where does one ask these questions?

Devel list.

> - Where are the pointers to the proper bug tracking system?

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Trac

> - Where is the documentation that tells one how to determine version
>  information.

Use the Sugar Control Panel.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Control_Panel#About_my_XO

> - This is a rapidly changing system.
> - There is a lack of clear documentation on naming conventions.
> - Where is the documentation that identifies what specifications are
>  trying to be implemented in a specific runtime version of sugar.

I don't understand the question. What are you trying to do?

> - The multi-platform (XO, Ubuntu, Windows emulation) nature adds complexity.

No doubt. But solve one at a time. If you have an XO, you can test on
it. If not, use the emulation. Leave packaging and testing for other
Linux distributions to the packaging teams.

> - Adding library collections will likely be the area for which the most
>  outside contributions will be made (vs Activities, Sugar core code or
>  Linux drivers).

Indeed. We are working on creating better support mechanisms for
content developers. There is an IRC channel, #olpc-content, and a
mailing list,http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/library.

> - This mass of library collection contributors will not need to have
>  an XO machine to create new content nor to modify existing
>  content.

Right.

> --
> C.W.Holeman II | cwhii_cplo at JulianLocals.com |
> http://sugarlabs.org/go/User:Cwhii
>  To only a fraction of the  human  race does God  give the  privilege of
>  earning one's bread doing what one would have  gladly pursued free, for
>  passion. I am very thankful. The Mythical Man-Month Epilogue/F.P.Brooks
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>



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