[IAEP] Getting the message out - take2

[David Van Assche]

Actually, this is really important, I've been asked several times
whether development on sugar has been stopped due to the olpc thing...
so its definitly a good idea to spread this message....

David Van Assche

On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Bernie Innocenti <bernie at codewiz.org> wrote:
> [cc += iaep@]
>
> Here's a revised version integrating some feedback from marketing@:
>
> -----8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<-----
>
> Does the world know that Sugar Labs is still 100% committed to support
> Sugar?
>
> We got nearly zero press coverage lately, and the only message that
> everybody got is that OLPC ditched the development of Sugar, and the
> general mood is pretty negative.
>
> Perhaps we should be much louder in telling people about a few facts
> that would sound surprising outside our small circle and even within it:
>
>  - Sugar's development infrastructure is now mostly independent of
>   OLPC, thanks to many generous partners (Ivan, OSL, Free Software
>   Foundation, prgmr.com, MIT Media Lab, Solution Groove, Collabora
>   and Develer);
>
>  - For about 3 months now, Sugar Labs has already been taking
>   care of Sugar development with almost no support from OLPC;
>
>  - Sugar has not lost any of its full-time core developers as a
>   consequence of OLPC's layoffs.
>
>  - All of the core team will stay around as unpaid volunteers
>   while we're looking for new ways to finance their full-time
>   contribution;
>
>  - Today, development of Sugar and activities relies upon 20 active
>   contributors (we actually have 30 user accounts on sunjammer,
>   but some of them don't count as contributors of any kind);
>
>  - Over the past few months, we have grown our community with new
>   contributors, new partners and new distributors;
>
>  - The rate of development seems to be increasing steadily as we
>   consolidate our new community driven development model
>   (we can obtain some support evidence from git);
>
>  - Through the SFC, Sugar Labs is receiving some very generous
>   support (although we're not yet able to credit individual
>   donors);
>
>  - While we do not plan to hire a development team within Sugar Labs,
>   we're working to get some of our full-time volunteer contributors
>   sponsored by external organizations;
>
>  - Red Hat and Solutions Groove are contributing with engineering
>   resources and covering traveling expenses for some of our members;
>
>  - The development cycle is proceeding steadily and 0.84 will be
>   released as planned in March;
>
>  - We've been working to establish Local Labs, grassroots
>   organizations which, in our mind, will fill up the gap left by
>   OLPC in deployments;
>
> It's starting to become clear that 0.84 is where we'll prove our
> credibility as a self-sufficient, community-driven project.
>
> -----8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<----------8<-----
>
> To the best of my knowledge, all the above corresponds to reality.
>
> Can anyone spot any factual mistake I should correct, or things
> we'd better avoid saying?  Am I being exaggeratedly positive
> anywhere?
>
> Anyone who has contacts with local or international press agencies is
> invited to help us deliver this message effectively.
>
> --
>   // Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
>  \X/  Sugar Labs       - http://www.sugarlabs.org/
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