[IAEP] Lots of Interest in SoaS at CUE

[David Farning]

On 3/7/09, Caroline Meeks <solutiongrove at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Caryl!
>
> When you talk to the tech savvy ones please ask them to help us test it so
> we can get the bugs out and get it "Grannie ready!"   There has been amazing
> progress in the last few weeks but I want to keep people excited not angry
> that it doesn't work, so please manage expectations. ;)   We need those tech
> savvy people but I don't want educators to try this in their classes
> tomorrow, get frustrated, and never try it again.  We aren't quite there
> yet.

I would like to echo Caroline's thoughts.  This release is about
re-framing the the Sugar brand and Sugar Labs image.

Education has a revolution every couple of months... and technology
nearly as frequently.

Sugar Lab's challenge is to make it past the headlines and into the classroom.

Teachers are jaded. Every grad student worth his degree has written a
paper about how to improve education by turning current practices on
their heads.  Every teacher has a closet full of revolutionary
teaching materials that is getting dusty.

Our first release was about the organization.  The creation of Sugar
Labs, the teams, and the processes necessary to develop and release
great software.

Our second release, coming up in a few days, has been about outreach
and partnering.  The Sugar 'community' has been reaching out to other
communities to develop relationships.  The most visible is the strong
partnership between Fedora and Sugar.  Below the radar, Walter is
working with SkoleLinux. Tomue and alsroot are working with Mandriva,
gdium, and Calix magic.  Bernie is sharing much of Sugar Lab's
infrastructure with the FSF and OSL.....

As hard as it is to admit, a lot of partnerships have not worked out.
People have not returned phone calls.  Organization have expected, or
wanted, more then we are able to deliver--at this time.  Sometimes,
there have been organizational or philosophical barriers which have
inhibited our collaboration.

All in all, the rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated:)

As Caryl pointed out, there is great interest in the Sugar product.
.84 is looking very, very good.  Fedora in particular is stabilizing
around a good release.

Let's be-careful about overselling Sugar.  Let's find those early
adopters, open source advocates, and 1 to 1 computing advocates.
Let's get Sugar in their hands. Let's get their feedback in the Sugar
Lab bugtracker and onto the mailing lists.

If we continue on our current trajectory, I have no doubts that by our
fall release Sugar will be deployed in School and homes around and the
world.  By next spring, Sugar Labs, and the ecosystem, will be ready
to support large scale deployments across the globe.

david