[IAEP] [SLOBS] SLOBs Position on SoaS

[Sean DALY]

I'm sorry, I couldn't disagree more. The public has no idea what Sugar
is. Believe me, without marketing, that won't change. We're just at
the beginning, and for now paying marketing expenses out of pocket.

The Sugar on a Stick name and what it means wouldn't matter so much if:

a) GNU/Linux distributions made up more than 2% of the desktop market, and
b) the millions of teachers and tens of millions of Learners we want
to reach had already heard of Sugar and knew what it is.

Neither of these being the case, we have a very steep challenge
spreading the word about Sugar. The distros and desktops unfortunately
can't bring brand power to Sugar since they have so little. I stated
earlier (http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-September/008402.html)
that our marketing strategy is focused on Sugar on a Stick because it
is a game-changer, bootable on 90% of computers likely to be in a
school.

Sugar Labs in my view needs to develop and safeguard the Sugar on a
Stick name, in order to be very clear what it is and what it does.

To my mind, SoaS today is Sebastian's work over Fedora. But generally
speaking, SoaS should refer to the easiest to use (including support),
most reliable liveUSB teachers can try. If half a dozen liveUSB
versions existed, and presented themselves to teachers in the same
way, it would be of secondary importance what the actual
distro/architecture of each Sugar on a Stick was. However, I doubt we
could easily support half a dozen different versions.

If, on the other hand, there exist half a dozen liveUSB
implementations but only one officially supported Sugar Labs Sugar on
a Stick, support will be at least manageable.

SoaS has a ways to go to become classroom-ready, but it's doable.

Widescale success of SoaS will lift all the boats.

Sean



On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka <yamaplos at gmail.com> wrote:
> I /really, really dislike/ this setting that replies only to the one
> sender... :-)
>
> Yamandu Ploskonka wrote:
>> sugaronastick.com is Caroline Meeks, so I believe we are OK there
>> as to the .org, it would be a certain Peter Robinson (?)
>>
>> Anyway, while marketing might be a Good Thing when our hearts are
>> pure, it sort of smells of burned rubber to me generally.
>>
>> Again, does the public care?  As long as those Sugars, be they
>> Fedora-based or Organdi-based communicate with each other, it would be
>> somewhat immaterial which one is "The" Soas from  a users standpoint.
>> Yes, it is quite possible one of them is actually better, and there's
>> the stick-ing point, if you allow the pun.
>>
>> I believe SL should support and highlight the best, generally allowing
>> the others to call themselves "a" SOAS if they want to, and also be
>> mentioned in SL web pages and presentations, with the reasonable
>> caveat that they are even more so "works in progress" than the
>> highlighted SOAS
>>
>> Yama
>>
>> Daniel Drake wrote:
>>> 2009/9/19 Chris Ball <cjb at laptop.org>:
>>>
>>>>   "Should Sugar Labs be a Linux distributor, rather than just an
>>>>   upstream producing Sugar releases?"
>>>>
>>>>   "Should SL be neutral about distributions containing Sugar, and
>>>>   refuse to endorse one over another?"
>>>>
>>>>   "Should 'Sugar on a Stick' be a phrase that SL asks its community
>>>>   to avoid using unless they refer to the SoaS-Fedora distribution?"
>>>>
>>>
>>> After speaking with Sebastian on IRC, I think we concluded that really
>>> only the 3rd question is of importance to him at this time. The other
>>> 2, which may involve a lot more consideration and discussion could be
>>> avoided for now (that would be my vote).
>>>
>>> The 3rd question is important to Sebastian because of some doubt
>>> regarding the 'ownership' and usage of the name "Sugar on a Stick."
>>> This is perfectly understandable given that:
>>>  - Sugar on a stick has been a concept within the community for a long
>>> time, only recently has it become a solid, mainstream implementation
>>> (and even then, there was still a strong element of concept in the
>>> marketing)
>>>  - Non-Fedora distros have also started making sugar distros that run
>>> from live USB, and although they haven't been named "Sugar on a
>>> stick," I recall at least a few mentions from people in the community
>>> referring to them that way
>>>  - Another party registered the domain name sugaronastick.com
>>>
>>> This question has been discussed on the mailing list a few times and
>>> we have a couple of conflicting responses:
>>>  1. Give the name "Sugar on a stick" to Sebastian's project and
>>> discourage anyone else from using it
>>>  2. Let him use the name for now, but make no promises because if we
>>> find a better live USB project in the future, we'll move the "sugar on
>>> a stick" name over to *that* one (for the purposes of clarity of
>>> marketing?)
>>>
>>> This is the discussion that would benefit from a decision from the
>>> oversight or decision groups, and because it's quite specific,
>>> hopefully it can be answered without too much beating around the bush.
>>>
>>> Sebastian, I hope the above is an accurate summary :)
>>> Daniel
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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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