[IAEP] [Sugar-devel] [SoaS] The Future of Sugar on a Stick

[David Farning]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Sebastian Dziallas <sebastian at when.com> wrote:
> Mel Chua wrote:
>> There's a lot going on in this thread, so here is my attempt to
>> summarize discussions so far. If I've missed or misstated anything, my
>> apologies - and it's a wiki, so go fix it. ;-)
>>
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Sugar_on_a_Stick
>>
>> By my count, there are 4 things we need to decide on and then execute
>> in order to wrap up this conversation. Some are already in progress.
>>
>>      * 4.1 Make a SoaS mailing list
>>      * 4.2 Formalize a SoaS development team
>>      * 4.3 Determine what "Sugar on a Stick" refers to
>>      * 4.4 Determine what "the code Sebastian is working on" is called
>>
>> Only the third one has a clear owner (SLOBs) and can be decided at
>> this time (the 4th seems to depend on the answer to the 3rd). How can
>> we move these forward - and are there any other blocker decisions that
>> aren't listed here?
>>
>> --Mel, the human ticket tracker
>
> Ahhh! Sorry, I'm a bit late to this party here...
>
> Mel, this talk and the summary page is *awesome* - thanks a lot for
> getting everything together there! I agree that most of the other parts
> are non-blocking - at least for 4.1 & 4.2 we probably don't need a SLOBs
> decision, right? - while 4.3 is something that still needs to be solved
> (4.4 is related to it, I'd say).
>
> --Sebastian

No need to apologize.  Sometimes big decisions like this take time for
everyone....

Mel has laid down a very good plan of action.

This sets several important precedences:
Delegate authority - In this case the soas project can define its own
future.  And the marketing team can define its own marketing strategy.

Sugar Labs does not declare an official soas.  Instead, the marketing
team can pick the best soas on which to base its strategy.  I don't
for see Fedora losing that position any time soon.

This 'forces' the marketing team to publicly articulate the overall
marketing strategy.  Sorry Sean:)  Traditionally marketing is a very
closed process.  Apple, one of the masters, sues people for revealing
information early!

This 'forces' the rest of us to learn more about marketing and PR.
Sorry community:)  None of the rest of us understand marketing.

Looks like Mel just added to more action items to this thread. So,
I'll jump back to the meta lesson from this experience:)

1.  Its a Education Project.... for all of us.  I should have drafted
and build consensus for the Trademark guidelines over a year ago,
before this became an issue.  But, I did not understand the Legal
ramification of trademarks until Karen explained them. I did not
understand the marketing ramifications of trademarks of Sean explained
them.  And most importantly, I did not understand the community
ramifications of trademarks until this thread.

2.  Its a Education Project.... for all of us.  I should have drafted
the project policy before soas got to this size or importance.  The
soas team should have been able to design their team around project
guidelines rather than retrofit themselves after the fact.

3.  Its a Education Project.... for all of us.  Both the soas team and
the marketing team explored new areas.  Through this thread we
collaborated on how to move forward in the face of unclear
expectations.  Finally, we are reflecting on what we did right and
what we did wrong so we can do better next time.

david