[IAEP] Sugar Digest 2013-02-04

[Ron Feigenblatt]

http://walterbender.org/?p=641 says:
"Our goal is to build an interface between the Sugar Journal and
several on-line services."

Maybe I don't get a vote in this discussion, because I haven't written
Sugar code and am unlikely to do so in the near future. But please
accept that I have friendly intentions. I was an advocate of such
notions when I first made contact with Sugar Labs through the
Marketing Group three years ago now. Details follow below..

On 2/4/13, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>...on the one hand, I filled a ticket with Youtube regarding
>enabling the uploading of .ogv files. On the other hand, when I post
>videos, I use Dailymotion, because it supports .ogv. And yet I admit
>to still watching the occasional Youtube video.

| Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:16:34 -0500
| Subject: Re: Sugar and OLPC
| From: Ron Feigenblatt <docdtv at gmail.com>
| To: Sean Daly <sdaly at sugarlabs.org>
|
| ...On 1/12/10, you wrote:
| ...
| > we are not using YouTube because they don't support free formats - we
| > use DailyMotion, who does. The Sugar Labs channel is here:
| > http://www.dailymotion.com/sugarlabs
|
| You know, I noticed that when I used Internet Explorer 6 on
| Microsoft Windows 98 to access your Web site, your Web [server]
| failed to block your usual content and instead post a message
| reading something like:
|
|         "Please uses a kosher open source
|         platform to access our content. Thanks!"
|
| It's fine if you use Daily Motion so you can publish using an
| open-source codec, but why not ALSO simply transcode and
| DUPLICATE all videos on YouTube, as the hosting is free
| and the site is INCREDIBLY popular? Don't think of YouTube
| as JUST [] a hosting site - think of it as a SEARCH ENGINE:
| http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/12/31/technology/internet/31tubeGrfx/articleInline.jpg
| ...

http://walterbender.org/?p=641 says:
"Specifically, Raul and I are working on an interface between the
Journal and Facebook and Bernie is working on an interface between the
Journal and Google Drive..."

| Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 12:39:09 -0500
| Subject: Idea: Sugar Live CD uses Cloud-based Journal, courtesy Google Docs?
| From: Ron Feigenblatt <docdtv at gmail.com>
| To: Sean Daly - Sugar marketing coordinator <sdaly at sugarlabs.org>,
JT4sugar               <jtis4stx at hotmail.com>
| Cc: walter at sugarlabs.org
|
| ...I just want to [flesh] out the idea I suggested in the latest
| Sugar marketing meeting.
|
| You guys think about Sugar being used in a school setting.
| I think it might be fun to try out at home, too.
|
| Most homes in the US, among other nations, now have broadband...
|
| The idea is to mail Sugar Live CDs for kids to try out on any
| PC at home attached to the Internet. Besides being cheaper
| to provide than flash drives, not a few home users know how
| to copy CDs (not always for nice reasons) and blanks are
| cheap. Each CD can bear the legend "PLEASE COPY ME!"
| (Aside: Who will ever forget the CD carpet-bombing AOL did?)
|
| It is easy to generate identifiers unique to a PC, based on
| its hardware. Microsoft uses this technique to identify PCs
| and reduce piracy, through its "activation" procedure.
|
| Unique identifiers can provide the automated credentials
| needed to access online storage, which can hold Journals.
| (This means one Journal store per PC, unless one mandates
| user involvement.) When Sugar boots, it would check if the
| online store already existed, and if not, would establish it.
|
| Among other firms, Google now provides a limited amount of free
| online storage; in its case, 1GB for Google Documents users, see:
| http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/upload-and-store-your-files-in-cloud.html
| I think signing up for an account could be automated, save for the
| need for a human to recognize a CAPTCHA image ONCE. (People
| had already created software to exploit Google Gmail for storage.)
|
| Unlike a thumb drive, a kid could not lose online storage (unless
| the PC dies, or is upgraded in a way which changes its credentials.)
| And while availability may only be 3 to 5 nines, one much doubts Google
| storage is as likely to totally die as is a flash drive. See the remarks at:
|   http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education_Team#Soas_thoughts
| ...

Oh, I had forgotten to caution that Live CDs would not be NEARLY as popular
as thumb drives. You see, you can't reformat a read-only disk to store the free
movies some folks download from the Internet or rip from DVDs. (They tell me
that all-day suckers are made out of sugar. ;-P )

On 2/4/13, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> We need to tread lightly here. The FB terms of service require 13+
> yrs. Our children are younger than that. Maybe the Scratch team thinks
> it is OK, but I am uncomfortable with encouraging children to violate
> the terms of service.

If a child's parent can open a Facebook account, he can let his
child's computer access same without violating the TOS (I think).
FWIW, the other season, I read that about half the Facebook accounts
in Germany use pseudonyms.

On 2/4/13, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> Second, Facebook does not provide a place for file (project) sharing,
> just a place for talking about projects. We will need other services
> for that (dare I say, Google Drive).

Facebook allows one to create alphanumeric notes and upload stills and
audio-videos. One could always (steganographically, and if desired,
cryptographically) store an arbitrary binary file in an image file, as
long as one respected the mandated constraints on the file format. And
one could work around image size limits by using multiple files. As
long as the resulting pictures weren't too "dirty," one wouldn't be
violating the TOS! And for fun, one could also upload a single
perfectly human-legible Sugar Labs promo snapshot in any album which
Sugar created.

I think the most important point to keep in mind is this. What happens
if a Cloud Service Provider changes its TOS, changes its API, goes out
of business, etc., making further use unacceptable or impossible? Can
the user export the data in time? (cf. Megaupload.) And will it be
easy to rehost elsewhere, if only on a local medium? This is a truly
VITAL consideration, no matter how one feels about Open Source issues.

If a user can afford two ISPs accessed via two different media, it
might be an easy way to turn a 3 nines connection into a 6 nines
connection. So if a user depends on free Cloud Storage, maybe it is
not a bad idea to use two Providers, and live with half the bandwidth.
When I was trying to decide which Wiki system my students should start
using in summer 2005, one reason I went with Wikispaces was that they
made Web site export dead simple. Google, for one, understands this,
and so maintains what it calls its Data Liberation Front.

And whether anyone likes it or not, if one lets a Sugar user run a Web
browser, some of them will manually use Facebook, and other online
facilities, too. Maybe you just want to create a Sugar tool to
transform a Journal entry to/from a valid JPG file?

Ron