[IAEP] Planning for the future

[Sean DALY]

Hi Samuel,

thanks for this

I believe Sugar has had a clear pedagogical vision from day one, but has
not had a strategy for some time.

Outside the XO, Sugar's historical technical architecture has unfortunately
kept it out of reach from all but the most determined and tech-savvy
teachers (and journalists). Without a pancake button download and one-click
installer, the installation barrier is too high. OLPC's historical focus on
the hardware was never helpful either, and the main reason OLPC got mauled
by incorrect memes was they didn't want to accompany journalists past the
unfamiliarity barrier of the XO (hardware+software).

In my view there are only a few ways to overcome this issue:

* Develop 1-click installers for Windows / MacOS / GNU/Linux. I had
suggested maintaining a matrix of preconfigured (i.e. languages/keyboards,
prepopulated Journal, selection of Activities) VMs over Oracle VirtualBox,
whose license allows free distribution for nonprofit and educational
purposes. Upsides were immediate fullscreen Sugar experience without
touching the configuration of the host computer. The downsides were huge VM
images and the effort required to build and maintain the matrix. At the
time I suggested we approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship, but some
community members voiced objections.

* Arrange for Sugar to be preinstalled on low-cost, reliable machines other
than XOs. This is complex and would require a sales force (or working with
a partner's) since no OEM will make that investment without a prospect of
selling many thousands of units. As an alternative I had suggested we ride
the wave of Raspberry Pi units (five million sold in three years) by
developing an SD card for it based on Sugar on a Stick, but there was no
interest in that effort. I still believe a Sugar-branded version (case +
teacher starters kit -documentation) could have an impact.

* Migrate to a web-based Sugar compatible with browsers on any platform.
Lionel's Sugarizer is I think a fabulous solution.


I've heard it suggested that marketing could do fund-raising, but donors
large and small won't want to contribute unless there is a plan. I've been
bewildered what the plan is for some time.

Sean



On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 12:36 AM, Samuel Greenfeld <samuel at greenfeld.org>
wrote:

> Disclaimer: The following are my views, and not the views of my current or
> past employers.
>
> About a year ago, I privately expressed concern that Sugar needed to
> ensure it had long-term sponsorship and a long-term user base.
>
> Since then, both the historical US-based OLPC organization and Sugar Labs
> have not publicly said much about their long-term plans, with OLPC also
> being rather closemouthed about the present.
>
> Meanwhile contributors silently leave.  It is hard to justify volunteering
> when you don't know who will benefit besides mysterious "customers."
>
> Everyone seems happy to cite their past successes.  No one corrects the
> press when they report stale information in their favor.
>
>
> There is no shame in being a smaller project.  But we need to ask the hard
> questions.  With Sugar, getting users and developers for a niche platform
> is a problem.  With OLPC, everyone seems to love repeating the 2 or 2.5
> million number for laptops historically shipped.  Rarely is it asked how
> many XOs been shipped in the past year or are in active use & where.
>
> Sugar & OLPC need to come up with long-term strategies.  While there is
> nothing public I have seen stopping One Education's XO Infinity from
> running Sugar, I haven't seen anything stopping it from running anything
> else.  It is also unclear how much One Education is willing to engage with
> the historical Sugar & OLPC communities (or how much they can tell us at
> this time).
>
>
> Historically there have been many philosophical questions like "Does there
> need to be a physical machine?" and "Have we succeeded if every child has a
> computer, but from someone else?"
>
> I do not believe Sugar or OLPC is down for the count.  But in order to
> engage One Education, governments, and other educational groups, both Sugar
> and the historical OLPC structure need to have plans to transition to the
> future.  Otherwise these plans will be written for us.
>
> I suspect I know how things will end; but I wish it was not happening
> though silence.
>
> ---
> SJG
>
> _______________________________________________
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> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
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