[IAEP] Personal comments on the Sugar 2016 Vision proposal

[Samuel Greenfeld]

I don't know if I will be able to make the meeting tomorrow; I am not
really in a position to monitor IRC while at work.

Reading the proposed Vision statement[*] we seem to be confusing a Vision
Statement (which tends to be short & high level) with a detailed list of
goals that Sugar Labs should try to accomplish this year.

[*] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Vision_proposal_2016

That said:

   - The goals need to be based on the level of volunteer and professional
   support Sugar Labs expects to have, and not just be everyone's wish list.

   - A definite end-of-life date needs to put on XO-1 support.  As time
   goes on, it will take more work to backport things to work properly on its
   processor (lacking certain i686 CPU instructions) and its 256 MB of RAM.
   Unless Sugar & its apps will support a wide range of underlying library
   versions {good for cross-distro work}, those will have to be backported as
   well.

   - Before Sugar Labs purchases any XO-4s, OLPC's and Quanta's end-of-life
   dates for the product need to be determined, along with expected purchase
   demand.

   The design is now 3 years old.  If Marvell stops making the processors,
   or another battery manufacturer decides to stop making the XO's irregular
   battery size again, Sugar Labs could have a lot of undesired stock on hand.

   - Do not limit Sugar to any particular technology on Chrome OS.  Schools
   are purchasing Chromebooks *because* they can be locked down to a known set
   of applications.  Many districts may be unwilling to put them in
   development mode so Sugar can be used.  Development mode and/or "rooting"
   the device may cause other programs they use for testing, etc., to refuse
   to work.

   If Sugar is to be accepted by larger school districts, it needs to fit
   their enterprise software model of deployment.  This includes potentially
   the Tivoization of Sugar, however contradictory that may be with the GPLv3.

   - If you nag for funding persistently the way the vision currently
   describes, I think Sugar Labs is more likely to lose members than gain any
   funding.  Asking quarterly (like Public TV stations in the US) could be
   appropriate.

   - I do not see a goal to get Sugar more widely used in schools.  This
   may require having someone create detailed guides describing how Sugar can
   be integrated with various state curriculums, similar to work Claudia and
   Mellisa did for OLPC-A.

   There may be software tweaks required to make school districts (and not
   just individual schools) happy as well.

   Has Sugar Labs given up on expanding its presence in larger/US-style
   school districts, or is this just an oversight?
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