[IAEP] Sugar Labs 2017 Budget

[Dave Crossland]

Hi

On 26 February 2017 at 09:32, Samson Goddy <samsongoddy at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>
> At the last meeting, walter gave (Ignacio, Laura and me) tasks on how we can
> attract funding to the Community, i came up with the idea of creating
> awareness to the general public through SMM role. Which received negative
> comments, due to the fact that it was attached with $$

Kindly, your idea for attracting funding involves spending existing
funds, with no clear path to future income.

> What are these money for?

The monies in the general fund can be used for any purpose the SLOBs
approve; for them to approve a motion to spend money, they must be
convinced that the motion is likely to succeed, that success can be
measured, and that success will be aligned with the ethos
(vision/mission/etc) of both Sugar Labs, and the Software Freedom
Conservancy of which it is a part.

Reviewing https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/ may be helpful to
understand the benefits and constraints that Conservancy brings to
Sugar Labs.

> How do we get funds outside Google programs?

I don't think it is worth spending effort on this.

> What will happen to Sugar Labs if Google terminates GSOC or GCI one day?

I would expect  Sugar Labs would no longer see its general fund
increase year over year, through sponsored development by young
people.

More importantly, that would mean development would slow down
significantly, since most development seems to be performed by
GSOC/GCI sponsorees, and it would then only be done by the current few
active volunteer developers (such as Lionel, Chris, Walter, Sam,
Tymon, etc.)

But other than that, not much would change. Sugar Labs will continue
to be a part of the Conservancy, so until the development community
loses all its developers and the whole thing is archived and unless
no-one revives it, then it would become a historical project in the
history of computing - as so many great projects that are now archived
and abandoned (or even, lost to sands of time)

> These are questions that i will love to have answers on.
>
> Concerning possible loosing support for python version. I think of we have
> good strategy of how sugar can impact learning in schools, i don't think any
> version of sugar matters. Last year after my project, i started doing
> research on SEED/OLPC schools. I got a call from a teacher in Southern Part
> of Nigeria. He was telling me about xo machines in his schools. He told me
> that for the past years, after SEED terminated the project. They stop using
> the sugar because no body could support them. He also mention that his
> school is willing to Re:sugar with over 1,000 xo machines working. I told
> him i was going to contact the community for support. Which i did but didn't
> get any response aside from Tony and Walter.

Right. In a way it is a pity, since the machines were designed to
physically last and indeed they have! :)

Continuing to support the XO-1 is definitely an option for the next 10 years.

Discontinuing support for the python version completely is also an option.

How to decide? =)

I wonder what the price of abandoning the machines and buying cheap
Android tablets is, compared to the price of maintaining them with the
latest OLPC/Sugar release.

> Concerning what Caryl was saying about paying teachers to test sugar in
> schools. I think that is a great plan. But is shouldn't just focus on the
> Sugarizer only yet. Of course i know JS is the feature but before that if we
> can support python let us do it. "Let us use what we have to get want we
> want". Example, i am planning a mega workshop in Nigeria, concerning
> targeting school with E-learning capabilities. There are lot of schools in
> Nigeria using tablet in class to play games. Why won't SL sit down and think
> how we can get this schools to use Sugarizer  in their tablet, deploy
> schools servers for collaborations. Install python version in computer labs
> as my school did back in the olpc days.

The nature of libre software is that no one is prevented from doing
any of that.

However, the question is, what does the SL org want to focus on, to
drive attention to, to nurture?  Focus requires saying no to things :)

> I have the ability to do this, because what they care about is success
> stories, how does this benefit our students. GCI can be a pinpoint, my story
> about how i became what i am now was because of Sugar.

:)

> P.S i have been invited to a Scratch conference in Bordeaux, France. Which
> is scheduled to happen in July i can't remember the date. Also a mini
> scratch events in Nairobi, Kenya for prep talk which i am going to talk
> about Sugar. All because i posted my passion about computer science in
> Medium. So this is what we should be doing as a community not doing
> otherwise.

Great!

Focusing SL as a home for young developers seems like a good option :)

-- 
Cheers
Dave