[IAEP] Sugar Labs 2017 Budget

[Laura Vargas]

2017-03-01 22:38 GMT-05:00 Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net>:

> Sorry Laura
>
>
The money is better kept in the bank until Sugar Labs has an objective and
> understands what kind of resources it needs.
>
>
Thanks for writing Tony!

First and for the sake of democracy, let's make it clear to all learners
here that there is a regular process for Budgetary decisions at Sugar Labs:
it is the Sugar Labs Oversight Board as a whole, who are responsible for
approving Budgetary decisions by a majority of votes over specific
proposals expressed on specific motions.

So far, the Open Badges initiative is still maturing in a wiki page thanks
to everybody's feedback.



> It is good that Sugar Labs is considering a budget for this year (a gross
> dereliction last year). However, an organization makes a budget to fund its
> planned projects for the year.
>


As humans, we should hurry to gain consciousness that money is a dynamic
resource that transfers trust and passion whenever invested in human
resources.

The ideal scenario would be to have a Budget planned ahead for every year.

I have never heard of one that starts out with 'we have this money, how can
> we spend it.'
>
>
So far because of our lack of financial planning, funds have remained
unused and unfortunately this financial paralysis has translated into
loosing more and more funds! According to Adam, Sugar Labs missed receiving
US$40,000 because of our collective inaction with the Trip Advisor grant
:(


Our goal for localization should be to enable our users to perform
> localization on their own laptops, i.e. view it as an opportunity for
> constructive learning.
>

+1

If you have any specific proposal for the 2017 SL Budget to consider please
do share.



> Naturally, the professionals can do it faster and more efficiently. That
> is always the problem when you are trying to develop the capabilities of
> learners, but that investment is the business we are in. Localization is
> interesting because the most important skill is knowledge of two languages
> such as English and Yoruba. This is precisely the skill that is readily
> available in a Sugar deployment in a Yoruba-speaking region (and not in a
> professional enclave in Boston).
> In Peru, it is incomprehensible that we don't have current localization in
> every local language since every Peruvian child has a laptop with Sugar.
>
>

I agree English learning must be part of the learners outcome when
contributing to localization. One thing important to clarify is that not
"every Peruvian child has a laptop with Sugar".

As for planning localization efforts, one thing important to understand
from local context is that languages Quechua and Aymara are shared with
other Andean countries. All other languages are Amazonian languages shared
with the other countries on the Amazon Basin, where there are more than 350
indigenous ethnic groups, who speak more than 300 languages.



> The major need for Sugar Labs is to create a process for releasing
> Sugarversions to be installed on current platforms: PCs, Raspberry Pi, and
> Windows 10. The resources capable of accomplishing that have professional
> skills and a day job. They need to be motivated to spend their own time.
> They need to be 'sung' heroes but will probably be 'unsung'.
>
>
Wishful thinking won't take us in any direction. We need to be assertive
and decide on how to better support our infrastructure and the work of
active contributors as they do deliver!

First, an active contributor contributes to meet a perceived need.
> Currently, we greet potential contributors with 'create a development
> environment and fix a random bug'. We ask our potential contributors to be
> familiar with git (although it isn't actually used). We don't ask these
> candidates to become familiar with Sugar or read 'Making your own Sugar
> activity'.
>
> We need to ask contributors to the build and distribute project what they
> know about uefi and grub2, livecd tools, making debian images for Raspberry
> Pi, and so on.
>


After many successfully delivered and deployed open source products, I have
learned you can not ask developers to do X or Y. They would do what they
like and they will use what they feel comfortable with. I guess that is why
we need to be creative and design innovative engaging strategies.



> This skill set is available at XSCE and I have never heard a discussion
> there about how those talented volunteers are to be compensated.
>
Several are at ScaleX at this moment, a location where it might be possible
> to recruit some of the technical skills Sugar Labs needs. Adam Holt is
> there, so at least one SLOB could be working in the interest of Sugar Labs.
>
We have approved an 'outreachy' intern but I have no idea what project the
> intern will be asked to undertake (generating an SOAS image from our github
> repository would be high on my list).
>


I think the Outreachy experience will be a nice learning case. I understand
sponsorship is meant for first time contributors as the objective of the
program seems to be to sponsor the work of a potential contributor that
otherwise wouldn't be able to contribute, pretty similar to the Open Badges
stipend philosophy is proposing.

For sure Walter will explain the time line and procedures for the project
proposals where necessary.


As for the 2017 Budget, Sugar Labs needs doable specific proposals for
funding and investing as a healthy financial planning should consider a
minimum of 5 years ahead.

Regards

Laura V


On 03/02/2017 09:16 AM, Laura Vargas wrote:



2017-02-25 20:33 GMT-05:00 Tymon Radzik <dwgipk at gmail.com>:
>
> Our funds deserve to be spent in more orgnization-beneficial way.
>
>
Hello Tymon,

Sorry it took me a while to reply.

This Budget discussion is an open door for proposals, please do share yours
as this policy making is also an educational process and therefore an ideal
arena for learning!


Open Badges are proposed as an award for historic achievements, there is no
conflict of interest when you have numeric results that support your
performance.

I think this discussion leads to the question of what would make a Sugar
Labs member an *active contributo*r? and of course, would rewarding active
contributors stimulate regular members to become active contributors?

Those are valid questions that should and can be easily tested with for
example the implementation Open Badges.

I would say at least one of the following must happen for a given period of
time for a regular member to be considered an active contributor:

1- The member contributed periodically to at least one of the Sugar Labs
Teams.

2- The member has had active leaderships of at least one of the Sugar Labs
Projects.

3- The member directly contributed with code and/or with Sugar Projects
translations.


All this data is available from logs, wiki, mailing list, etc. I hope for
the future of the community and it's users, the recognition of active
contributors becomes soon an open strategy for Sugar Labs evolution.

:D

Regards,

-- 
Laura V.
* I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org*

“No paradox, no progress.”
~ Niels Bohr

Happy Learning!


> Best,
> Tymon
>
>
>





-- 
Laura V.
* I&D SomosAZUCAR.Org*

“No paradox, no progress.”
~ Niels Bohr

Happy Learning!
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