[IAEP] Sugar Labs - Goals for 2018 and beyond

[Alex Perez]

Sameer,

Apologies for top-posting.

For 2018, I would really like to see Sugar Labs get behind and commit to 
getting the core of Sugar working fully with Python 3. I personally 
believe this is critical to its long(er) term success, as Python 2 
continues be deprecated. Python 2 will not be supported at all past 2020 
(see https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0373/)

I asked Walter about the feasibility of this, to which he reiplied "we 
had a GSoC intern do a pretty thorough investigation a few years ago. 
Doesn't look like a lot of work for Sugar itself (or the toolkit). But 
updating all of the activities will be a chore."

Personally I would propose that this be done under contract to someone 
with a very complete understanding of the differences and best coding 
practices between Python 2 and 3 (eg, a "professional"), due to the 
importance of getting this right the first time. Will that cost some 
money? Absolutely, but I suspect that it would be money well spent.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

> Greetings!
>
> Here is a proposal to solicit various goals towards mission of
> Sugarlabs. I am sending this out as per my comments on the recent
> #sugar-meeting on IRC.
>
> In the past, I have noticed that whenever we propose to discuss
> various goals that this community may pursue, we tend to fail quite
> rapidly at not arriving at a consensus. It is not that we have
> incorrect ideas about how we think the project should proceed. We tend
> to disagree prematurely. To remedy the situation, I am proposing that
> we gather opinions from the community about goals and do so in a
> manner where it remains temporarily shielded from public view. Then,
> at a given time (say two weeks) we make all of these items public.
> This may reveal if we have convergent ideas or if we are still very
> divergent. Either is okay.
>
> Next, we would try to merge similar items into tangible goals with a
> specific time frame. Depending on who the champions are for a specific
> goal and its objectives, these people may then band together into an
> ad-hoc group and pursue said goals.
>
> The time line for this project is relatively short. I propose that we
> collect ideas for two weeks. At the end of two weeks, we would then
> make the items public, and solicit more ideas for a third week. At the
> end of the third week, we would then try to collate similar responses
> into clusters of tangible goals. From there on, each set of goals may
> be pursued independently, depending on its sponsors, champions,
> supporters and participants.
>
> If this sounds like something that will help us move forward, I am
> ready to set this in motion. I have already discussed this with
> Hillary Naylor, who is an active participant in our OLPC-SF group.
> When it's time to collate responses, I may solicit some more help from
> some of you.
>
> cheers,
> Sameer
> -- 
> Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Professor, Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/