[SoaS] [Marketing] Activities and Features for SoaS V4

[John Tierney]

> Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 02:08:53 +0100
> From: martin at martindengler.com
> To: soas at lists.sugarlabs.org
> CC: mel at redhat.com; marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org; sdz at sugarlabs.org
> Subject: Re: [Marketing] [SoaS] Activities and Features for SoaS V4
> 
> On Fri, Jun 04, 2010 at 01:11:32PM -0400, John Tierney wrote:
> > I am trying to figure out upcoming schedule for SoaS V4. From my reading
> > of Fedora 14 release schedule which from my new understanding applies
> > directly to the next Sugar on a Stick release the two upcoming dates that
> > are super important are:
> > 
> > 2010-07-13     Feature Submission Deadline
> > 
> > and
> > 
> > 2010-07-27     Feature
> >  Freeze--Planning & Development Ends
> [...]
> > In a few recent threads I have been pushing the developer/coding
> > side to begin to offer visuals of the processes they use and adhere
> > to because many of less tech-oriented simply don't understand the
> > process and get more confused bouncing around multiple wiki's trying
> > to put puzzle together.
> [...]
> > These visuals will create very strong recruiting tools for those of
> > us involved in Facilitation and Outreach.  I would happily do it
> > myself but I simply don't understand the technical processes or
> > inter-relationships involved, precisely why these visuals are
> > needed.
> 
> You're going to try to recruit SoaS .iso developers without
> understanding development processes or meta-processes (e.g.,
> schedules)?
> 
> May I respectfully suggest that the overworked and underpaid volunteer
> developers have more productive things to do than create visuals of a
> schedule.  Much better would be for you to take YOUR understanding
> (including the dates about) and create the materials you think
> developers would want to know about (?!) and share them.
> 
> When you hear a deafening silence (or even get encouragement), you
> will have a) gained the understanding you say you lack (though you did
> a good job summarising things, IMHO); and b) gained the recruiting
> tools you think you need.
> 
> > If we can stop for a moment and capture much of what we are doing in
> > this visual sense we will make it enormously easier for people to
> > join and actively participate in the community.
> 
> It will be easier for people to comment on the developers' schedules,
> but it won't make it significantly easier to participate the SoaS .iso
> development schedule (I don't know what else you might mean by "the
> community" here, though it could be almost anything).  kickstart files
> and filesystems and shell scripting and boot processes still need to
> be understood, and a visual of the SoaS .iso creation schedule isn't
> going to help with that.
> 

What I was hoping for was a collaborative approach to put these visuals 
together. 

If I understood the situation fully I wouldn't be asking for help. But 
since I confess

I truly do not understand these inter-relationships between 
upstream-downstream

and how their different schedules affect Sugar and Sugar on a Stick I 
thought asking

those so closely involved with these processes to draw a picture/sketch 
would be an easy way to

start moving this process forward. If someone was willing after 
receiving I will turn into Mind Maps

which then can be polished.   



My original comments on this were:



......I believe we are all working towards
the same goal. From the marketing,
educational

 outreach, not so
techy side of things, I believe we need some
help actually
understanding the process of getting the activities qualified,
the
time frame(timeline), the upstream-downstream relationships. I
along with the
Teachers, Educators, University Professors outside
of Computer Science have
a hard time understanding and
visualizing the process. 
 
Possibly a
Workflow/Mindmap/Timeline Project Map that explains the SoaS Process,

the Sugar build, the Fedora build, the connections/constraints as
they relate to 
Upstream-Downstream, who is Upstream-Downstream,
the dates when activity testing 
should take place, and any other
tasks/constraints that relate to putting together this 
successful
build. If you could come up with a one page visual that would be
enormously 
helpful to our messaging and help new members of
the Sugar Community understand the 
mechanisms and processes
related to FOSS projects. Having a Big Picture view helps 
understand
where your individual work fits in and also helps with the
expectation aspect.
Clear, Simple, Visual.....
> > We must always remember the Key contributor we are trying to get on
> > board is the Elementary Teacher and Students.
> 
> ..."Key contributor" to SoaS?  Or to Activity authorship?  Please
> don't mix the two up - they're quite different.  And please don't mix
> up creation of the SoaS product (.iso) - the process I think you want
> to map out - with contribution to the SoaS project.  One is a part of
> the other, and - as evidenced by the liveliness of the SoaS mailing
> list - one needn't understand how the .iso is created to contribute.
> But to understand how the .iso is created one needs a heck of a lot
> more information than the SoaS release schedule.  Please be precise
> about to what you want to attract contributions via these visuals.

This seems to be a perfect example. A sketch of how these are different and
separated would be helpful. What may seem very evident to you and the
expertise you have may be very different from me or an Elementary Teacher.

Understanding that we need additional volunteers in all areas, Visuals that help
explain our Processes and Needs would be helpful when I go talk to Dean Of Computer 
Science, Dean of School of Education, and Dean of Business School looking for their 
Professors, Graduate and Undergraduate Students to join the Sugar Labs Community.