[SoaS] [Sugar-devel] SOAS-3: Final Activity List - Attention needed!

[Thomas C Gilliard]

Sean DALY wrote:
> No, the version numbers in the press releases were changes I proposed
> fom the existing numbering. So SoaS-1 became the beta-1, SoaS-2 became
> the v1. The objective was to make the numbers instantly
> understandable, and allow us to build omentum wth each release.
>
> Unfortunately, we can't do that with Mirabelle, since it is missing
> key e-book reading Activities we were promoting just six months ago.
> We need to be consistent. I have no doubt it's solid engineering, but
> It's unfortunately quite disconnected from our marketing strategy,
> which is why we should be on the same page when a major decision like
> removing all Activities needs to be taken.
>
> I'm at a loss how to proceed, probably the best approach is to
> position Mirabelle as a part of the Sugar Creation Kit and promote
> that.
>
> Sean
>
>
>   
Sean;
With the availability of this file:

http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/ASLOxo-2+ss.tar.bz2

Description:

ASLOxo-2+ss.tar.bz2 contains all of the latest versions of .xo Activities
  on http://download.sugarlabs.org/activities/ 
  Plus some downloaded from announcements on sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org and other sources.
  There about 140 on it.

* There is also included an Open Office.ods Spreadsheet of tested Activities on a  Mirabelle 501 USB 
   
  The spreadsheet is sorted in alphabetical order of application name for easy lookup of the activity number on this link.
  Older versions of each application are also listed under the activity number on this site.
  (These may be needed for older versions like sugar eg:0.82-0.86 and should be tested for compatabilty under these versions of sugar.)
  The ASLO writeup on the features of each application are included when available. 
  I also added a column with quick comments/observations...
  This Spreadsheet should act as an easy to use key to the activity.xo files

This file will be included in the final version of SugarCreationKit.
Any of these 140+ applications, that are marked as compatable, can be easily added to Mirabelle
This includes at least 3 reading applications
   GetBooks
   Get IA Books
   library
I am attaching this spreadsheet for you to look at.

**Can you market this as an Important New feature?**

Mirabelle is analogous to an OS with core applications, that comes with many free applications in same Package that can be easily added for customization, with no need for Internet Access!

With the SugarClone script by Frederick Grose , It is easy for a teacher to customize and duplicate repeatedly these customized USB sticks.

Tom Gilliard
satellit


> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 4:54 PM, Peter Robinson <pbrobinson at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Sean,
>>
>> I would much rather we work together as well!
>>
>> Firstly your point "(SoaS-1 was beta-1, SoaS-2 was v1, etc.)" is a
>> completely different point of view than your previous official press
>> releases from SugarLabs [1] and [2]. I believe one of the major points
>> of marketing is about consistency.
>>
>> To quote the first release "LinuxTag, Berlin, June 24, 2009: Sugar
>> Labs™, nonprofit provider of the Sugar Learning Platform to over
>> one-million children worldwide, announces the immediate availability
>> of Sugar on a Stick v1 Strawberry." and the second "PARIS, December 8,
>> 2009 — Netbook World Summit — Sugar Labs(R), volunteer-driven
>> nonprofit provider of the Sugar Learning Platform for over one-million
>> children around the world, announces the release of Sugar on a Stick
>> v2 Blueberry."
>>
>> You are correct.... we all want "to make Sugar better known". The
>> whole reason we have slimmed down the Activities is to make the
>> included Activities stable so "Sugar could catch on quickly if robust"
>> but I completely disagree with your "the new version won't fulfil the
>> demo role". The whole point of the Activities chosen was to cover all
>> the major features of Sugar in a group of Activities that is stable
>> and works. As stated previously I and others think we are better off
>> shipping a smaller selection of Activities that cover all main
>> features of Sugar such as Collaboration and Media rather than 100s of
>> Activities that don't work as expected, crash randomly or fail of
>> different hardware. So what major features of Sugar have we missed in
>> the list of included Activities?
>>
>> Given that there is not enough people doing QA and that I believe we
>> are better off shipping a smaller stable base that demos the core
>> features of Sugar. If we stop releasing official releases until we had
>> the resources to make every Activity stable and tested we would never
>> have released "Sugar on a Stick v1 Strawberry" or "Sugar on a Stick v2
>> Blueberry" and by the time that happened for v3 people would have long
>> since forgotten that SoaS even existed..... not what the ides of
>> Marketing is about and we wouldn't be making "Sugar better known, to
>> developers, to teachers, and to the industry (OEMs...)."
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> [1] http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press&article=20090624&language=english#20090624
>> [2] http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=press&article=20091208&language=english#20091208
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> I'd much rather we work together. Making Sugar and its Activities
>>> robust is a challenge and doing so on Sugar on a Stick even more. We
>>> have a resources problem that needs to be solved; part of the solution
>>> is to make Sugar better known, to developers, to teachers, and to the
>>> industry (OEMs...). It's a chicken-and-egg situation; Sugar could
>>> catch on quickly if robust, but that requires resources we don't have.
>>> But teachers, education buyers, journalists need to be able to see and
>>> touch Sugar, and for that they need a solution (the historical
>>> scarcity of XOs for reviewers has been part of OLPC's PR problem since
>>> the start). Sugar on a Stick has had that role. However, the new
>>> version (as well as it will fulfill a production role) won't fulfill
>>> the demo role. This creates a problem. The version numbers were
>>> marketing numbers (SoaS-1 was beta-1, SoaS-2 was v1, etc.) and
>>> appropriating the number for a version unsuitable for demoing Sugar
>>> means marketing can't work with it.
>>>
>>> Sean
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 9:48 PM, Peter Robinson <pbrobinson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Hi Sean,
>>>>
>>>> I'm so pleased that you think that all the hard work that Sebastian,
>>>> myself and all the other Sugar developers that have put into the Sugar
>>>> 0.88 release and associated SoaS release is so 0.5. and a whole lot
>>>> less than previous releases. I think your choice is demeaning to the
>>>> hard work that everyone does and without active testing of other
>>>> Activities by other people it only hurts SoaS when things don't work
>>>> because the release team are the only people that test stuff and
>>>> aren't paid full time to do this.
>>>>
>>>> Peter
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 8:22 PM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> As stated previously, it's a mistake for this release to be numbered v3.
>>>>>
>>>>> I won't be able to do anything with it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sean
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 9:16 PM, Peter Robinson <pbrobinson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So as it stands the final Activity list that we're pushing for SOAS-3
>>>>>> will be as below unless someone gives me reasonable doubt as to the
>>>>>> release team's (Sebastian and myself) decision.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So the final list is:
>>>>>> - browse
>>>>>> - physics
>>>>>> - turtleart
>>>>>> - irc
>>>>>> - log
>>>>>> - terminal
>>>>>> - Record
>>>>>> - Read
>>>>>> - Write
>>>>>> - Chat.
>>>>>> - etoys
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In literally the last 10 minutes Sebastian and I have fixed the Write
>>>>>> issue and over the last 2 weeks with the latest Record release and a
>>>>>> number of fixes and testing I've got Record to what seems to be a
>>>>>> stable and working release. The last of the changes should be in the
>>>>>> daily build from tomorrow (including a fix from sdz for the lack of a
>>>>>> boot screen).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One thing to note is that other than sdz and I there has only been one
>>>>>> other person test and report back on the builds (Thanks Thomas!) so if
>>>>>> you haven't done so until now we are now on the home straight so
>>>>>> please test. I don't want to here the day after release "Blah is
>>>>>> broken" because someone hasn't taken 10 minutes to test the release, I
>>>>>> will be less than impressed!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For those who forget where they can get the daily build you can from this link.
>>>>>> http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/soas/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> The SoaS release team!
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> SoaS mailing list
>>>>>> SoaS at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
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