[sugar] Sophie and the XO

[Dan Williams]

On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 09:48 -0800, Steven W. Riggins wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> My name is Steve Riggins and I am working on the Sophie project  
> (http://www.sophieproject.org).  Along with Michael Rueger and Nick  
> Matelan, I have been charged with ramping up quickly on the  
> requirements for Sophie running on the XO.  SJ mentioned that this  
> was a good place to do as such, so here we are. :)
> 
> We are very excited about the possibility of having a role in this  
> project!  In order to determine the possibilities, here is a first  
> round of basic questions:
> 
> language support
> ---------------
> 
>    * How many languages does the XO OS support?

One or more languages for each country the laptops get shipped to.

>    * Are there input managers for getting multi-byte characters from  
> the user?

Yes, X11 input methods will be installed for each language that requires
it.

>    * Do you require right-to-left rendering for v1?

Unsure, but we definitely require Arabic support.

> Authoring
> --------
> 
>     * Are you looking for both an Authoring tool as well as a Reader  
> on the XO, or only a Reader?  (I like to be very clear about things)

The current plan is to use an stripped down Abiword as the authoring
tool.  It's an activity called Write.  The web browser is also available
for authoring with web-based means (ie, wikis, if you can reach them
over the network).

> Documentation
> -------------
> 
>    * How is documentation for software on the XO being distributed?
> 
> Fonts
> -----
> 
>    *  If you would like to develop books for the XO on Mac/Windows/ 
> Linux using Sophie, is requiring the author to use a specific font  
> set acceptable?  Opposed to embedded any font in the book (bloating  
> books, etc)
> 
> Deliverables
> ----------
> 
>    * When do you need a beta version?
>    * When is gold master to be delivered?
>    * What other milestones would you have for us?
> 
> Video/Movies
> -----------
> 
>    * Which video library are you supporting on the XO?
>    * If you would like to develop books for the XO on Mac/Windows/ 
> Linux using Sophie, are there Mac/Windows versions of the library so  
> everything would be cross platform?
> 
> Storage Space
> ------------
> 
>    * How much storage space would we have for the Application,  
> Preferences, caches, temporary files during authoring, etc?

Limited.  Remember that the laptops have only 512MB of flash, and while
it uses on-the-fly compression, there will be 100 - 150MB or so reserved
for the OS and base activities.  You have to be a good citizen and
ensure that you do not take up too much space since the laptops are used
for many things, not just authoring.

Dan