[sugar] Update.1. When What How and Why

[drew einhorn]

For an organization with a relatively small number of paid employees, and
a huge amount of volunteer labor, they are doing an outstanding job building
extremely innovative software.

For as long as I have been paying attention to the Update.1 schedule, the
due date has been Feb. 1.  We are only 3 days past that.  A lot of the pending
items are getting pushed to Update1.1 and will not actually affect the Update.1
release date.

For a comparison ask yourself:

    How many days was the CentOS 5 release delayed
    with no publicly available status reports?

    As I recall it was weeks.  And they we just repackaging
    someone else's software (RHEL 5), not building brand new
    software.

Chill!!!!

On Feb 4, 2008 11:41 AM, Caperton, Idit <idit at worldwideworkshop.org> wrote:
> Hello There - It's already February of 2008!!!
> So reading these exchanges by our highly respected OLPC software leaders in
> Cambridge (Jim and Kim, and others) in the past two weeks, and in the past
> months in general, has been startling to me (and my team).
> The only thing that's a bit more overwhelming is the OLPC Library List :)
>
> I read Jim's list of To-Do's, see below, and then the casual comment in the
> open from Kim to Jim: "I think this is way too much stuff for Update.1."
>
> Yes, this is a transparent and ambitious open-source software development
> project. The first of its kind.
>
> But, it doesn't mean that it cannot be well-managed with reasonable
> executable plans and dates attached to the plans (that could be revised by
> the community, if needed).
>
> In my organization, we call it a strategic plan and a production schedule,
> and we attached to it reasonable phases and dates -- and most
> accountability.
>
> But I am not aware -- what does OLPC do to re-evaluate process and progress
> on an ongoing basis? and how does the olpc org learns how to optimize and do
> things better, and on schedule? How does the OLPC software development
> system learns to be deliverables-oriented, and how do we learn to lead these
> global processes more productively?
>
> FACT: From what we see so far, Update.1. has been delayed and delayed and
> delayed again.
>
> It affects everybody involved. It's pretty tough for OLPC management,
> developers, and all OLPC young users worldwide. And  all know by now - stuff
> do not work well as a result.
>
> - Where is the Update.1 master plan? And what comes after and when?
> - Who keeps track and makes sure we are constantly re-evaluating it and
> documenting changes in decisions?
> - Is it well-strategized and well-monitored against the strategy?
> - How does s--t gets done and optimized in this messy open system?
> - Even decentralized system needs organizational management - What did OLPC
> software team learned so far?
> - Where are the pages with reflections on lessons learned?
> - How are decisions about what's in or out being made?
> - Where are the software-release-phases with dates for 2008?
> - Is there a clear schedule and list of deliverables with dates for 2008?
>
> I know I know -- I am taking a big risk by sending this kind of alarming
> message to the entire global Sugar List.
>
> But please remember that I am sending it in order to shake the existing
> system, as a serious call for change, to be provocative, and get you all to
> think about it positively.
>
> - and, most important, I do it with lots of love and care for the XO and the
> OLPC movement at large.
>
> Idit Harel Caperton
> President & Founder
> World Wide Workshop
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sugar-bounces at lists.laptop.org [mailto:sugar-bounces at lists.laptop.org]
> On Behalf Of sugar-request at lists.laptop.org
> Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 12:00 PM
> To: sugar at lists.laptop.org
> Subject: Sugar Digest, Vol 20, Issue 6
>
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: What's left for Update.1 (Kim Quirk)
>    2. Re: What's left for Update.1 (Sayamindu Dasgupta)
>    3. Re: What's left for Update.1 (Tomeu Vizoso)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:51:41 -0500
> From: "Kim Quirk" <kim at laptop.org>
> Subject: Re: [sugar] What's left for Update.1
> To: jg at laptop.org
> Cc: Sugar List <sugar at laptop.org>, OLPC Developer's List
>         <devel at laptop.org>
> Message-ID:
>         <9073bf100802040751n2654ff44i19b418280e850b75 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Jim,
> I think this is way too much stuff for Update.1. We are in code freeze. We
> have items 1 and 2 scheduled to go into RC2; I would suggest that we ONLY
> pick up Spanish, where we really fell short in the current build; I don't
> agree with holding up this build for either 4 or 5, as this feels like new,
> untested code - perhaps there is no 'fix' even available at this time (I'd
> need to see the arguments that this is blocking AND we have a fix); and I
> agree that we need to look at 'Blocking' bugs that are still open to see if
> we agree they are still blocking - or move them out.
>
> People can argue otherwise (I'm open to a good discussion), but my
> recommendation is to get this build out, with all the known issues well
> documented.
>
> Kim
>
>
> On Jan 31, 2008 10:11 PM, Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org> wrote:
>
> > For comment and discussion, here are the showstoppers I know of for
> > getting Update.1 finished.  If you think there are others, please
> > speak up now (and modify the subject line to start another thread).
> >
> > Activity developers: note we'll be asking you to upload updated
> > activities to pick up all the recent flurry of translation work very
> > soon.
> >
> >  1 - wireless firmware and driver support
> >                (to fix problems with WEP and WPA)
> >  2 - q2d11 OFW - to fix battery problems
> >  3 - update activities to pick up translation work, Spanish
> >        in particular, but not missing other languages we may need.
> >  4 - UI fix for registration with the school server.
> > http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6136
> >  5 - switch to gabble from salut at school.
> >  6 -testing and fixing anything critical!
> >
> > If we don't want to hold up an RC2 to pick up translation, then we
> > should anticipate an RC4 might be necessary (as we may have issues
> > that come up with updated activities).
> >
> > 4 - we previously (without Dave Woodhouse being available to add to
> > the
> > discussion) thought we could/should punt #6135 and release note.
> > However, talking with him about what we should really fix given his
> > experience in Mongolia, the lack of positive confirmation that the
> > laptop actually was registered is a real issue.  The teachers are not
> > familiar with English (or computers), and the subtlety of a menu entry
> > going away isn't good enough.
> >
> > I think we need to seriously discuss about possibly/probably being
> > update.1 fodder is the "kids arrive at school in the morning" problem.
> >
> > 5 - Use of mesh in large, crowded environments If everyone arrives at
> > school running local link and resumed quickly, the network might melt
> > from mdns mesh traffic's interaction with the mesh's implementation of
> > mutlicast.  We've upped the multicast bitrate for multicast as a band
> > aid, until we can dynamically adjust the bitrate.  But the fundamental
> > issue comes that in large, dense school environments, can't expect
> > multicast to scale far enough, and should be using unicast to a
> > presence server (jabber in our current case) to handle this problem.
> >
> > Dave Woodhouse has suggested may be to try to get a response to the
> > school server's anycast address, and if we get a response from a
> > school server, switch from Salut to Gabble for presence service
> automatically.
> >
> > This is also somewhat mitigated by having working power management, as
> > machines that have suspended due to idle stop sending mdns packets,
> > and the kids presumably will want internet access and switch over when
> > they arrive.  But I'm not very confident that this will always work in
> > large environment.
> >
> > Another temporary solution would be to have Ohm ask NM to reconnect if
> > the machine is suspended for more than some interval, say, 30 minutes.
> >
> > --
> > Jim Gettys
> > One Laptop Per Child
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Devel mailing list
> > Devel at lists.laptop.org
> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
> >
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:20:40 +0530
> From: "Sayamindu Dasgupta" <sayamindu at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [sugar] What's left for Update.1
> To: "Kim Quirk" <kim at laptop.org>
> Cc: OLPC Developer's List <devel at laptop.org>, Sugar List
>         <sugar at laptop.org>
> Message-ID:
>         <a1314bfe0802040850n1b82eab2tcf5f68db16376b4a at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> 2008/2/4 Kim Quirk <kim at laptop.org>:
> > Jim,
> > I think this is way too much stuff for Update.1. We are in code
> > freeze. We have items 1 and 2 scheduled to go into RC2; I would
> > suggest that we ONLY pick up Spanish, where we really fell short in
> > the current build; I don't agree with holding up this build for either
> > 4 or 5, as this feels like new, untested code - perhaps there is no
> > 'fix' even available at this time (I'd need to see the arguments that
> > this is blocking AND we have a fix); and I agree that we need to look
> > at 'Blocking' bugs that are still open to see if we agree they are still
> blocking - or move them out.
> >
>
> For translations, I would also probably push Mongolian in, along with
> Spanish. I am currently making those two sets of translations go through all
> kinds of tests (I wish I could make the rest of them go through these as
> well, but time is severely limited atm).
> If this raises concern about the inclusion of the latest translations for
> other languages, I am currently working on a system for building "language
> packs" (single archives), which can simply be installed in any Qemu
> image/XO/sugar-jhbuild setup, so that anyone can try out the latest
> translations for any of our supported language whenever they wish to.
>
> However, "cherry-picking" the translations for Spanish and Mongolian may
> pose a problem, which I'm not sure how to handle. The translations were
> often committed as parts of huge commits, in which other translations also
> went in. Maybe someone who's more familiar with Git may want to suggest some
> ways out here.
>
> Thanks,
> Sayamindu
>
>
>
> --
> Sayamindu Dasgupta
> [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:59:47 +0100
> From: Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at tomeuvizoso.net>
> Subject: Re: [sugar] What's left for Update.1
> To: Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at gmail.com>
> Cc: Sugar List <sugar at laptop.org>
> Message-ID: <1202144387.6057.43.camel at tomeu-thinkpad>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 22:20 +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
> > For translations, I would also probably push Mongolian in, along with
> > Spanish. I am currently making those two sets of translations go
> > through all kinds of tests (I wish I could make the rest of them go
> > through these as well, but time is severely limited atm).
> > If this raises concern about the inclusion of the latest translations
> > for other languages, I am currently working on a system for building
> > "language packs" (single archives), which can simply be installed in
> > any Qemu image/XO/sugar-jhbuild setup, so that anyone can try out the
> > latest translations for any of our supported language whenever they
> > wish to.
>
> Interesting, how are you planning to do these language packs?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tomeu
>
>
>
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-- 
Drew Einhorn