[Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Future of Zero Sugar

[Aleksey Lim]

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 10:16:02AM +0545, Bryan Berry wrote:
> I strongly agree w/ tomeu on this.
> 
> Making Sugar easier to contribute to isn't anywhere near the top of the list
> of requested features by our kids and teachers in Nepal.
> 
> The far and away most requested feature by teachers in Nepal is a mechanism
> for kids to "turn in homework." I am not talking about invasive testing
> here. The typical Nepali teacher just wants to know which students out of
> 50-70 kids are failing to understand basic concepts.

I absolutely agree with such points, but:

* as a 3rd party developer, I don't see such teachers requests listed
  somewhere on wiki, that let me see what can I do and peek most
  interesting/suitable-for-my-skils/etc task

* I'm feeling huge discomfort as a developer when I need to package
  binary blobs to my .xo, w/o instrument which let me unify
  installing/upgrading process of such non-SP/specific-to-my-activity
  dependencies

* I'm feeling less(but still big) discomfort as a developer when I
  don't have standard method to share my core related changes,
  for-testing-purposes/to-show-what-I-have-in-mind, well "please, attach
  my cloned repos, install them" still works but not so attractive for
  users

* implementing Zero Sugar initiative, in my mind, is providing
  "fishing-rod" for developers/doers instead of "feeding" users
  thus has prime priority

> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 11:25, Benjamin M. Schwartz
> > <bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> > > Aleksey Lim wrote:
> > >> So, I have
> > >> strong intension to switching development focus from core team,
> > >> which develops sucrose - glucose(core) and fructose(some core
> > >> activities) to wide range of developers/doers thus some kind of
> > >> decentralization of development process.
> > >
> > > I agree. I think this has been a central part of the Sugar design
> > > philosophy from the beginning.  I think your message is very much on the
> > > right track.
> >
> > While I think this is in the spirit of my vision for Sugar, my
> > experience with how Sugar is being used and deployed _today_ makes it
> > quite uninteresting and too invasive to consider for the near future.
> >
> > The current barriers for people to contribute to Sugar development and
> > share their work are mostly cultural. We can make the technology a
> > thousand times easier to modify, but if people still think that they
> > can be only users, we won't gain anything.
> >
> > If we really want more people to realize their power and modify sugar
> > and share their work, we need to, in order:
> >
> > - show how the community can address some of their needs, as perceived by
> > them,
> >
> > - show how they can better address the rest of their needs by working
> > within the community.
> >
> > The rest is just icing on the top, IMHO.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Tomeu
> >
> > > [snip]
> > >>   * I hope to see many shell forks with implemented features like new
> > >>     sugar themes(wallpapers support, new icons etc.), Actions view
> > >>     implementations from non-core development/doers. The benefit they
> > >>     will have after 0install integration is more useful method to share
> > >>     these forks - just a regular entity on Activity Library that brings
> > >>     new shell to user environment
> > >
> > > I don't think this part will work as "a regular entity on Activity
> > > Library", for security reasons.  Any "Activity" that hooks so deeply into
> > > the shell is no longer safe to run.  It is running with the full
> > authority
> > > of the user and can violate the user's privacy or interfere with the
> > > user's actions.  In orders to encourage users to become doers, Sugar is
> > > designed to make sure that Activities are always safe to run (thanks to
> > > Bitfrost/Rainbow protections).
> > >
> > > I would of course support an effort to "wall off" parts of the shell in a
> > > secure fashion, but so far almost no work has been done in that
> > direction.
> > >
> > > --Ben
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> > > IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > «Sugar Labs is anyone who participates in improving and using Sugar.
> > What Sugar Labs does is determined by the participants.» - David
> > Farning
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sugar-devel mailing list
> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> >

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-- 
Aleksey