[Sugar-devel] Enhancing Sugar to support multiple users

[Sascha Silbe]

Excerpts from Christoph Derndorfer's message of Sun Sep 05 21:57:09 +0200 2010:

> I just created a new ticket (http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/2292) to get
> some discussions started on what changes need to be made to Sugar to work
> well in an environment where multiple users will work on the same machine
> (which is how Peru's next 300,000 XOs will be used:
> http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/peru/peru_between_one_laptop_per_child_and_seven_children_per_laptop.html
> ).

I don't think we should change anything in Sugar, for two orthogonal reasons:

1. There is already an existing, proven, well-working mechanism to
   support multiple users on the same machine that's way older than
   Sugar: user accounts. Check out any computer lab at a university
   to see how it works (though I suppose you already know).

2. If the Peru government wants Sugar to adapt to being used by multiple
   users (in what way exactly?), let _them_ do the work. It's going
   to be a _lot_ of work if you don't go for #1 (separate user accounts).
   (If OTOH you use one account per child, there's nothing to change in
   Sugar, so no reason for a ticket).



PS: I know this kind of setup (some 30 computers for the entire school)
from my school days; I've even administered the machines back then. It
was called a "computer room" (we had two of them). I think you can guess
how much time most pupils spent in there outside of special computer
(i.e. word processing etc.) classes? Computer use in regular subjects
was close to zero, similar to our fancy "language lab" (a class room
with tape recorders built into desktops) which we used a whopping
two times during my entire school life.

Sascha

--
http://sascha.silbe.org/
http://www.infra-silbe.de/
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