[Sugar-devel] [ANNOUNCE] Harmonic Distribution split

[Aleksey Lim]

Hi all!


This is a note about splitting what was named "Harmonic Distribution"
into several parts to make it clearly targeted and well understood
by possible users audience.

Originally, Harmonic Distribution was an initiative to provide a kind of
platform for Sugar based (not only XO laptops) edu deployment wich is
based on newly designed content sharing system (Sugar Network). But, it
became clear that parts of this platform might be used in isolation from
any deployment context.

So, instead of one top level entity, there are 3 top level projects:

* [[#Sugar Network]]
* [[#Sweets Distribution]]
* [[#Deployment Platform]]


=== Sugar Network ===


http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Network
Content sharing and collaboration system.

Targeted audience:

- end users (including low aged students) who need:
  * access to Sugar Activities
  * access to more general content like books or lessons
  * sharing Journal objects generated by Sugar Activities
  * a dialog between other users and/or content creators to, e.g.,
    make a review, report about problem, give an idea, etc.

- Sugar Activity developers who need
  * share activities
  * automatic building (for binary based activities) on all supported
    platforms
  * reliable launch on users' side, e.g., handling depencies
  * give a feedback from users (bugs, ideas, etc.)
  * [semi] automatic reports after activity was failed

- Content creators and providers
  * share content
  * give a feedback from users (bugs, ideas, etc.)

- Edu distributors/deployments
  * see Deployment Platform

Access points:

- Web services

  For people who have Internet connection and don't want to take care
  about local applications. The functionality might be limited for the
  first versions, e.g., no way to download Sugar Activities.

  * Web UI
    http://network-devel.sugarlabs.org/
    primarily targeted to low aged students

  * Contributer Hub
    http://network-devel.sugarlabs.org/hub/
    more powerful access and UI for content providers and supporters

- Local applications

  To speed up the UI (less amount of transferring Internet data) and
  more powerful usage on Sugar Network content, e.g., launch Sugar
  Activities by one click.

  * Web UI
    primarily targeted to low aged students
    Is integrated to the Sugar Shell in Sweets Distribution packages

  * Contributer Hub
    more powerful access and UI for content providers and supporters
    accessible as regular application from the Sugar Network
  
Related existing SL services.

* activities.sugarlabs.org

  Sugar Network is designed to be more powerful ASLO successor with
  fixing problems that ASLO doesn't cover, e.g., reliable Sugar
  Activities launch, sharing content and Journal objects. For the first
  time (how it will be long will depend on Sugar Network implementation
  progress and users preferences), ASLO and Sugar Network will work in
  parallel with mirroring data.

* bugs.sugarlabs.org

  One of key Sugar Network's features is getting feedback from users
  regarding problems with, e.g., Sugar Activities. reporting functionality is
  being targeted to end-users (including low aged students) when people
  need:

  * clean interface, in ideal, only one entry to type the problem
  * huge possibility to get not consistent feedback when it should
    be sorted out by someone else to create the right bugs.sugarlabs.org
    ticket (or reuse existing)


=== Sweets Distribution ===


http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sweets_Distribution
Third party GNU/Linux repositories to support Sugar Network and
Deployment Platform. It is intended to support all main stream
platforms, e.g., Fedora for XO or Debian/Ubuntu.

Targeted audience:

- end users who need:
  * Sucrose on platforms where it is not well packaged
  * enable Sugar Network support from local applications

- Edu distributors/deployments
  * Sweets Distribution provides all packages needed for Deployment Platform

Access points:

- Regular instructions how to attach 3rd party repository
- handy command-line utility for not experienced users


=== Deployment Platform ===


http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployment_Platform
A platform for edu distributors or deployments to setup final deployment
solution as easy as possible.

Targeted audience:

- Edu distributors and deployments (Deployment Platform is created
  assuming to cover different scale deployments but it might not working
  from the beginning) who need:
  
  * solid content sharing system (Sugar Network)
  * which is capable for customizing for local needs by sorting out
    content on the Internet Sugar Network server or setting up local
    node server(s) (Sugar Network)
  * getting feedback from the field (Sugar Network)
  * provide remote educational and technical support using Sugar Network
    capabilities; that is especially needed in offline scenario.
  * support offline scenario (Sugar Network)
  * centralized gathering of usage statistics
  * support heterogeneous deployments, i.e., not only XO laptops.

Access points:

- A list of reference distributors (capable for easy tuning to create
  final solution) to cover standard usage scenarios:

    http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployment_Platform/Deployment

This is a successor of what was developing as Sugar Server Kit project
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Platform_Team/Server_Kit.


-- 
Aleksey