[Sugar-devel] [Sur] [IAEP] Sugar oversight board meeting

[David Farning]

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 3:07 AM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm sorry Sebastian, yes I should have been more clear about which Sebastian
> :-)
>
> At the time, Sugar was perceived as being only available on OLPC XOs, so our
> effort was designed to show that it was available for other platforms.
> Indeed, our claim has always been that it was hardware-agnostic (on Mac
> using virtualization), cf. our press releases (sl.o/press). And, SoaS as a
> marketing concept was meant to be distro-agnostic too (SuSE...), a position
> fought tooth and nail by the Fedorans by the way.
>
> Pre-tablets, when small netbooks sales were exploding, Windows was dominant
> on PCs but ran poorly or not at all on netbooks and moreover there was an
> installation barrier for Windows on GNU/Linux netbooks. We were interested
> in reaching the 92% or so of teachers using Windows and widening Sugar
> availability on machines with pre-installed GNU/Linux (all 2% or so of
> them). Microsoft and Intel worked quickly to block GNU/Linux netbooks by
> pressuring OEMs to build faster machines, then tablets arrived and killed
> off netbooks.
>
> It's unfortunate that Sugar was not fully embraced by the GNU/Linux distros
> who missed a great opportunity in the education market where Microsoft had
> and has weaknesses, but that has been a symptom of free software projects
> struggling with strategic initiatives while concentrating on technical
> aspects.

How does Sugar on Ubuntu (DXU) and Sugar on Tablets (DX experimental)
affect this equation for Sugar Labs?

> Dismal marketing has contributed to dismal desktop market share
> (Microsoft's well-documented maneuvers played a role too of course).
>
> Installation: As Peter has mentioned, SoaS can be used for installation on a
> target PC, this is documented in the wiki.
>
> Concerning translations, language selection was available in at least
> several versions of SoaS, I remember switching French and US locale and
> keyboard demoing SoaS at an Educatec-Educatice convention in Paris. I have
> no doubt that solutions are possible, but do remember that Peter has been
> continuing SoaS work singlehandedly for some time now.
>
> Looking forward, I see a dual challenge for Sugar Labs: supporting the XO
> installed base (including hopefully keeping XO-4 availability alive), and
> transitioning to the wild new world of handheld devices.
>
> Sean
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 12:21 AM, Sebastian Silva <sebastian at fuentelibre.org>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> El 06/11/13 17:35, Sean DALY escribió:
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 11:05 PM, Peter Robinson <pbrobinson at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> But you have for a long time refused to actually even market SoaS!
>>
>>
>> That's right, at the time SoaS became an official Fedora spin, Mel and
>> Sebastian decided to take over marketing, which included coming up with
>> unmarketable names, linking with Fedora announcements, and opening a Fedora
>> hosted minisite (the "home" of SoaS), none of which was done with any
>> consultation of the SL marketing team.
>>
>> Please try to include last names, you mean Sebastian Dzallas, original
>> developer of "Sugar On A Stick".
>>
>> Now that we're on the topic... the concept "Sugar On A Stick" has several
>> problems.
>>
>> 1.- It suggests it's the only possible Sugar OS on a USB.
>> 2.- It suggests it's not a serious OS to be installed on a computer.
>> 3.- It's impossible to translate.
>> 4.- It suggests it's not regular GNU/Linux, with availability of the
>> Myriad other GNU/Linux educational tools.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Sebastian Silva
>> R+D SomosAzúcar
>> Sugar Labs Perú
>> @icarito
>>
>
>
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-- 
David Farning
Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com