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

[David Farning]

On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 8:29 AM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
> David - what I meant was, no strategic partnership between the distros.
> Ubuntu wouldn't pose so many difficulties if M. Shuttleworth/Canonical got
> behind Sugar for example.

In my conversations with Shuttleworth and Redhat they were both pretty
upset that they were forced to bid against each other to be part of
the OLPC project. Whoever donated more got to be part of the
project.... the other was ignored.

That, on top of Ubuntu's screw ups in the education sector (
Canoncial, tried to assume too much control over the community lead
Edubuntu project) have left education, and sugar in particular,
struggling at Ubuntu.

> Sean
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 10:46 AM, David Farning
> <dfarning at activitycentral.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Sugar-devel mailing list
>> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> David Farning
>> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
>
>



-- 
David Farning
Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com