[Sugar-devel] Planning for the future (Samuel Greenfeld)

[Walter Bender]

I don't think Sugar Labs has lacked a long-term vision. It has been
since Day One to provide great tools for learning to children while
being hardware agnostic. That said, our tactics have been slowly
evolving as the market itself evolves. We launched Sugar Labs in early
2008 when it was clear to some of us in the community that many
children would have access to computers other than the OLPC XO. We
wanted to reach those children, and indeed, many Sugar users run it on
netbooks such as the Intel Classmate. We've also continued to support
the XO as well. There are ~3 million XOs in the field, most of which
are still running Sugar as far as I know. (When I was in Nepal last
year, I saw Sugar running on machines built in 2007, a testament to
OLPC's hardware team. I am not sure why Sam thinks we need to discount
those machines or the kids using them.)

Over the ensuing years, we have also made efforts to reach out in
other ways, some more successful than others: Sugar has been ported to
virtually every major flavor of GNU/Linux. As a community, it has been
difficult to support all of those efforts, but some, such as Trisquel,
rival Fedora, where we still do our development, in terms of
stability. (We have lagged behind in our Ubuntu support; given its
popularity this has been a tactical mistake.) We also initiated the
Sugar on a Stick and Sugar in a virtual machine efforts, which opened
the door to getting a taste of Sugar on iOS and MS Windows platforms.
These products have matured and are well maintained. In anticipation
of the tablet bubble, we added touch support to Sugar; (it works, but
the good news is that most people serious about using tablets for
learning are also including keyboards these days.) Sugar also runs
nicely on Chromebooks, which are making some inroads into the
classroom.

And, as Lionel mentioned, already three years ago we began in earnest
an effort to support Javascript as a first order language in Sugar so
as to both invite a broader community of developers in and being to
offer Sugar activities to users of web browsers and Android
(eventually iPhone) devices. Lionel has expanded upon that effort to
try to offer the whole Sugar experience, not just individual
activities. This work is on-going and is the focus of our proposal to
Google Summer of Code 2015.

We have been able to enlist some new talent (and refocus some existing
talent) in the Javascript arena. For example, there have already been
(over the course of 4 months) almost 200 pull requests to the
Javascript version of Turtle Blocks from 15 contributors, half of whom
are new to Sugar.

And it is worth noting that 50% of the patches in the latest Sugar
release came from kids.

All of that said, our future is far from clear. OLPC and OLPC
deployments have been the largest source of funding, albeit erratic,
for Sugar development and maintenance. (We continue to get some
funding from Google, Trip Advisor, et al., but these $s are not
general funds for supporting developers and code maintenance.) It
seems that the OLPC well is running dry (We have a few proposals
circulating but none in hand at the moment.) We've gotten little
support from other hardware vendors, I believe in part because many of
them still see Sugar Labs as an extension of OLPC, with whom they were
competing.

So either Sugar Labs finds support for the core development team to
remain focused full-time on Sugar or we scale back our release cycle
to one that can be managed entirely by part-time volunteers.

There are opportunities out there: for example, partnering with some
of the classroom management solutions; finding funding for specific
programs, such as Turtle Blocks, and finding more hardware partners.
Meanwhile, we also need to keep Sugar relevant. I take the long view
there, in that I think the core pedagogical ideas in Sugar are sound
and that over time we'll be better situated to get these ideas into
the hands of learners. (For example, Android is becoming more
Sugar-friendly as it evolves.)

The Sugar Oversight Board agreed to host a summit on the future of
Sugar some time in the coming months. We've been doing some
preparatory work and hope to get something scheduled soon.

Meanwhile, let's keep kicking around ideas here.

regards.

-walter

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 4:10 AM, Lionel Laské <lionel at olpc-france.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Samuel,
>
>
>
> Thanks to share your vision. I think you're right, SugarLabs lack of a clear
> long-term vision that we could share with all contributors. Hope that your
> mail we'll give us opportunity to share our thought on that.
>
> Here's mine.
>
>
>
> If Sugar want live, it can't be limited to a niche platform: neither the XO,
> neither a Fedora computer. I'm sure we're all convinced that the better
> platform for education is a computer but today all others decision maker in
> the world seems to think that it's a tablet or even a mobile.
>
>
>
> So the question is how we could answer to requests for these new platforms
> thought keeping our roots: an unique UI for children, a reflection tool
> (Journal), a collaborative platform (Presence) and the most important - free
> an open source contents.
>
>
>
> My point of view is that we must not invest time to think how we could be
> compliant with a new platform, we need to think in another way: how we could
> port Sugar on Any platform ? Any computer (from the bigger one to the tiny
> one: raspberryPI), any laptop, any tablet, any mobile.
>
>
>
> And the answer is simple: web technologies allow every device to run very
> complex software. It's the only solution to be compliant with any device.
> It's where we need to put our investments.
>
>
>
> It's why I've got a personal engagement on Sugar for the Web from years:
>
> First to allow Sugar activities to be written using web technologies. From
> Sugar 0.100 thanks to Sugar Web, every developer could write new Sugar
> activities using exclusively HTML5/JavaScript - without any line of
> Python/Gtk.
> Second to create a Sugar container for the web - named Sugarizer - that
> could host any Sugar Web activities and that reproduce the unique Sugar
> features: Sugar UI, Journal and Presence.
>
>
>
> Sugar for the Web is not the Sugar successor, Sugar for the Web is a way to
> do a transition from Sugar for the XO to an universal version of Sugar that
> could run on any device so that could be used by any children anywhere on
> the world.
>
> Most important with Sugar for the Web we don't leave alone our current base
> of Sugar users, with Sugar 0.100+: any new Sugar Web activities will be
> usable both on Sugar on "old" devices and Sugar on new devices.
>
>
>
> With Sugarizer and Sugar Web, Sugar for any device already exist. But to
> become a reality, we need to invest more on it:
>
> Have a clear roadmap of transition between "old" Sugar activities to Sugar
> Web activities.
> Convince a more important community to join us. Sugar is the better learning
> platform, with Sugar for the Web, it should be easy to convince other
> communities to help us. I think specifically to Mozilla because they have a
> clear engagement on web and open source and Google because of their wish to
> embrace education with Chrome. We need to ask help from them.
> Experiment: we need to start deployment as soon as possible to demonstrate.
> At OLPC France, we've got ambition to start a first experimental deployment
> of Sugarizer before the end of the year.
>
>
>
> All of us spent years on promoting the Sugar philosophy. We have the choice
> to look backward or look forward. My choice is clear: with Sugar for the Web
> I will give to every children the same opportunities I gave to XO users.
>
>
> Best regards from France.
>
>
>                        Lionel.
>
>
>
>>
>> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 18:36:34 -0500
>> From: Samuel Greenfeld <samuel at greenfeld.org>
>> To: IAEP SugarLabs <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
>> Subject: [IAEP] Planning for the future
>> Message-ID:
>>
>> <CA+cAqjM7=hQOu47mHMr9AQtNBzKRmjDb00nxbzENnBO+1WKvdA at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> Disclaimer: The following are my views, and not the views of my current or
>> past employers.
>>
>> About a year ago, I privately expressed concern that Sugar needed to
>> ensure
>> it had long-term sponsorship and a long-term user base.
>>
>> Since then, both the historical US-based OLPC organization and Sugar Labs
>> have not publicly said much about their long-term plans, with OLPC also
>> being rather closemouthed about the present.
>>
>> Meanwhile contributors silently leave.  It is hard to justify volunteering
>> when you don't know who will benefit besides mysterious "customers."
>>
>> Everyone seems happy to cite their past successes.  No one corrects the
>> press when they report stale information in their favor.
>>
>>
>> There is no shame in being a smaller project.  But we need to ask the hard
>> questions.  With Sugar, getting users and developers for a niche platform
>> is a problem.  With OLPC, everyone seems to love repeating the 2 or 2.5
>> million number for laptops historically shipped.  Rarely is it asked how
>> many XOs been shipped in the past year or are in active use & where.
>>
>> Sugar & OLPC need to come up with long-term strategies.  While there is
>> nothing public I have seen stopping One Education's XO Infinity from
>> running Sugar, I haven't seen anything stopping it from running anything
>> else.  It is also unclear how much One Education is willing to engage with
>> the historical Sugar & OLPC communities (or how much they can tell us at
>> this time).
>>
>>
>> Historically there have been many philosophical questions like "Does there
>> need to be a physical machine?" and "Have we succeeded if every child has
>> a
>> computer, but from someone else?"
>>
>> I do not believe Sugar or OLPC is down for the count.  But in order to
>> engage One Education, governments, and other educational groups, both
>> Sugar
>> and the historical OLPC structure need to have plans to transition to the
>> future.  Otherwise these plans will be written for us.
>>
>> I suspect I know how things will end; but I wish it was not happening
>> though silence.
>>
>> ---
>> SJG
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>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2015 02:31:23 -0300
>> From: Gonzalo Odiard <godiard at sugarlabs.org>
>> To: Sora Edwards-Thro <sora at unleashkids.org>
>> Cc: Chris Leonard <cjl at sugarlabs.org>, grassroots
>>         <grassroots at lists.laptop.org>,  olpc-open
>> <olpc-open at lists.laptop.org>,
>>         Aaron Borden <adborden at live.com>,       olpc-sf
>> <olpc-sf at lists.laptop.org>,
>>         iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>,        Nick Doiron
>> <ndoiron at mapmeld.com>
>> Subject: Re: [IAEP] OLPC-SF February meeting
>> Message-ID:
>>
>> <CAJ+iPVSKb3puCeQc57Kc3TUA4Df1=AkVtwdPT0abj-aQrUHYqA at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> Only a English version is available right now.
>>
>> There are another activity with a older version in French, but the last
>> version is from 2009
>> http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4195
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Sora Edwards-Thro <sora at unleashkids.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Gonzalo, if a French translation exists and it's easy to include both it
>> > and the English translations when making the templates, that would be
>> > great. But if there's only room for one language, please have it be
>> > English.
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 9:12 AM, Gonzalo Odiard <godiard at sugarlabs.org>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> Thanks Nick.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 11:11 AM, Nick Doiron <ndoiron at mapmeld.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> I believe the official language code is HT
>> >>> On Feb 23, 2015 9:09 AM, "Gonzalo Odiard" <godiard at sugarlabs.org>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> I can create the templates to do the translation and sent to you.
>> >>>> Or I can upload and you can translate them online.
>> >>>> The process is a little different than with the pottle server used to
>> >>>> translate activities,
>> >>>> but the idea is the same.
>> >>>> I need the localization code you are using to Haitian Creole
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Gonzalo
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 7:28 PM, Sora Edwards-Thro <
>> >>>> sora at unleashkids.org> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> Good to see it's been updated! I look forward to checking it out to
>> >>>>> see what content we're using in Haiti that it's missing. We've been
>> >>>>> using
>> >>>>> our customized course guide
>> >>>>> <http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Haiti_Course_Guide> to help teachers
>> >>>>> design lesson plans, but materials that provide a basic overview of
>> >>>>> the
>> >>>>> activities themselves would also be helpful. How would I go about
>> >>>>> helping
>> >>>>> with translation efforts into Haitian Creole?
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Gonzalo Odiard
>> >>>>> <godiard at sugarlabs.org
>> >>>>> > wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>> A little unrelated, but could be useful. The new version of Help
>> >>>>>> activity added information about more activities,
>> >>>>>> including many you named.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4051
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> Help activity content can be translated if you or other are
>> >>>>>> interested.
>> >>>>>> Actual content is based in the work of many volunteersin this list,
>> >>>>>> and more content can be easily added.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> Gonzalo
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 2:44 AM, Sora Edwards-Thro <
>> >>>>>> sora at unleashkids.org> wrote:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Thanks for passing that on, Gonzalo! (note to self: when embarking
>> >>>>>>> on a project, first go to Sugar Labs and search extremely-relevant
>> >>>>>>> terms
>> >>>>>>> like "Story" instead of just assuming the stuff you've seen / used
>> >>>>>>> before
>> >>>>>>> is the only stuff that exists).
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> I like the open-endedness of Story. It also looks like it might
>> >>>>>>> not
>> >>>>>>> be hard to modify the images it's using - kids could nominate
>> >>>>>>> different
>> >>>>>>> pictures, or you could take examples from stories the class had
>> >>>>>>> read.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 9:50 PM, Gonzalo Odiard <
>> >>>>>>> godiard at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> You can add Story
>> >>>>>>>> http://activities.sugarlabs.org/es-ES/sugar/addon/4565
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 2:01 AM, Sora Edwards-Thro <
>> >>>>>>>> sora at unleashkids.org> wrote:
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> Hello all,
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> We're looking for programming help on student writing software;
>> >>>>>>>>> hope some OLPC SF folks can become involved! I'm over on the
>> >>>>>>>>> East Coast,
>> >>>>>>>>> but I can join in over Skype / respond to questions via email if
>> >>>>>>>>> folks are
>> >>>>>>>>> interested.
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> Here are some more details:
>> >>>>>>>>> Unleash Kids recently received recognition
>> >>>>>>>>> <http://www.unleashkids.org/blog/> for our iloominate
>> >>>>>>>>> <http://iloominate-haiti.herokuapp.com/edit> app (shout-out to
>> >>>>>>>>> Caryl Bigenho for her input and Mike Dawson, whose Ustad Mobile
>> >>>>>>>>> project was
>> >>>>>>>>> also recognized). The app helps teachers write books
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> <https://projectrive.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/lascahobas-workshops-final-review/>
>> >>>>>>>>> for beginning readers by recommending easy words; now we're
>> >>>>>>>>> shifting our
>> >>>>>>>>> focus to supporting student writers.
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> There are already several excellent writing activities for the
>> >>>>>>>>> Sugar, which we're including as we design lessons for a summer
>> >>>>>>>>> writing
>> >>>>>>>>> workshop for our XO projects in Haiti:
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> -Labyrinth
>> >>>>>>>>> <http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4078>, a
>> >>>>>>>>> mindmapping activity that gets kids thinking
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> <http://www.unleashkids.org/2013/07/31/story-activity-continued-and-the-results/>
>> >>>>>>>>> about how to lay out their ideas on paper
>> >>>>>>>>> -Fototoon
>> >>>>>>>>> <http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4253>,
>> >>>>>>>>> comic-book style creations; a perpetual favorite
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> <https://projectrive.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/first-week-of-classes/>
>> >>>>>>>>> -Newspaper <http://seeta.in/j/products/37.html>, an example of
>> >>>>>>>>> how templates can enable kids
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> <http://blog.unleashkids.org/2013/08/01/journal-mission-of-hope/>
>> >>>>>>>>> to explore new formats
>> >>>>>>>>> -Prompt
>> >>>>>>>>> <http://olpc-yokwe.tumblr.com/post/39897602954/prompt-activity>,
>> >>>>>>>>> literally just presents students with a random image from a
>> >>>>>>>>> library for
>> >>>>>>>>> them to write about...proof that simple stuff can be powerful
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> We want to supplement these great activities with some new
>> >>>>>>>>> stuff,
>> >>>>>>>>> based on teacher recommendations. A lot of the focus will be on
>> >>>>>>>>> creating
>> >>>>>>>>> templates and scenarios that kids can use as inspiration - for
>> >>>>>>>>> example, we
>> >>>>>>>>> can present the kids with a scene of people talking, where the
>> >>>>>>>>> speech
>> >>>>>>>>> bubbles aren't filled in, and ask them to fill in the speech
>> >>>>>>>>> bubbles.
>> >>>>>>>>> That's one of many ideas for an effective tool.
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> We also hope to make use of the XSCE schoolserver installed
>> >>>>>>>>> on-site to enable the kids to collaborate and share the finished
>> >>>>>>>>> products
>> >>>>>>>>> with one another.
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> Our most dire need is help with the programming, but we also
>> >>>>>>>>> welcome input on any and all aspects.
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> Thank you everyone!
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> Sora Edwards-Thro
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 1:49 AM, Aaron Borden
>> >>>>>>>>> <adborden at live.com>
>> >>>>>>>>> wrote:
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>> Hello,
>> >>>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>> OLPC San Francisco will be hosting our monthly meeting
>> >>>>>>>>>> Saturday,
>> >>>>>>>>>> February 14th, from 10AM - 1PM at the downtown SFSU campus, 835
>> >>>>>>>>>> Market
>> >>>>>>>>>> Street, Room 597 (the fishbowl).
>> >>>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>> Our meetings are held on the second Saturday of every month.
>> >>>>>>>>>> Everyone is
>> >>>>>>>>>> welcome to join us for our monthly meeting! We'll be discussing
>> >>>>>>>>>> the
>> >>>>>>>>>> latest in OLPC events and give updates on our local (and
>> >>>>>>>>>> global)
>> >>>>>>>>>> projects. There will be plenty of XO laptops with the latest
>> >>>>>>>>>> builds to
>> >>>>>>>>>> play around with, too. Please post with any additional agenda
>> >>>>>>>>>> items.
>> >>>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>> Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/325843320953044/
>> >>>>>>>>>> Google+
>> >>>>>>>>>> https://plus.google.com/events/crf7g4e84aag78ssn761danaj8s
>> >>>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>> --
>> >>>>>>>>>> Aaron Borden
>> >>>>>>>>>> Human and Hacker
>> >>>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>>>>>>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> >>>>>>>>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> >>>>>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>> >>>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>>>>>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> >>>>>>>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> >>>>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>> >>>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> --
>> >>>>>>>> Gonzalo Odiard
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>> SugarLabs - Software for children learning
>> >>>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> --
>> >>>>>> Gonzalo Odiard
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> SugarLabs - Software for children learning
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> --
>> >>>> Gonzalo Odiard
>> >>>>
>> >>>> SugarLabs - Software for children learning
>> >>>>
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> >>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> >>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> >>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> >>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Gonzalo Odiard
>> >>
>> >> SugarLabs - Software for children learning
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Gonzalo Odiard
>>
>> SugarLabs - Software for children learning
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>> ------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>> End of IAEP Digest, Vol 83, Issue 17
>> ************************************
>
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org