[Sugar-devel] Abandoned or orphaned activities
Walter Bender
walter.bender at gmail.com
Mon Jan 21 08:10:22 EST 2019
On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 3:44 AM James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
> Fascinating, I never thought the move to GitHub was ever going to
> achieve all that. It was to enable a shutdown of the unmaintained
> gitorious instance at git.sugarlabs.org. Which still hasn't happened
> because it is still useful, in turn because this community hasn't the
> time to do the necessary leg work to finish the move to GitHub.
>
>
I would be curious what is still on Gitorious that hasn't been migrated.
FWIW, my principle motivations for the move were (1) as James points out --
on less piece of infrastructure for us to maintain; and (2) GitHub for
better or worse is much more familiar to and likely to be discovered by
potential developers. I think GH has been a decent tool which requires
minimal effort on our part. Not sure that the latter really amounts to too
much.
Re Tony's point about the ownership model, I don't see that anything we are
doing suggests we don't want to continue to support individual
contributions. I interpreted James's list not as a matter of ownership but
rather a surfacing of what is actually happening re maintenance. In some
sense, what is being articulated is the equivalent of the Fructose vs Honey
nomenclature of the past where the core developers are saying: "These
activities will be maintained. Cannot speak for everything else."
That said, I think Tony makes a great point re thinking about the
pedagogical implications of our choices, which have had little if any input
from the learning side of the house. Would be great to get more input to
help us in regard to what is most valuable to our users (whether they know
it or not). @Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> would be great if you
could rework you thoughts about Python into a GSoC idea.
regards.
-walter
> In short, it has nothing to do with the tools, and everything to do
> with contributors.
>
> I'll continue to focus on the activities I've got on my list. That
> doesn't mean I won't help with the other activities, but I won't
> necessarily spend as much time with the others.
>
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 09:12:01AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
> > While it is marvelous to see some actual attention to the Sugar
> activities,
> > this approach is the direct opposite of the logic behind the move of the
> > activities to gitHub. This is a return to the G1G1 model in which
> individuals
> > develop, contribute and own activities. There can be no abandoned or
> orphaned
> > activities in a community support model.
> >
> > It was recognized by Walter and others that there were two factors which
> made
> > that ownership model unworkable. First, changes in Sugar software
> support such
> > as the move to GTK3 made common changes to all activities necessary and,
> > second, that many of the original contributors are no longer involved
> with
> > Sugar.
> >
> > GitHub was touted as the way in which Sugar Labs as a community would
> support
> > Sugar and its library of activities. However, in practice support for
> > activities has become increasingly limited to a small number of ones
> selected
> > for inclusion in the 13.2 series of builds.
> >
> > The Sugar activities library is made available to our users via ASLO.
> > Unfortunately, there are activities with new versions in gitHub which
> have not
> > been released to ASLO and thus are unknown to our users. There is even
> > confusion over which 'github'. It has to be kept clear that developers
> can use
> > any method they chose. What is controlled is the repository on gitHub.
> Any
> > changes outside of the Sugar Labs github are invisible until they are
> submitted
> > as a new version.
> >
> > Educational intent
> >
> > What I would like to see is a return to the founding philosophy of Sugar.
> > Everyone is welcome to contribute. When you get 10 lines of code working,
> > submit your activity. Sugar is designed to provide all the software tools
> > needed to develop activities in Sugar - no cross-development,
> containers, or
> > virtual environments. Instead of requesting new contributors to
> demonstrate
> > their technical proficiency by putting their name on the XO icon in the
> Home
> > View, identify some real examples of changes that would improve Sugar.
> There
> > are plenty available:
> >
> > Fix the icons on 'my settings' so they are visible instead of switching
> to
> > gnome by clicking on the big toe.
> > When you take a screenshot and switch to the Journal to give it a title,
> you
> > must use the Frame to return, not the Activity key.
> > The kids love the ability to customize their laptop with a background
> picture.
> > Unfortunately this often makes the icons in the Home View invisible.
> > Add Jupyter Notebook as a built-in capability of Sugar (possibly as a
> service
> > of Browse).
> > Help solve problems with a long list of activities (such as the lack of
> sound
> > in Block Party).
> > Find a way for Browse to support the css FlexBox.
> >
> > Stop using Pippy as a ceiling to our users learning to program in
> Python. They
> > can work up to 'Make your own Sugar Activities'. Start with the Hello
> World
> > activity. Explain GTK and its benefits. PyDebug provides recipes for many
> > common coding situations. Stop hiding the Terminal and Log activities -
> try to
> > encourage them to become favorites. Soon we could see a new generation of
> > user-programmers as we did in Uruguay.
> >
> > Along this theme, we should embrace the RPI and its compatriots as a way
> to
> > make embedded computing tangible. It would not be difficult to connect
> such a
> > device via the Ad Hoc network so that it could be used to transfer a
> program
> > written on an XO to the device and execute it with the user seeing the
> results
> > on LEDs (e.g. Sense Hat).
> >
> > Tony
> >
> > On 1/20/19 3:48 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
> >
> > I noticed Dimensions fell off the list. I will take that one on as I
> think
> > it is of real value.
> >
> > -walter
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 8:44 AM James Cameron <[1]quozl at laptop.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks. So the list looks like;
> >
> > # Walter Bender
> >
> > * Music Blocks,
> > * Turtle Blocks JS,
> >
> > # Rahul Bothra
> >
> > * CowBulls,
> > * Flappy,
> > * Cedit,
> > * Polari,
> >
> > # James Cameron
> >
> > * Abacus,
> > * Browse (master),
> > * Browse (fedora 18 - webkit - v157.x),
> > * Calculator,
> > * Chart,
> > * Chat,
> > * Clock,
> > * Develop,
> > * Distance,
> > * Finance,
> > * Find Words,
> > * Fototoon,
> > * Fraction Bounce,
> > * Gears,
> > * GetBooks,
> > * Help,
> > * ImageViewer,
> > * Implode,
> > * Jukebox,
> > * Labyrinth,
> > * Letters,
> > * Log,
> > * Maze,
> > * Measure,
> > * Memorize,
> > * Moon (master),
> > * Moon (fedora 18 - gtk2 - v17.x),
> > * MusicKeyboard (master),
> > * MusicKeyboard (fedora 18 - csound - v8.x),
> > * Paint,
> > * Physics,
> > * Pippy,
> > * Poll,
> > * Portfolio,
> > * Read (master),
> > * Read (fedora 18 - webkit - v118.x),
> > * Record (master),
> > * Record (fedora 18 - gstreamer - v10x),
> > * SimpleEnglishWikipedia,
> > * Speak,
> > * StopWatch,
> > * Story,
> > * Terminal,
> > * TurtleBlocks,
> > * Words,
> > * Write,
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 09:04:50AM -0500, Walter Bender wrote:
> > > I am actively maintaining Music Blocks and Turtle Blocks JS.
> > > I just haven't had the bandwidth to do much beyond that of
> late. That
> > said, I
> > > am happy to kibbutz on any of the activities which I used to
> > maintain.
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 3:11 AM Rahul Bothra <[1][2]
> > rrbothra at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > *
> > > I am maintaining CowBulls and Flappy.
> > >
> > > I can take up cedit and Polari
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 12:53 PM James Cameron <[2][3]
> > quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Once we had a list of abandoned activities, where the
> > maintainer is
> > > missing in action, not doing testing or releasing.
> > >
> > > Now, I propose the inverse; a list of activities with a
> > maintainer
> > > testing and releasing. It will be easier to maintain
> that
> > list.
> > >
> > > For myself, each of the Fructose activities, each of
> the
> > activities we
> > > ship on OLPC OS. I know Walter is looking after Music
> > Blocks. Lionel
> > > is looking after Sugarizer. Are there any other
> developers
> > who are
> > > maintainers?
> > >
> > > --
> > > James Cameron
> > > [3][4]http://quozl.netrek.org/
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Sugar-devel mailing list
> > > [4][5]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > > [5][6]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Sugar-devel mailing list
> > > [6][7]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > > [7][8]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > >
> > > --
> > > Walter Bender
> > > Sugar Labs
> > > [8][9]http://www.sugarlabs.org
> > > [9]
> > >
> > > References:
> > >
> > > [1] mailto:[10]rrbothra at gmail.com
> > > [2] mailto:[11]quozl at laptop.org
> > > [3] [12]http://quozl.netrek.org/
> > > [4] mailto:[13]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > > [5] [14]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > > [6] mailto:[15]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > > [7] [16]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > > [8] [17]http://www.sugarlabs.org/
> > > [9] [18]http://www.sugarlabs.org/
> >
> > --
> > James Cameron
> > [19]http://quozl.netrek.org/
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sugar-devel mailing list
> > [20]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [21]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> >
> > --
> > Walter Bender
> > Sugar Labs
> > [22]http://www.sugarlabs.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sugar-devel mailing list
> > [23]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [24]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> >
> > References:
> >
> > [1] mailto:quozl at laptop.org
> > [2] mailto:rrbothra at gmail.com
> > [3] mailto:quozl at laptop.org
> > [4] http://quozl.netrek.org/
> > [5] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [6] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > [7] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [8] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > [9] http://www.sugarlabs.org/
> > [10] mailto:rrbothra at gmail.com
> > [11] mailto:quozl at laptop.org
> > [12] http://quozl.netrek.org/
> > [13] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [14] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > [15] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [16] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > [17] http://www.sugarlabs.org/
> > [18] http://www.sugarlabs.org/
> > [19] http://quozl.netrek.org/
> > [20] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [21] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
> > [22] http://www.sugarlabs.org/
> > [23] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > [24] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sugar-devel mailing list
> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.netrek.org/
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>
--
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>
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