[Sugar-devel] State of Sugar?

[James Cameron]

Thanks for asking.  My reply in context below.

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 09:57:27AM +0100, Bastien wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I hope you're all doing well, in every corner of the world.
> 
> After participating to a survey called "State of Emacs", and thinking
> about the various "State of X" that you can find in the software world
> (State of Clojure, State of the Octoverse, etc.), I was wondering if
> you would find it useful to launch a "State of Sugar".
> 
> The survey would target users and contributors and the results could
> help the community better know itself -- and the casual reader better
> understand how Sugar works in general.
> 
> I find myself in this position of "casual reader" about Sugar today,
> and I have a few naive questions for which I don't have answers when
> browsing the website and the docs:
> 
> - Is Sugar still actively *developed* or just maintained?

Just maintained.  Because (a) too few contributors, and (b)
contributors we do have are yet to agree to contribute development in
concert.  Each are doing their own thing.  We have no clear model for
organised collaboration.

As consequence, tasks that are larger than one person are being
delayed or given in hope to Google Summer of Code students.

> - If the former, is there a roadmap somewhere?

No roadmap.

> - Does Sugar have a "maintainer" or a group of maintainers?

I'm release manager for Sugar Labs, which at the moment means I'm the
maintainer of Sugar and a small set of activities only.

We have contributors to activities.

> - Who gets paid for doing what in the Sugar community?

Sugar Labs has recently paid Ibiam for work on activities, and lawyers
and accountants for internal organisational things as part of the
departure from the Software Freedom Conservancy.

> - How large is the Sugar contributors community?

We have a membership list but the size of the list is not
representative of the contributors.  Contributors are not required to
be members.  Members are not required to be contributors.  We have no
process to measure the size of the contributor list or the hours
spent.  My guess is we have about four on Sugar.  I can't speak for
Music Blocks and Sugarizer.

> - What are the interaction between Sugar Labs and Sugarizer?

Sugarizer is a project of Sugar Labs.  Technical direction is by
Lionel.  Some members of Sugar Labs are contributors to Sugarizer.  I
don't know how many.

> - Is the Sugar Labs community still supporting OLPC deployments?

I don't think so.

> - Is the Sugar Labs community supporting new "deployments" in new
>   countries?

I don't think so.

> That's what comes on the top of my head right now.
> 
> Maybe I'll get some answers for these questions by just asking them on
> this list, but a State of Sugar could answer other questions of course.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -- 
>  Bastien 

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.netrek.org/