[Sugar-devel] State of Sugar?

[Bastien]

Thanks James.

So Sugar is maintained by a handful of people but it is not actively
developed anymore.  Sugar Labs puts some efforts in maintaining it but
does not really know who is still using it.  Sugar Labs also hosts the
Sugarizer project, which is well alive and reaching children at least
in France.

I hope this does sound approximatively correct.

Sugar Labs was all about provoking a change in the way we experience
education (learning and teaching) through the development of Sugar, as
a flagship for such a change.  This flagship was designed around a few
core principles and powerful ideas that are still alive and relevant
today: namely focus, reflection and collaboration.

I think we all agree these core principles will survive the software.

What if Sugar Labs focus was not to promote Sugar (which is dying) but
to help build a network of contributors around these core principles?

What if we insist on the "Labs" more than on the "Sugar"?

The Free Software Foundation is saying over and over that children
should use free software.  But building free educational software is
something very few people are interested in doing seriously, and the
ones willing to do it by following the aforementioned core principles
may not want to rely on Sugar or Sugarizer.  

How to help these people?

You know my love for this project and my commitment to helping OLPC
back in the times, Sugar Labs community and Sugarizer today.  But I
don't feel the pulse of the Sugar community anymore, and I think that
may be because the focus is back on the software, rather than on the
core principles and the people themselves.

Stated otherwise: if Alan K., Seymour P., Cynthia S. and Walter were
back again in the same room to discuss the future of education, what
would they propose?  Could Sugar Labs host these new ideas?

-- 
 Bastien