I strongly agree w/ tomeu on this.<div><br></div><div>Making Sugar easier to contribute to isn't anywhere near the top of the list of requested features by our kids and teachers in Nepal. </div><div><br></div><div>The far and away most requested feature by teachers in Nepal is a mechanism for kids to "turn in homework." I am not talking about invasive testing here. The typical Nepali teacher just wants to know which students out of 50-70 kids are failing to understand basic concepts.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tomeu@sugarlabs.org">tomeu@sugarlabs.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 11:25, Benjamin M. Schwartz<br>
<<a href="mailto:bmschwar@fas.harvard.edu">bmschwar@fas.harvard.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
> Aleksey Lim wrote:<br>
>> So, I have<br>
>> strong intension to switching development focus from core team,<br>
>> which develops sucrose - glucose(core) and fructose(some core<br>
>> activities) to wide range of developers/doers thus some kind of<br>
>> decentralization of development process.<br>
><br>
> I agree. I think this has been a central part of the Sugar design<br>
> philosophy from the beginning. I think your message is very much on the<br>
> right track.<br>
<br>
</div>While I think this is in the spirit of my vision for Sugar, my<br>
experience with how Sugar is being used and deployed _today_ makes it<br>
quite uninteresting and too invasive to consider for the near future.<br>
<br>
The current barriers for people to contribute to Sugar development and<br>
share their work are mostly cultural. We can make the technology a<br>
thousand times easier to modify, but if people still think that they<br>
can be only users, we won't gain anything.<br>
<br>
If we really want more people to realize their power and modify sugar<br>
and share their work, we need to, in order:<br>
<br>
- show how the community can address some of their needs, as perceived by them,<br>
<br>
- show how they can better address the rest of their needs by working<br>
within the community.<br>
<br>
The rest is just icing on the top, IMHO.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Tomeu<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> [snip]<br>
>> * I hope to see many shell forks with implemented features like new<br>
>> sugar themes(wallpapers support, new icons etc.), Actions view<br>
>> implementations from non-core development/doers. The benefit they<br>
>> will have after 0install integration is more useful method to share<br>
>> these forks - just a regular entity on Activity Library that brings<br>
>> new shell to user environment<br>
><br>
> I don't think this part will work as "a regular entity on Activity<br>
> Library", for security reasons. Any "Activity" that hooks so deeply into<br>
> the shell is no longer safe to run. It is running with the full authority<br>
> of the user and can violate the user's privacy or interfere with the<br>
> user's actions. In orders to encourage users to become doers, Sugar is<br>
> designed to make sure that Activities are always safe to run (thanks to<br>
> Bitfrost/Rainbow protections).<br>
><br>
> I would of course support an effort to "wall off" parts of the shell in a<br>
> secure fashion, but so far almost no work has been done in that direction.<br>
><br>
> --Ben<br>
><br>
><br>
</div>> _______________________________________________<br>
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