[Sugar-devel] Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 78, Issue 15

[Tony Anderson]

Hi, Sebastian

This troll aside, I think we are doing the same thing with different 
emphasis.

I am looking at Rwanda which is still deploying laptops nationwide. They 
are currently using XO-1.75, but continue to support a large number of 
XO-1 and XO-1.5. I really don't detect any understanding that schools 
are different than GE. GE will depreciate their computer purchases and 
replace obsolete equipment. Schools get one chance and then must make do 
with what they have. The only end-of-life for XO-1s is when they are 
scrapped or stop working or end up as museum pieces in the original 
cartons in some principal's office.

This troll's estimate of 300,000 is intended to be insulting because he 
has no interest in an accurate answer. The claim of 3,000,000 is based 
on the number shipped (and even then probably a round-up number). This 
is similar to the regular announcements that x organization is making 
100,000,000 books available free to everyone or that a simple device 
will provide access to the world's information throughout Africa or the 
internet will be available to the world from balloons.

You know as I do, from hands-on experience, that there are far more than 
300,000 laptops deployed. What we don't know is how many are being used 
regularly and what impact they are having. You also know from hands-on 
experience, that most of these laptops are XO-1s.

Even 300,000 represents an investment in education 60 million dollars 
(plus shipping and handling!), not a trivial amount. This investment has 
been made to improve the educational opportunity of children without 
regular internet access.

My belief is that best course is to show what is possible with the XO 
and open source software and open educational resources to facilitate 
learning for those children.
Could we do better? Of course. Are we doing the best we can. Yes!

If this troll wants to help, fine. Then he can ask the incisive 
question: What can I do to help?

Tony

On 04/11/2015 04:37 PM, Sebastian Silva wrote:
>
> On 11/04/15 09:12, Tony Anderson wrote:
>> I like incisive - to the point. He is not asking about the apparent 
>> discrepancy between the potential number of laptops in use but is 
>> throwing around words like deceit.
>
> Looking at the statement in question, from our main website: /"Sugar’s 
> Activities are used every school day by nearly 3 million children in 
> more than forty countries."/
>
> I would not feel comfortable saying this out loud.
> If there were 3 million XO laptops sold, I'd bet half of the ones 
> still running run GNOME.
>
> Like you say, we don't know.
>
>>
>> After all, what is 'use'. Does this mean the number of laptops 
>> running Sugar at a specific instance of time, or at least one hour in 
>> a week, a month, a year or a laptop that is capable of running Sugar 
>> if turned on? How many Window 7 systems are in use?
>>
>> None of us know an answer to that question, but we know the number is 
>> large enough to warrant our spending our time as volunteers to make 
>> that experience as constructive and enjoyable as possible.
>
> This might have been a more constructive answer from you. Thank you.
>
> While it is important to support existing users, I am more concerned 
> with the next 1000 million people who's freedom to act with computers 
> is at stake.
>
> Sebastian

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