Becoming involved in XO software development?

[Edward Cherlin]

2008/4/1 Rebecca Janine Wise <jani at digitalelite.com>:
> This is a general question. I work with various Non-Profits and have become interested in developing for the XO.

Is there a connection between the programs of the non-profits you work
with, and the XO education/end poverty program? Do they have
information that would fit in the XO content library? Are there
applications that support their programs? For example, we have an
extensive Health project, and we are working on the infrastructure for
redesigning textbooks to take advantage of built-in software such as
NumPy and SciPy.

> Can anyone recommend a path on how to become involved in some aspect of the software development side of the XO. I guess the main questions I have are:

Welcome. Do you program in Python or Smalltalk? Those are the easiest
paths into XO programming. But we can wrap almost any code in Python
to work with the XO's Sugar UI. Start with the Sugar page on the Wiki,
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar. It has links to all of the
development topics.

Or if you code in Forth, you can help with Open Firmware drivers.

On looking up your resume, I see .NET, C#, and such, so no? But
managing online communities is something we are desperately in need
of. I'm trying to recruit localizers and translators for dozens of
languages that we will need to support soon. It's way more than I can
manage myself as a volunteer. There are other such needs on the
development side. Seth Woodworth is also in need of more volunteer
Volunteer Coordinators.

We are supposed to be getting a CEO and COO sometime soon, but right
now everything is up in the air.

> a) Is there a formal process for becoming involved or do you sort of just start contributing to the source for some part of the system an application?

It's all Free/Open Source. Your choice. What have you worked on in the past?

You will need to learn a bit of git. See the Git page in the Wiki.

> b) What's the best way to get a feel for what's "in the box" so you can figure out where you'd like (and be capable) of contributing?

Take a look at the Activities (educational applications) page on the
Wiki. Install Sugar on your computer, along with any of the 150+
Activities that interest you. Some Activities are not ready to run,
but each has its own page, so that you can find out to some extent
what it is about, who is working on it, and what is needed. Then you
can ask on this list or on the irc channels.

> c) Is the OLPC XO hardware (or a hardware emulator or something similar) available to developers?

There are downloadable images and instructions for running Sugar in
emulation on qemu and VMware.

> d) Are there any other questions I should be asking but haven't?

Almost certainly, but don't worry. It will gradually become clear.

> Thanks so much,
> Rebecca
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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay