on Sugar

[Aaron Konstam]

This is fine except for one thing. Running Sugar on top of proprietary
software means that sugar developers who have to deal with problems in
the interface between XP , let us say, and sugar will have to know alot
more about the XP side of the interface than MS$ normally reveals.

Has MS$ agreed to cooperate in helping developers of sugar or revealing
their trade secrets to OLPC?
On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 12:06 -0400, Nicholas Negroponte wrote:
> 
> People keep asking me:
> 
> Yes, OLPCs commitment to Sugar has changed. It is now larger, not
> smaller. Contrary to inferences drawn by Walters departure, the press
> and venerable sources such as OLPC News, we are scaling Sugar up, not
> down. Let me explain.
>  
> Sugar is a very good idea, less than perfectly executed. I attribute
> our weakness to unrealistic development goals and practices. Our
> mission has never changed. It has been to bring connected laptops for
> learning to children in the poorest and most remote locations of the
> world. Our mission has never been to advocate the perfect learning
> model or pure Open Source. I believe the best educational tool is
> constructionism and the best software development method is Open
> Source. In some cases those are best achieved like the Trojan Horse,
> versus direct confrontation or isolating ourselves with perfection.
> Remember the expression: perfection is the enemy of good. We need to
> reach the most children possible and leverage them as the agents of
> change. It makes no sense for us to search for the perfect learning
> model.
>  
> For this reason, Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux
> platforms and to run under Windows. We have been engaged in
> discussions with Microsoft for several months, to explore a dual boot
> version of the XO. Some of you have seen what Microsoft developed on
> their own for the XO. It works well and now needs Sugar on top of it
> (so to speak).
>  
> As a non-profit, humanitarian organization, OLPC has a unique
> position, from which it can change the world for children and
> learning. Laptop makers rushing into the low-end marketplace is a
> perfect example of success of one kind. Another will be what kids do
> outside school and with other kids around the world. A third is what
> we do. 
>  
> We are not a business, but need to be more business-like: meet
> schedules, manage expectations and fulfill promises. To do that, we
> need to hire more developers, work more together and spend less time
> arguing. Because of public attention, anything we say will be quoted
> out of context. We can only speak with our actions and those are only
> one: a reliable and ubiquitous Sugar. That includes being more
> collaborative engineers ourselves and engaging the community better.
> Our limitations are not financial, but identifying the required human
> resources and resolve to do so. 
>  
> What is in front of us is an opportunity for big change. Sugar is at
> the core of it. To pretend otherwise would be a joke. That said, Sugar
> needs to be disentangled. I keep using the omelet analogy, claiming it
> needs to be a fried egg, with distinct yoke and white, rather than
> having the UI, collaborative tools, power management and radios merge
> into one amorphous blob. Otherwise, it is impossible to debug and will
> be limited to the small, albeit growing, world of the XO hardware
> platform.
>  
> As we reach out to engage a wider community, some purism has to morph
> into pragmatism. To suggest that this forsakes Open Source or
> redirects our mission is absurd. Kids will be the agents of change and
> our job is to reach the most of them. That is not just selling
> laptops, but making Sugar as robust and widely available as possible.
> 
> Nicholas
> 
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--
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Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10!
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Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net