support for more traditional UIs/apps

[Carlos Nazareno]

> I am going to
> make the assumption that an user sophisticated enough to use XFCE
> will be sophisticated enough not to need the simplified GUI that
> sugarization provides.

Hi Mikus! Precisely. And I think 9-year olds and up fall in this
category. And besides, re: XFCE, GNOME, KDEI mean how hard can it be
to run programs if you simply place "applications shortcuts" on the
desktop? It's a no-brainer.

I Sugar's advantage in this space is that it protects untrained users
from inadvertently damaging the system when given access to the
underlying filesystem and saves new users from being overwhelmed by
too many UI choices.

> I myself have had reasonable success installing Linux applications
> on my XO, then launching them from the command line.  [And launching
> from Terminal bypasses Rainbow's restrictions on applications.]

Yes, same here, but isn't installing and launching applications
completely defeating the purpose a GUI and the improved usability it
provides? Our target demographic here is the same (gradeschool
students) and requiring the use of the command line requires orders of
sophistication greater than clicking on icons or menus and launching
programs.

Users (including kids from pilot programs in South America from what
I've read here) have been switching to the command line in order to
achieve desired functionality that they couldn't obtain from the Sugar
desktop.

Don't you think that when users are forced to use the command line,
it's indicative of a failure of the primary GUI system?

b) Unless we want the kids to need to actively learn unix commands and
grok things the way we used to (yay! :D), users should be protected
from having to use the terminal, especially it's so easy to go
super-user on the XO OS -- a lot of damage can easily be caused by the
user to the filesystem if improperly supervised.

c) IMHO, simplifying the UI to meet the needs of precocious youngsters
because "they're not sophisticated enough" and then saying "they can
just use the command line if they need more" or expecting them to play
with Python are mind-boggling contradictions.

> I keep wondering, considering Moore's Law and the availability of
> netbooks, why shoehorn specifically Sugar (and the XO) into
> competing for the "traditional_Linux_interface" laptop role ?

This is because:

a) These "traditional_Linux_interface" laptops like Intel's Classmate
PC have started to compete on OLPC's turf and threaten the XO's
relevancy. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080929-classmate-pc-gets-a-boost-with-million-unit-venezuelan-order.html

b) This is not about shoehorning the XO into role it wasn't meant for,
it's about expanding and unleashing the XO's potential because the
hardware is more than capable of more tasks than the currently
available activities. In fact, I'd say it was the polar opposite of
"shoehorning specifically" and that the XO and the current software
environment has shoehorned it into a smaller role than it could be
playing.

c) Rainbow and sugarizing aside, specially written educational
software like XO's activities and learning goals aren't mutually
exclusive with traditional linux/windows applications like office
software. On the contrary, I say "legacy apps" would broaden older XO
users' horizons and would increase the attractiveness of the XO with
governments/entities looking to have their students gain the ability
to interact with current IT systems.

d) This is also about attracting developers to create content for the
XO because as with any platform, it's all about content, content,
content, content. I believe the need for esoteric tools and arcane
hoop-jumping in order to develop apps and content for the XO is
detrimental to OLPC's cause.

Sure, you can say "If contributors are really committed to
volunteering, then should be willing to go through all these steps",
but don't you think we should be lowering the barrier to content
contribution and that every little bit counts?

e) Despite the XO's CPU, memory and disk space limitations, I say to
the many naysayers the XO is still relevant in modern IT space. It's
all about proper optimization, picking the right software, and knowing
its limitations.

In fact, despite its limited horsepower, I'd say the XO is superior to
all these other machines because of many features like ruggedization,
low power consumption and the ability to run in areas without power
infrastructure, e-book and sunlight-readability mode, mesh networking,
etc etc etc.

A trend I've been extremely disappointed with in IT and ordinary
consumers over the years is the upward-spiraling Moore's law -
software bloat - need for speed cycle. I'm thrilled that OLPC had
bucked this trend and has instead gone with power efficiency over
blistering yet unnecessary speed.

Oh, btw, I hope I don't horrify you guys with this question, but is
there any possiblity we can flip Sugarization on its head and give
Sugar activities the ability to run outside of Sugar on other systems,
even if maybe with some kind of wrapper, Journal integration and
XO-hardware aside?

Kudos to everyone!

-Naz

-- 
Carlos Nazareno
http://www.object404.com

interactive media specialist
zen graffiti studios
naz at zengraffiti.com