[sugar] Congratulations! but Sugar sucks

[Jameson "Chema" Quinn]

|> 1. The datastore
|> 2. OS Updates
|> 3. File Sharing
|> 4. Activity Modification
|> 5. Bitfrost
|> 6. Power management

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:02 PM, C. Scott Ananian <cscott at laptop.org>
wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 8:18 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz
> <bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> > really surprisingly short.  Each item on the list has been debated to a
> > stationary point over the last two years, so all that is left is to make
> a
> > final decision for the engineers to execute.  Each task could be
> completed
> > or hugely improved by a single developer in a few months, provided that
> we
> > do not allow changes to the requirements, and the developers are not
> asked
> > to split their time and focus.
>
> I do not believe that either of these statements is correct.
>
> We are not lacking in decisions: we have substantially complete
> designs; we are lacking implementation.
>
> Each of your items is not the work of "a single developer in a few
> months": solving these problems is realistically a year's work at
> least, if we have a single developer working full time on each.


I have experience with numbers 1, 3, and 5, and am the principal person
responsible for 4 right now. I would say that 3 and 4 are definitely within
the "single dev in a few months" time frame; depending on the definition, 4
is in the "as soon as currently applied patches percolate into production"
time frame. The further work on 4 - already started - is in the area of
activity signatures, which is actually encroaching on 5. In a few full-time
months of a single developer, this would put 4 at a place which other
platforms could envy, and make concrete strides towards 5, to the point
where security would be better, not worse, than other modern platforms
(though I agree that there is plenty more work to fulfill the true promise
of Bitfrost).

I agree that 1 is not so simple; while a rockstar developer might be able to
solve all our problems in a two-month all-nighter, 6 months to a year is a
more realistic timeframe to get something really solid and stable.

What I have accomplished - admittedly too slowly - on Develop, I have done
in under half-time commitment. I have made it pretty clear that I was
available for full-time work, pretty cheaply, but not for free. I could work
to contract, with payment working out to around what the GSoC students are
getting, and have Develop and Bitfrost in a significantly better place by
the end of September (activity signatures done, bitfrost privileges
by-application secure on that basis, the Terminal/Journal bitfrost
"loophole" mendedl; Develop collaboration/source control starting to be
usable).


>
> ps. and, of course, you've neglected "software for kids that does
> things kids want to do", "powerful and pervasive collaboration" and
> "mesh networking" in your list of items.


All of which are slightly less sucky in their current state than the items
mentioned, I think, but definitely need work too.

To sum up: if this is a matter of resources, just hire people. Me, and
others who want it - I have heard marcopg complaining that he should be
full-time, I think. In my case, the worst that could happen is that I don't
come through, and, since I am asking for contract work, that would mean you
don't pay me, so it would be identical to current situation. The best would
be that for less than the price of a classroom-full of XOs, you would get
large steps on two of these list items in a couple of months.
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