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---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>
From: Chris Ball <<a href="mailto:cjb@laptop.org">cjb@laptop.org</a>><br>
Date: Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 3:01 PM<br>
Subject: [IAEP] Announce: OLPC software strategy.<br>
To: <a href="mailto:devel@lists.laptop.org">devel@lists.laptop.org</a><br>
Cc: <a href="mailto:olpc@lists.fedoraproject.org">olpc@lists.fedoraproject.org</a>,
<a href="mailto:iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org">iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org</a>,<br>
<a href="mailto:sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org">sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.<wbr>org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Hi,<br>
<br>
Now that the 10.1.1 release for XO-1.5 is out, it's a good time to<br>
talk about OLPC's software strategy for the future. We've got a few<br>
announcements to make:<br>
<br>
XO-1:<br>
=====<br>
<br>
OLPC wasn't planning to make a Fedora 11 release of the XO-1 OS, but<br>
a group of volunteers including Steven Parrish, Bernie Innocenti,<br>
Paraguay Educa and Daniel Drake stepped up and produced Fedora 11 XO-1<br>
builds that follow the OLPC 10.1.1 work. I'm happy to announce that<br>
we're planning on releasing an OLPC-signed version of that work, and<br>
that this release will happen alongside the next XO-1.5 point release<br>
in the coming weeks. So, OLPC release 10.1.2 will be available for<br>
both XO-1 and XO-1.5 at the same time, and will contain Sugar 0.84,<br>
GNOME 2.26 and Fedora 11. We think that offering this fully<br>
interoperable software stack between XO-1 and XO-1.5 laptops will<br>
greatly aid deployments, and we're very thankful to everyone who has<br>
enabled us to be able to turn this XO-1 work into a supported release!<br>
<br>
To prepare for this XO-1 release, we've started working on fixing<br>
some of the remaining bugs in the community F11/XO-1 builds. Paul Fox<br>
recently solved a problem with suspend/resume and wifi in the F11/XO-1<br>
kernel, which was the largest blocker for a supported release. We'll<br>
continue to work on the remaining bugs, particularly the ones that<br>
OLPC is uniquely positioned to help with.<br>
<br>
The first development builds for this release will be published later<br>
this week.<br>
<br>
XO-1.5:<br>
=======<br>
<br>
We'll be continuing to work on XO-1.5 improvements, incorporating<br>
fixes to the "Known Problems" section of the 10.1.1 release notes©ö<br>
into the 10.1.2 release.<br>
<br>
XO-1.75 and beyond:<br>
===================<br>
<br>
XO-1.75 software development is underway. Today we're announcing<br>
that we're planning on using Fedora as the base distribution for the<br>
XO-1.75. This wasn't an obvious decision -- ARM is not a release<br>
architecture in Fedora, and so we're committing to help out with that<br>
port. Our reasons for choosing Fedora even though ARM work is needed<br>
were that we don't want to force our deployments to learn a new<br>
distribution and re-write any customizations they've written, we want<br>
to reuse the packaging work that's already been done in Fedora for<br>
OLPC and Sugar packages, and we want to continue our collaboration<br>
with the Fedora community who we're getting to know and work with<br>
well.<br>
<br>
We've started to help with Fedora ARM by adding five new build<br>
machines (lent to OLPC by Marvell; thanks!) to the Fedora ARM koji<br>
build farm, and we have Fedora 12 and Sugar 0.86 running on early 1.75<br>
development boards. We'd prefer to use Fedora 13 for the XO-1.75, but<br>
it hasn't been built for ARM yet -- if anyone's interested in helping<br>
out with this or other Fedora ARM work, please check out the Fedora<br>
ARM page on the Fedora Wiki©÷. We're also interested in hiring ARM and<br>
Fedora developers to help with this; if you're interested in learning<br>
more, please send an e-mail to <a href="mailto:jobs-engineering@laptop.org">jobs-engineering@laptop.org</a>.<br>
<br>
We'll also be continuing to use Open Firmware on the XO-1.75, and<br>
Mitch Bradley has an ARM port of OFW running on our development boards<br>
already.<br>
<br>
EC-1.75 open source EC code:<br>
============================<br>
<br>
OLPC is proud to announce that the XO-1.75 embedded controller will<br>
have an open codebase (with a small exception, see below). After much<br>
behind-the-scenes effort, EnE has agreed to provide us with a public<br>
version of the KB3930 datasheet and is allowing our new code to be<br>
made public.<br>
<br>
The code is not available yet due to a few chunks of proprietary code<br>
that need to be purged and some other reformatting. A much more<br>
detailed announcement will be provided once the new code is pushed to<br>
a public repository. The code will be licensed under the GPL with a<br>
special exception for OLPC use.<br>
<br>
The exception is because EnE has not released the low-level details on<br>
the PS/2 interface in the KB3930, so there will be some code that is<br>
not available -- relative to the codebase this is a very small amount<br>
of code. The GPL licensing exception will allow for linking against<br>
this closed code. We're going to investigate ways to move away from<br>
this code in the future. (As far as we're aware, this will make the<br>
XO-1.75 the first laptop with open embedded controller code!)<br>
<br>
Multi-touch Sugar:<br>
==================<br>
<br>
We've begun working on modifications to Sugar to enable touchscreen<br>
and multitouch use (the XO-1.75 will have a touchscreen, as will<br>
future OLPC tablets based on its design), and we'll continue to do so.<br>
The first outcome from this work is Sayamindu Dasgupta's port of the<br>
Meego Virtual Keyboard©ø to Sugar -- you can see a screencast of it in<br>
action here©ù.<br>
<br>
It's an exciting time for software development at OLPC. Many thanks<br>
for all of your support and efforts!<br>
<br>
- Chris, on behalf of the OLPC Engineering team.<br>
<br>
Footnotes:<br>
©ö: <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/10.1.1" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/<wbr>Release_notes/10.1.1</a><br>
©÷: <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM" target="_blank">http://fedoraproject.org/<wbr>wiki/Architectures/ARM</a><br>
©ø: <a href="http://gitorious.org/fvkbd" target="_blank">http://gitorious.org/fvkbd</a><br>
©ù: <a href="http://dev.laptop.org/%7Esayamindu/sugar_vkbd_multi.ogv" target="_blank">http://dev.laptop.org/~<wbr>sayamindu/sugar_vkbd_multi.ogv</a><br>
--<br>
Chris Ball <<a href="mailto:cjb@laptop.org">cjb@laptop.org</a>><br>
One Laptop Per Child<br>
______________________________<div id=":10r" class="ii gt"><wbr>_________________<br>
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</font></div><br><br><div>Sincerely,<BR>
S Adhikari<BR></div><br><br> </body>
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