[OLPC-Chicago] [sugar] On the Naming of Sugar

Fri May 16 18:35:27 EDT 2008

We had a discussion of naming of Sugar components on the Sugarlabs
mailing list, including the following exchange. Walter Bender has
asked me to find out whether anybody here has a contact at the Walter
and Connie Payton Foundation, or whether somebody local would like to
give them a call. We would like to invite them to discuss Sugar,
"Sweetness", and HB5000, for health and for the children worldwide.

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 2:53 PM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Maybe we need to adopt the late great Walter Payton, "sweetness" as
>> our official mascot.
>
> http://www.payton34.com/ Walter and Connie Payton Foundation

(847) 605-0034

> We could ask the Foundation if they would be interested. Organ
> donations, cancer funding, and toys for underprivileged children would
> fit right into our mission. Particularly in the context of Illiniois
> HB 5000, The Children's Low-Cost Laptop Act, now before the Senate. I
> want a poster of two Chicago South-Side children with XOs saying, "Us
> haz teh bestest toyz." With Sweetness beaming on them from above.
> Although we would have to explain the concepts of leet-speak and
> lolcats to a lot of the public. And the lOLPCat photo on Flickr.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Payton
> "Payton's legacy continues through the charitable Walter and Connie
> Payton Foundation. His own appeals for greater awareness of the need
> for organ donations, and after his death, his foundation's, are widely
> credited with bringing national attention to the problem.[30] After
> his appeal, donations in Illinois skyrocketed, and the regional organ
> bank of Illinois was overwhelmed with calls.[31] In response, the City
> of Chicago inserted organ donation requests into city vehicle
> registration mailings in early 2000, and by August 2000, 13,000 people
> had signed into the program.[32] The foundation continues to run a
> program that Payton organized to donate toys to underprivileged
> children across the Chicago area each Christmas.[33] The family
> established the Walter Payton Cancer Fund in 2002.[34]"
>
>> I've posted your taxonomy here:
>>
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Taxonomy
>>
>> -walter
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 4:14 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti
>> <mpgritti at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I think this is brilliant!
>>>
>>> Marco
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Frederick Grose <fgrose at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Nice carbohydrate lesson as well!
>>>>
>>>>          --Frederick Grose
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz
>>>> <bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>>>
>>>>> I think Sugar has a naming problem.  There are a lot of different digital
>>>>> objects being produced by this project, and referring to all of them as
>>>>> Sugar is becoming increasingly confusing.  For example, the discussion
>>>>> about "Sugar on Windows" has been all but incomprehensible, because each
>>>>> author means something entirely different by the term "Sugar".  Similarly,
>>>>> the recent proposals for "inclusion in Sugar" are extremely confusing,
>>>>> since these components will not be required to run Sugar.
>>>>>
>>>>> To resolve this, I am going to attempt to list a number of important,
>>>>> distinct digital objects that this work has produced. I will also
>>>>> introduce cutesy codenames.  I hope that the Sugar developers will adopt a
>>>>> clear set of distinct names, and I do not care if they choose these names
>>>>> or other names.
>>>>>
>>>>> Component: The abstract design of the interface
>>>>> Codename: Sweet (the taste of sugar)
>>>>> Description: "Sweet" is the abstract design of the interface's appearance
>>>>> and behavior, independent of any code actually implementing this style.
>>>>> The mockups at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs represent this
>>>>> component's second major release, or perhaps 2.0-alpha.
>>>>>
>>>>> Component: The base Sugar environment
>>>>> Codename: Glucose (the fundamental, simple sugar used by all life forms)
>>>>> Description: Glucose is the minimal system that must be added to a
>>>>> standard Linux distribution in order to enable Activities to run.  This
>>>>> includes all the python code and graphics files that implement the shell,
>>>>> as well as the Journal.  Glucose's dependencies may include xorg-server,
>>>>> xulrunner, squeakvm, rainbow, etc.  Some of these dependencies may be
>>>>> marked optional by distributions.  Glucose does not include any Activities
>>>>> except those like the Journal that are non-optional.
>>>>>
>>>>> Component: A set of demonstration activities
>>>>> Codename: Fructose (the main sugar in fruit, which is how we're supposed
>>>>> to get our sugar.)
>>>>> Description: The Sugar developers will need  some example set of
>>>>> activities with which to demonstrate Sugar.  This set is Fructose.  The
>>>>> packages in Fructose should be selected to make the resulting environment
>>>>> as impressive as possible for a potential client or user.  Packages should
>>>>> therefore be stable, polished, and exercise the widest possible range of
>>>>> features.  Fructose may also serve as an example for people constructing
>>>>> their own Activity sets.
>>>>>
>>>>> Component: The interface, plus a set of demonstration activities
>>>>> Codename: Sucrose ("table sugar", the kind you buy in the store.  It
>>>>> consists of glucose and fructose, combined.)
>>>>> Description: Sucrose consists of both Glucose and Fructose.  It therefore
>>>>> represents a complete example Sugar environment, ready to be installed
>>>>> through a package manager.  The purpose of Sucrose is so that prospective
>>>>> deployers can install the "sugar-sucrose" package, and immediately say
>>>>> "Wow! Look at all the cool capabilities that this system has!".
>>>>>
>>>>> Component: The base Linux distribution being used by Sugar
>>>>> Codename: Ribose (the sugar used by all lifeforms to control their
>>>>> hardware, in the form of RNA.  It's important, but not sweet.)
>>>>> Description: Ribose is the set of hardware-centric software components
>>>>> that have been developed throughout this project.  It includes the XO
>>>>> kernels, OHM, any init-script customizations, etc.  Ribose should be
>>>>> construed as including all components necessary to boot the system, enough
>>>>> to install Glucose if it has not yet been installed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Component: A complete disk image for Sugar
>>>>> Codename: A starch (starch is composed of multiple sugars bonded
>>>>> together.)
>>>>> Description: We often distribute complete disk images for Sugar, ready to
>>>>> boot.  These images are composed of multiple elements of the above stack.
>>>>> ~ For example, the current Joyride images are composed of Ribose (the
>>>>> non-graphical work) and Glucose (the shell) but not Fructose (the activity
>>>>> package).  Each image series should be named separately, to minimize
>>>>> confusion.  For cutesy codenames, we could have a development build
>>>>> ("glycogen", a starch used to produce Glucose) and a stable build
>>>>> ("cellulose", an extremely stable starch).
>>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>>>>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>>>>>
>>>>> iD8DBQFILdvCUJT6e6HFtqQRAleBAJwP4SdcydEj65jMx+0oFUQo5O23IACfcRbA
>>>>> /eEeP6Lp7k7WachUYxe3uGM=
>>>>> =jvwh
>>>>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Sugar mailing list
>>>>> Sugar at lists.laptop.org
>>>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar

-- 
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