[sugar] Why Embedded Sugar?

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 4:29 AM, Bill Gatliff <bgat at billgatliff.com> wrote:
> David Farning wrote:
>> It has been a bit of a plug but it looks like we have reach critical
>> mass for a self sustaining embedded Sugar community.
>
> I love the idea of getting a critical mass around something, but I don't yet
> "get it" regarding Sugar for embedded work.  The problem is most likely that I'm
> not thinking out-of-the-box, but if you present Sugar at ESC then you're going
> to have to really know--- and show--- the embedded itches that Sugar can scratch
> to a room full of people like me.  A demo of a pretty UI on non-PC hardware
> isn't enough.
>
> I'm not discarding Sugar's contribution to the computing community as a whole,
> and I'm certainly not suggesting that Sugar lacks anything to offer for embedded
> applications.  I just want to make sure that while your new team is busy getting
> Sugar to work on beagleboard, they're also thinking about how to package its
> "sell" to the larger embedded audience.  Do that right, and you'll never have to
> struggle for critical mass again.  Do that poorly, however, and all the effort
> goes nowhere.

Two reasons I can think of:

- Learning using technology will get much more common in the near
future (or at least we're trying) and learners won't accept (or be
able to) having to access a "real" computer to do so. Embedded systems
and Sugar can play together an important role in this.

- More and more embedded systems are now using screens (because of
lower prices of flat screens?) and its designers will want to provide
richer interfaces to their users than beeps and leds can provide. The
technologies that Sugar is based on provide an interesting alternative
to Flash for more elaborate UIs.

If more comes to my head, will add later.

Regards,

Tomeu