[sugar] Update.1. When What How and Why
'Caperton, Idit'
idit at worldwideworkshop.org
Mon Feb 4 13:41:43 EST 2008
Hello There - It's already February of 2008!!!
So reading these exchanges by our highly respected OLPC software leaders in
Cambridge (Jim and Kim, and others) in the past two weeks, and in the past
months in general, has been startling to me (and my team).
The only thing that's a bit more overwhelming is the OLPC Library List :)
I read Jim's list of To-Do's, see below, and then the casual comment in the
open from Kim to Jim: "I think this is way too much stuff for Update.1."
Yes, this is a transparent and ambitious open-source software development
project. The first of its kind.
But, it doesn't mean that it cannot be well-managed with reasonable
executable plans and dates attached to the plans (that could be revised by
the community, if needed).
In my organization, we call it a strategic plan and a production schedule,
and we attached to it reasonable phases and dates -- and most
accountability.
But I am not aware -- what does OLPC do to re-evaluate process and progress
on an ongoing basis? and how does the olpc org learns how to optimize and do
things better, and on schedule? How does the OLPC software development
system learns to be deliverables-oriented, and how do we learn to lead these
global processes more productively?
FACT: From what we see so far, Update.1. has been delayed and delayed and
delayed again.
It affects everybody involved. It's pretty tough for OLPC management,
developers, and all OLPC young users worldwide. And all know by now - stuff
do not work well as a result.
- Where is the Update.1 master plan? And what comes after and when?
- Who keeps track and makes sure we are constantly re-evaluating it and
documenting changes in decisions?
- Is it well-strategized and well-monitored against the strategy?
- How does s--t gets done and optimized in this messy open system?
- Even decentralized system needs organizational management - What did OLPC
software team learned so far?
- Where are the pages with reflections on lessons learned?
- How are decisions about what's in or out being made?
- Where are the software-release-phases with dates for 2008?
- Is there a clear schedule and list of deliverables with dates for 2008?
I know I know -- I am taking a big risk by sending this kind of alarming
message to the entire global Sugar List.
But please remember that I am sending it in order to shake the existing
system, as a serious call for change, to be provocative, and get you all to
think about it positively.
- and, most important, I do it with lots of love and care for the XO and the
OLPC movement at large.
Idit Harel Caperton
President & Founder
World Wide Workshop
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: What's left for Update.1 (Kim Quirk)
2. Re: What's left for Update.1 (Sayamindu Dasgupta)
3. Re: What's left for Update.1 (Tomeu Vizoso)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:51:41 -0500
From: "Kim Quirk" <kim at laptop.org>
Subject: Re: [sugar] What's left for Update.1
To: jg at laptop.org
Cc: Sugar List <sugar at laptop.org>, OLPC Developer's List
<devel at laptop.org>
Message-ID:
<9073bf100802040751n2654ff44i19b418280e850b75 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Jim,
I think this is way too much stuff for Update.1. We are in code freeze. We
have items 1 and 2 scheduled to go into RC2; I would suggest that we ONLY
pick up Spanish, where we really fell short in the current build; I don't
agree with holding up this build for either 4 or 5, as this feels like new,
untested code - perhaps there is no 'fix' even available at this time (I'd
need to see the arguments that this is blocking AND we have a fix); and I
agree that we need to look at 'Blocking' bugs that are still open to see if
we agree they are still blocking - or move them out.
People can argue otherwise (I'm open to a good discussion), but my
recommendation is to get this build out, with all the known issues well
documented.
Kim
On Jan 31, 2008 10:11 PM, Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org> wrote:
> For comment and discussion, here are the showstoppers I know of for
> getting Update.1 finished. If you think there are others, please
> speak up now (and modify the subject line to start another thread).
>
> Activity developers: note we'll be asking you to upload updated
> activities to pick up all the recent flurry of translation work very
> soon.
>
> 1 - wireless firmware and driver support
> (to fix problems with WEP and WPA)
> 2 - q2d11 OFW - to fix battery problems
> 3 - update activities to pick up translation work, Spanish
> in particular, but not missing other languages we may need.
> 4 - UI fix for registration with the school server.
> http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6136
> 5 - switch to gabble from salut at school.
> 6 -testing and fixing anything critical!
>
> If we don't want to hold up an RC2 to pick up translation, then we
> should anticipate an RC4 might be necessary (as we may have issues
> that come up with updated activities).
>
> 4 - we previously (without Dave Woodhouse being available to add to
> the
> discussion) thought we could/should punt #6135 and release note.
> However, talking with him about what we should really fix given his
> experience in Mongolia, the lack of positive confirmation that the
> laptop actually was registered is a real issue. The teachers are not
> familiar with English (or computers), and the subtlety of a menu entry
> going away isn't good enough.
>
> I think we need to seriously discuss about possibly/probably being
> update.1 fodder is the "kids arrive at school in the morning" problem.
>
> 5 - Use of mesh in large, crowded environments If everyone arrives at
> school running local link and resumed quickly, the network might melt
> from mdns mesh traffic's interaction with the mesh's implementation of
> mutlicast. We've upped the multicast bitrate for multicast as a band
> aid, until we can dynamically adjust the bitrate. But the fundamental
> issue comes that in large, dense school environments, can't expect
> multicast to scale far enough, and should be using unicast to a
> presence server (jabber in our current case) to handle this problem.
>
> Dave Woodhouse has suggested may be to try to get a response to the
> school server's anycast address, and if we get a response from a
> school server, switch from Salut to Gabble for presence service
automatically.
>
> This is also somewhat mitigated by having working power management, as
> machines that have suspended due to idle stop sending mdns packets,
> and the kids presumably will want internet access and switch over when
> they arrive. But I'm not very confident that this will always work in
> large environment.
>
> Another temporary solution would be to have Ohm ask NM to reconnect if
> the machine is suspended for more than some interval, say, 30 minutes.
>
> --
> Jim Gettys
> One Laptop Per Child
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Devel mailing list
> Devel at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:20:40 +0530
From: "Sayamindu Dasgupta" <sayamindu at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [sugar] What's left for Update.1
To: "Kim Quirk" <kim at laptop.org>
Cc: OLPC Developer's List <devel at laptop.org>, Sugar List
<sugar at laptop.org>
Message-ID:
<a1314bfe0802040850n1b82eab2tcf5f68db16376b4a at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
2008/2/4 Kim Quirk <kim at laptop.org>:
> Jim,
> I think this is way too much stuff for Update.1. We are in code
> freeze. We have items 1 and 2 scheduled to go into RC2; I would
> suggest that we ONLY pick up Spanish, where we really fell short in
> the current build; I don't agree with holding up this build for either
> 4 or 5, as this feels like new, untested code - perhaps there is no
> 'fix' even available at this time (I'd need to see the arguments that
> this is blocking AND we have a fix); and I agree that we need to look
> at 'Blocking' bugs that are still open to see if we agree they are still
blocking - or move them out.
>
For translations, I would also probably push Mongolian in, along with
Spanish. I am currently making those two sets of translations go through all
kinds of tests (I wish I could make the rest of them go through these as
well, but time is severely limited atm).
If this raises concern about the inclusion of the latest translations for
other languages, I am currently working on a system for building "language
packs" (single archives), which can simply be installed in any Qemu
image/XO/sugar-jhbuild setup, so that anyone can try out the latest
translations for any of our supported language whenever they wish to.
However, "cherry-picking" the translations for Spanish and Mongolian may
pose a problem, which I'm not sure how to handle. The translations were
often committed as parts of huge commits, in which other translations also
went in. Maybe someone who's more familiar with Git may want to suggest some
ways out here.
Thanks,
Sayamindu
--
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:59:47 +0100
From: Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at tomeuvizoso.net>
Subject: Re: [sugar] What's left for Update.1
To: Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at gmail.com>
Cc: Sugar List <sugar at laptop.org>
Message-ID: <1202144387.6057.43.camel at tomeu-thinkpad>
Content-Type: text/plain
On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 22:20 +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
> For translations, I would also probably push Mongolian in, along with
> Spanish. I am currently making those two sets of translations go
> through all kinds of tests (I wish I could make the rest of them go
> through these as well, but time is severely limited atm).
> If this raises concern about the inclusion of the latest translations
> for other languages, I am currently working on a system for building
> "language packs" (single archives), which can simply be installed in
> any Qemu image/XO/sugar-jhbuild setup, so that anyone can try out the
> latest translations for any of our supported language whenever they
> wish to.
Interesting, how are you planning to do these language packs?
Thanks,
Tomeu
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