[sugar] [Server-devel] 9.1 Proposal: Printing support

[Yama Ploskonka]

hey Jeff, seems I got the bad end of that broadside...

I am developing things for Bolivia, and I am known as someone who makes 
virtue out of lack of resources.
That is why I (you're entitled to your opinion) see the lack of printing 
as a good thing - discourages the use of very, very limited resources.

I also see the lack of access to MS Windows as positive - it sure means 
less access to the biggest amount of available educational software, 
ready to use for a few cents as pirateware, but all the issues of 
viruses and moral weight of knowingly stealing.
Likewise I am not worried about horrible connectivity in my area - that 
just means we have to be even better at building up our local community, 
since we have less access to the international one.  It does upset me, 
sure, but it's something to turn into an advantage...

Oh yes, I wish it were different, that we had enough resources to do 
things differently, and I am quite encouraged, even if you and I differ 
on this one point, that we do agree on the need for a very solid server 
with lotsa goodies in it, making a deployment less dependent of the 
internet.

Interesting your take on ideological reasons for / against printing 
support.  I myself see printing is currently a need of the richer 
partners, since  in Bolivia there very seldom is a budget for printing 
supplies or any kind of maintenance, but I might be limiting the project 
to my own tunnel-vision.

Yama

Jeff wrote:
> Because it is "defective by design" does not mean that it is a feature 
> and not a flaw.
> 
> I manage 5 school-labs in deepest, darkest, rural Africa; and printing 
> has never been much of a support issue.
> 
> Sure there are issues with CUPS. Especially with printers going offline 
> when they run out of paper and needing to be manually re-"started" in a 
> web browser... but we've managed to get around that and train the 
> teachers (in about 5 minutes flat). They also change their toner 
> cartridges with ease, and can justify the expense for printer toner as 
> easily as for photocopier... And most of them have a budget for that.
> 
> I am immensely frustrated with the pandering to the lowest common 
> denominator which I view as a cultural disease on the server-devel list. 
> 
> I don't wish to address each and every issue - but I disagree completely 
> that printing is an issue, and that VSAT is not the way to get on the 
> internet or cannot be upscaled.
> 
> Please stop imagining that lowest-spec, cheapest hardware and 
> crippleware is the answer - or that 3'rd World countries will never 
> progress towards a reasonable standard. That attitude is patronizing and 
> demeaning. And wrong.
> 
> -Jeff
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 21 Oct 2008, at 3:33 PM, Yama Ploskonka wrote:
> 
>> When I am asked about whether the XO handles printing, I present that 
>> the fact it does not is a feature, not a bug.
>>
>> And people understand.
>>
>> It is not out of the ordinary that the life of school printers will be 
>> the life of the first set of ink cartridges or toner, there being no 
>> budget to refill them once they are gone.  Of course people could pay a 
>> few cents a copy for the toner fund, but then that would require endless 
>> structure, trust it will not be misused, etc...
>>
>> It is true that, for too many teachers, what is not on paper actually 
>> does not exist, thus limiting the "usefulness" of the XO in their minds 
>> to an almost nil value unless it can print.
>> Getting things printed is not the way to solve this, just as VSAT is not 
>> the way to get internet - neither can be scaled up, neither is 
>> sustainable.  As Martin wisely indicates and I agree wholeheartedly, 
>> this is more a social problem than one of software.
>>
>> Ultimately having the Write documents to be printed be uploaded to a 
>> specific folder in the XS, and that be the queue for printing should be 
>> rather simple (the "print" function on the XO would do that, and the 
>> destination folder is pre-defined and is a static destination or else is 
>> picked up from a specific set of data when the XO connects to the XS). 
>> But that does not solve the problem that, outside rich countries, there 
>> simply be no printer or resources to follow through.
>>
>> Yama
>>
>> Martin Langhoff wrote:
>>>  Paper, ink and printer time are
>>> extremely valuable.
>>
>>> So far we have not built anything yet to share handle limited
>>> resources across users yet -- and doing it across something so lumpy
>>> as printing resources it going to be an interesting exercise in
>>> building social software.
>>
>>
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> 
> 
> 
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> Jeff Brown
> 
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