| Time | Nick | Message |
|---|---|---|
| 10:09 | SeanDaly | not sure if Mel is about |
| 10:09 | sdziallas | I think she's travelling, heard that she might drop by if she gets online in time. |
| 10:10 | SeanDaly | hi JT4sugar |
| 10:10 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, Thanks for the fantastic work! |
| 10:11 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: it's not just me :) |
| 10:11 | JT4sugar | Hi Sean! |
| 10:11 | Yes, I know but you a good leader! | |
| 10:12 | sdziallas | thank you! |
| 10:12 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: a question, is it normal that the ISO doesn't have Mirabelle in the name? |
| 10:13 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: well, yes and no. it is apparently following the Fedora naming scheme. But I had made a request to have it named differently, if I recall correctly. |
| 10:14 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: for obvious reasons (differentiate from other SoaS ISOs) it would be great to have Mirabelle in the name |
| 10:15 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: yeah, I see that point. |
| 10:15 | SeanDaly: since this is still a SL project in a way, I'm currently pulling the .iso down to sunjammer, so that we will also have it on download.sugarlabs.org. | |
| 10:15 | I will use the soas-3-mirabelle.iso naming scheme for that. | |
| 10:16 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Can we use this opportunity with Fedora to make a breakout. Having this mainline support is news I believe. |
| 10:16 | SeanDaly | o boy if I start talking about another fedora "limitation" Peter will start flaming me again ;-) |
| 10:16 | garycmartin | lol! |
| 10:17 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: the problem remains that this version is quite different from what we announced were key features in December |
| 10:17 | JT4sugar: a breakout could work if Fedora was a stronger brand | |
| 10:19 | JT4sugar: there's also the problem that this version although more slid, has many fewer Activities on it; the developers decided to be much stricter about the list and most Activities didn't make it | |
| 10:19 | s/slid/solid (o's) | |
| 10:20 | Our strategy up to now has been to not talk too much about "Linux" or "GNU/Linux" or "Fedora" | |
| 10:20 | the idea is to build Sugar brand equity | |
| 10:20 | JT4sugar | Yes, But in USA it is about stabiiltiy and we can work from there. No linux but Ubuntu has name ID so lets help Fedora. Activities can be added and we can use this as developer recruitment which is what we need most. |
| 10:21 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: developer recruitment is what I've wanted to do with Mirabelle since I discovered the major engineering changes |
| 10:22 | I believe best bet to reach developers is banner ads on open network - in December we had over half a million impressions | |
| 10:23 | I don't remember clickthrough rate but I believe it was above average | |
| 10:23 | Our resources problem is critical | |
| 10:23 | the resources problem leads to tenseness, burnout | |
| 10:24 | JT4sugar | I just gave Sugar and Creation Kit to 350 Computers and Writing People at conference over weekend. To me Mirabelle and tight working relationship with Fedora is news. From XO 1 to SoaS from a major distribution is worthy of headlines and key on Sebatians age! |
| 10:25 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: hmm worthy of headlines I'd be surprised... nothing I'd like better of course |
| 10:25 | by the way, there *is* a marketing angle we could explore; the project itself - sdz running a key project, GSoC | |
| 10:26 | JT4sugar: fabulous news about conference | |
| 10:27 | sdziallas | is obviously biased and keeps his head slightly out of this :) (I'll be giving this probably related talk at LinuxTag: http://www.linuxtag.org/2010/e[…].html?talkid=382) |
| 10:27 | SeanDaly | keep in mind though: all major GNU/Linux distros combined make up less than 2% of desktop market |
| 10:27 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Fedora as lead SoaS and XO 1.5 is news we haven't truly had that kind of support before and SDZ GSOC work plus others allows you to bring Google into story as well |
| 10:28 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I agree about XO-1.5 but OLPC has asked we hold off on that for now |
| 10:29 | JT4sugar: there's another issue... we like to present Sugar as hardware-agnostic and indeed distro-agnostic | |
| 10:30 | The Fedora-Red Hat connection is longstanding and of interest to many in the community & industry, but | |
| 10:30 | if we promote Fedora over say Ubuntu I believe we will have trouble | |
| 10:31 | I'd rather Sugar run on SoaS, Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Debian, etc. | |
| 10:32 | another comment on hardware-agnostic... we've identified the importance of running SoaS in VMs | |
| 10:32 | JT4sugar | We need to run with what we have. Fedora as a big player. Others will hopefully follow if we paly the words right. Having this Upstream/Downstream support is huge! We must capatilize even if it's slight move to a new direction. |
| 10:33 | SeanDaly | however, that isn't mentioned at all in the renewed SoaS page... Tom did work on that though |
| 10:34 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: Mel added a section to "related work" late last night, I saw... so we're now linking to the category of other LiveUSB projects like before. |
| 10:34 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: Fedora is not a big player on non-OLPC OEMs most likely to be deployed in schools. Even Ubuntu isn't. |
| 10:35 | sdziallas: a Mac or Windows user scans the page looking for their icons... they need to find them with instructions | |
| 10:36 | sdziallas | (We have now http://download.sugarlabs.org/[…]s-3-mirabelle.iso up as a second download locatoin) |
| 10:36 | JT4sugar | We need resources, resources, resources if we ever truly want to help these Teachers and Students. This is a great Start! We can make them a Big Player if we play them up 2 years with XO and counting around the world. In my eyes a very Big Deal! |
| 10:36 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: We are linking here from the Fedora Spins page: http://download.sugarlabs.org/[…]ocs/creation-kit/ |
| 10:38 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: yes I saw that, good - we just need to fix the SoaS page (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick) because that's the page referenced by Google, bookmarked by everyone, communicated in PR, etc. |
| 10:39 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: maybe we could link to the docs closely to the download button so that everybody would get that, too. |
| 10:40 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, A few weeks back I asked for a Upstream/Downstream visual for all of us non-tech people(Teachers and the like) can you and Peter put something together. Seeing where we fit into ecosystem with timelines and such would be a tremendous help. |
| 10:40 | SeanDaly | also, booting Macs and running in VMs on Macs and under Windows is one of our claims since Strawberry |
| 10:41 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: I think that'd be a really good thing to have, yes. I mean, we should just do that after the launch dust has settled. |
| 10:41 | SeanDaly | It's true a schema would be very helpful for non-techies |
| 10:41 | JT4sugar | Just to let you know conference attendess received CD with Sugar to try and Tom Gilliards SoaS Creation Kit 7.0 |
| 10:42 | sdziallas | Ah, that's cool! |
| 10:43 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: the Creation Kit is an excellent choice for targeting teachers since it lowers the installation and unfamiliarity barriers |
| 10:43 | satellit___ | SeanDaly: I have had Soas waiting for a review article on http://distrowatch.com/ for at least 6 months: how do we get it covered? |
| 10:43 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, I would put it together myself but don't have the technical ability if you guys take the time to document visually the process the help this would offer to all would be huge! |
| 10:43 | satellit___ | JT4sugar : : ) |
| 10:44 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: I think we should be able to get some diagramm off the ground (probably with Inkscape), yes. |
| 10:44 | SeanDaly | hi satellit___ now or in a couple of days would be a good time I think :-) |
| 10:44 | JT4sugar | satellit_, Thanks for all your work its in many hands now! |
| 10:44 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: I actually made one for a different purpose a couple of weeks ago but didn't put it up. |
| 10:44 | satellit___ | *I don't seem to have the "pull" maybe thru mel and fedora |
| 10:45 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, Non techs need visuals try to keep that in mind |
| 10:45 | SeanDaly | I think Mel could help but she has had her hands full with main Fedora release |
| 10:46 | satellit___ | sdziallas: maybe the ASLOxo file should go there also plus creation kin DVD iso |
| 10:46 | s/kit | |
| 10:47 | * to downloads/releases | |
| 10:47 | JT4sugar | Wikis and documentation are great but remember who the key audience is K-6 kids and Teachers. Time is key. Visuals to explain not reading Wiki's is key. |
| 10:48 | SeanDaly | a schema could also deal with the Sugar Labs vs. SoaS team confusion, i.e. SoaS as a "downstream distro" which to an ordinary non-techie teacher will be perfectly incomprehensible |
| 10:49 | JT4sugar | A Picture of our project and where SoaS fits in on one page might be more help than all the articles in the world. Don't forget 40 Languages. |
| 10:50 | SeanDaly | I also had asked Mel to change "K-8" to "K-6" and mention the XS School Server, but she didn't reply |
| 10:51 | K-6 is better not just because it is more precise but because the competitive offer is poorer | |
| 10:51 | The XS School Server needs to be looked at by any education buyer or ed tech IT thinking about deploying SoaS | |
| 10:53 | JT4sugar | K-6 should be about OS above that through college should talk about allowing students/teachers to learn open source and coding(Python) that can be 7th grade all the way through college Doctoral(PHD) work. |
| 10:54 | garycmartin | SeanDaly: the sugar wiki/www is full of Blueberry links, do we need to start a clean up and get them to Mirabelle (I need to test it first before I'm happy making such edits). |
| 10:54 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: this is precisely why dual desktop is news - easy switching to GNOME will i am sure lower the bar for budding developers at the upper end of Sugar age & beyond |
| 10:56 | garycmartin: an excellent point, the Try Sugar page for example. But we've been in a crisis mode these past few weeks concerning Mirabelle. From a marketing point of view it's very problematic, since we basically lost lots of features including e-book readers. So no PR. However, it is now the released version of SoaS so yes our wiki should be updated especially as the SoaS Creation Kit is... | |
| 10:56 | ...presented | |
| 10:57 | satellit___ | *easy to install Mirabelle to HD with liveinst then yum install gnome* (or 16 GB USB) |
| 10:58 | SeanDaly | garycmartin: I've also been occupied with joint PR with GNOME which will accompany OLPC PR; written, but in holding pattern right now |
| 10:58 | satellit___ | *(I have a later version of sugar creation kit with more foss manuals and mostly pdf. files I could upload soon) |
| 10:58 | JT4sugar | Yes, But if OLPC is holding off, we should not. The fact that Fedora has picked this up in such a big way should be news to the Tech Community because WE Say SO! 1.5 million plus 500,000 for Palestinians and 20 million announced for Africa and Sugar Labs at the center off it all. News? SoaS Mirabelle? Yes!!! |
| 10:59 | SeanDaly | satellit___: Yes, that's interesting we just have to be careful not to advise non-techies to wipe their Windows installation & data ;-) |
| 11:00 | satellit___ | * satellit has mixed feelings about that outcome : ) |
| 11:00 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: the OLPC announcement is big news and they have the strongest brand in our ecosystem (quite a bit stronger than Fedora or Ubuntu), especially amongst teachers |
| 11:01 | JT4sugar: we had very wide coverage of the Mideast and Africa announcements (even if there is no financing yet for the latter), but we *do* need to attack our resources problem - it's critical | |
| 11:03 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: yes, but developers would probably react on an interesting coverage in their trusted tech online magazine (because they believe it's cool), no? |
| 11:03 | SeanDaly | put another way: we can bite the bullet and say: the previous versions of SoaS were not sustainable and too buggy, so we have more closely aligned ourselves with Fedora to incease quality. Unfortunately, this means installation & trying is now more difficult, and there are fewer Activities to check out |
| 11:04 | sdziallas: it's probable we can interest tech journalists, in particular who cover FOSS, but ^^ | |
| 11:04 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Maybe the news story should be about SDZ and team. SDZ just graduated High School if I'm correct. Red Hat has been on board from start, this is new direction to get this technology in hands of everyone but led by the community Fedora/Sugar not just RHEL big news if you asked a non-tech person me! |
| 11:05 | satellit___ | what is so hard about starting browse and doing download from ASLO? |
| 11:05 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: you're correct about my school career :) |
| 11:05 | JT4sugar | I'm not sure it's bitting the bullet it's just the truth and in marketing over the long run that actually wins! |
| 11:06 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: yes, as I say project itself could be angle and GSoC. But cooperation between SoaS teams and marketing has not been good. Marketing as an afterthought will fail. |
| 11:06 | satellit___ | we are #9 on http://spins.fedoraproject.org/ page updated.... |
| 11:07 | sdziallas | satellit___: the more downloads we get, the better we'll be there :) |
| 11:07 | JT4sugar | Correct. But we have a product on the table so it's up to us to "Spin To Win" |
| 11:07 | SeanDaly | satellit___ : it's a lot to ask for a non-techie teacher to run a completely unfamiliar environment, then start downloading and nstalling stuff. This is why the reation Kit, ASLOxo bundle are key. |
| 11:08 | satellit___ | *started DL of torrent |
| 11:08 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: we mentioned activities.sugarlabs.org in previous PR if I'm not mistaken. I wouldn't argue that people getting a new Mac and an iPod will have trouble using the iTunes store. |
| 11:08 | satellit___ | * 7 peers |
| 11:09 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I have vast spin experience :D but finding a credible reason for why we threw out most Activities (the heart of learning with Sugar) a very risky challenge at best |
| 11:09 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, If we pose as always updateable and thats how open source works its just us educating them which needs to happen anyways |
| 11:09 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: no, because Apple built up 9 versions of iTunes and bypassed the browser! |
| 11:09 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: because we want people to build their own experience :) (and because Read is still broken, but I wouldn't write that too boldly) |
| 11:10 | satellit___ | sdziallas could we change the default browse page so it starts loading ASLO? |
| 11:10 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: no, I'm afraid teachers will try it, get blocked by a (for us) trivial problem, and give up |
| 11:10 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: you've got a good point there. :) but openening browse is the only thing you need - there's a link saying "activites" there. and downloading works without much hassle, from what I'm aware. |
| 11:11 | SeanDaly | satellit___: remember we can't assume broadband connectivity... |
| 11:11 | JT4sugar | Simply put we need Help! This is an opportunity to explain just that! Do people want to help kids around the world or not? I think they do!! So lets ask them to do so! I know it's unconventional but everything we are doing is! |
| 11:11 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: +1. |
| 11:12 | SeanDaly | Put another way: the reason we want teachers and parents to jump through additional hops is that X Activities have not been tested on edora |
| 11:12 | satellit___ | * but a kid , or Teacher, will not start browse without it |
| 11:12 | SeanDaly | fedora |
| 11:12 | garycmartin | sdziallas: there seems a big assumption that our target are connected to the cloud. The creation kit is a great fix for this, but having to 'get online' and install 'things' to do a reasonable demo of Sugar is a big set back. |
| 11:12 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: teachers and developers not the same target |
| 11:12 | I'm not worried about devs trying SoaS or Sugar, but teachers | |
| 11:13 | To raise awareness of Sugar with teachers, we need to make trying it as simple as possible | |
| 11:13 | JT4sugar | So straight out ask them to test on Mirabelle and help the world!! To me it's that simple! Ask and you will receive. |
| 11:13 | SeanDaly | This is why lots of Activities were bundled in SoaS before |
| 11:13 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: the current development of SoaS does not prevent the activities from ASLO from working. The change of packaged activities just concers the included ones. |
| 11:13 | SeanDaly: lots of which didn't work. | |
| 11:14 | SeanDaly: Read is *still* broken and I feel much better not shipping and selling something broken. | |
| 11:14 | SeanDaly | Current paradigm is to minimze demo role of SoaS, for more solid deployment base - sound engineering, but leaves us with a problem in reaching out to teachers |
| 11:15 | JT4sugar | In the USA it's not all the Actvities that will get us in the door it's the stable base that they can get all these activities working on. |
| 11:15 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: I don't disagree - which is why I consider it critical that we attack resources problem, rather than reach out to teachers with this release |
| 11:15 | sdziallas | garycmartin: well, here's the thing. for a demo, we have a couple of activities included and chosen *because* they give you a great demo. and for everything else, deployments, specifically, these will want to customize their image no matter what. That's why we're writing instructions like http://people.sugarlabs.org/sd[…]tomization-guide/ to make that as simple as possible. |
| 11:16 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: education buyers and ed tech IT sure, but teachers? I can't agree |
| 11:16 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: Mel's aunt is a teacher and she *is* running a deployment in Boston. |
| 11:16 | JT4sugar | Sugar is about going under the hood. Mirabelle allows us to show up with the car to work on |
| 11:17 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: we know that any deployment can work... if a tech admn is directly involved |
| 11:18 | JT4sugar: we must not underestimate importance of ease of use... it's how Apple is crushing smartphone competition, even Blackberry | |
| 11:18 | we need to move forward | |
| 11:19 | I like the idea of briefing tech journalists | |
| 11:19 | but we should agree on what the briefing is | |
| 11:19 | JT4sugar | There are very few deployments that will ever work with Elementary teachers without Tech being involved from get go. Apple is about the software doing it for you. Sugar is about Learning thats a big difference and should never be forgotten |
| 11:20 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I agree but Sugar can't work in the classroom until it is very robust... teachers need to rely on it, not fiddle with it |
| 11:20 | we could communicate exactly why SoaS has changed so much, but that inevitably leads to how critical our resources problem is | |
| 11:21 | To any tech journalists worth her salt, the real story is "Sugar stays alive" which is not the best message to spread | |
| 11:22 | What i'd like to do is advertise for developers | |
| 11:22 | the open network banner ads are not expensive and I could front the $$$ | |
| 11:22 | JT4sugar | The exact case for Mirabelle and SDZ and teams work. A stable base we can spend all summer getting activities ready for deployability. And the story is Red Hat and Fedora take Sugar under their wing and make it mainstream. A Huge Deal!! |
| 11:25 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: yes, a media launch in the fall would be far more preferable..as I've said. But fedora is not mainstream by any stretch of the imagination :-( |
| 11:26 | What we should do is leverage Mirabelle's increased quality | |
| 11:27 | show it in videos booting different netbooks | |
| 11:27 | garycmartin: some months ago we had discussed "sugar boots!" label, do you remember? | |
| 11:28 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, RHEL is well known and gaining. Fedora is the cutting edge of that and techs know that. Are job is to Educate the public and thats what we should do. We have a great story to tell and we need help and we should simply just ask the World. That's news in my book. |
| 11:28 | garycmartin | SeanDaly: Yep, want to revisit that idea? |
| 11:28 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: that's a blog post or a manifesto, but not news :-( |
| 11:29 | JT4sugar: News is: Dell will preinstall fedora with Sugar & GNOME | |
| 11:29 | JT4sugar: News is: X country or Y city will deploy Sugar in their school system | |
| 11:30 | JT4sugar: News is: Fedora+Sugar/GNOME has been referenced on new Intel Classmate hardware | |
| 11:30 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: A *new* version is news, too. Combined with stability enhancements and a story about the teams involved, I don't think this is not news. |
| 11:30 | SeanDaly: Every new Gnome version gets PR, though it has a 6 months release cycle and has maybe not overly important new features. | |
| 11:30 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: dropping half the features and addressing stability and bug problems is news, just not the kind of news we'd like to spead :-( |
| 11:31 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: we are not dropping half of the features. please stop spreading melancholy here. :) |
| 11:31 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: GNOME is known to many techies, and almost completely unknown to non-techies |
| 11:31 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: besides that, it's Sugar on a Stick and not Hundreds Of Non-Working Sugar Activities On A Stick. |
| 11:32 | Activities are part of the Sugar Exeperience. And that's why ASLO is important, too and should be part of the message. | |
| 11:32 | JT4sugar | In the tech world Fedora making Sugar a key part is news. If not we aren't doing our job. Mirabelle is news because of the longterm support it brings which may push other distributions to do the same. But if we don't tell the story it will never happen. |
| 11:32 | garycmartin | sdziallas: I agree it's worth some paragraphs of text on our sites/blogs, but not sure we should punt (and spend $$$ punting) this at journalists. |
| 11:32 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: no emphasis on e-readers, nothing about Macs any more, many fewer Activities unless go fetch yourself in interface you've never seen before... |
| 11:32 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: I'm totally +1 to that. |
| 11:33 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: again, I agree that we could brief tech journalists without PR. But we need to agree what the story is so bad news doesn't get reported. |
| 11:33 | We rely on PR since we have no advertising budget | |
| 11:33 | garycmartin | sdziallas: it's certainly great news for our community - I'm looking forward to testing out new yellow and orange spin (on a VM first, may be try and boot my mac from a USB). |
| 11:33 | sdziallas | garycmartin: maybe not worth spending thousands of bucks on it. but you can get the word out if you chose words wisely. |
| 11:34 | SeanDaly | PR very effective, but credibility is important |
| 11:34 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: if the read activity doesn't work, we seriously can't include it just to market something that's broken. :) |
| 11:34 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: I fully agree, so I say: don't market it, fix it first |
| 11:34 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: well, no. because if there's nobody fixing stuff and you don't get the word out, we're lost. |
| 11:35 | Because then we won't attract people with our idea. | |
| 11:35 | And a couple of banners do not attract contributors. | |
| 11:35 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: Journalists, PR not the only way to get the word out. Which is why I'm suggesting advertising. Blog posts could work too. |
| 11:35 | sdziallas | They attract users willing to pay for something. |
| 11:36 | I will blog about this release, you bet. :) | |
| 11:36 | JT4sugar | Presently we need developers to help teachers. This is an opportunity to do just that. Invite the world to help us. We are a Community! That's the biggest news not a version number although important. |
| 11:36 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: developers are hard to target. So what's the best way, you tell me :D |
| 11:36 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: I'm with JT4sugar on this one. I'm not saying that we need to have all education papers out there covering this launch, that's true - and would probably be a bad idea. |
| 11:37 | Alright, so here's how I got where I am right now. | |
| 11:37 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: all our previous PR has call to action for help. Not a single journalist has written about that, for a good reason: it's not news :-/ |
| 11:37 | sdziallas | I was *very* *very* lucky. |
| 11:37 | satellit___ | * http://distrowatch.com/ is important....please try to get Mirabelle covered |
| 11:37 | sdziallas | I had known about OLPC and was impressed by what they did and had checked out their wiki. |
| 11:37 | But I hadn't even thought about the fact that the possibility existed to get involved. | |
| 11:37 | SeanDaly | satellit___ : Agreed |
| 11:38 | sdziallas | When I met people like Thorsten Leemhuis from Fedora and later Greg - who all of a sudden asked me what I'd say if he got me an XO-1 - that's a game changer. |
| 11:38 | satellit___ | sdziallas: how about sourceforge for DL site also.... |
| 11:38 | sdziallas | Not all people are that lucky. |
| 11:38 | It *is* hard to get involved. | |
| 11:39 | Which is why Mel worked so much on overhauling the wiki page, which is why we're linking to OpenHatch. | |
| 11:39 | You do not get people to contribute because of a banner. | |
| 11:39 | You need to sell your idea, well, not literally. | |
| 11:39 | The idea of Sugar is worth selling. | |
| 11:39 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: I'd like to tel you how I got involved |
| 11:40 | sdziallas | It might not be news. But combined with the call for help, a story, and stuff, I believe this is something that encourages people. |
| 11:40 | JT4sugar | You don't kick down a door by walking away. We need help and we need to ask for it. And that is the only way Sugar will get better. There is no reason to wait six months, this is a big deal even if you personally may not think it is. |
| 11:40 | SeanDaly | I was following OLPC and covered it as volunteer journalist while at Groklaw |
| 11:40 | I was mystified why the project wasn't engaging with the press | |
| 11:41 | I interpreted departure of Mary Lou and Walter as deep-seated problems at OLPC | |
| 11:41 | i arranged to interview Walter for the site | |
| 11:41 | I did G1G1 | |
| 11:42 | Then i saw a blog post by gregdek about he was leaving marketing post due to other responsibilities | |
| 11:42 | sdziallas | And it made click? :) |
| 11:42 | SeanDaly | I traveled to FOSDEM to meet Sugar Labs people, sent mail to Bernie and gregdek |
| 11:42 | bernie | lurks |
| 11:43 | SeanDaly | listened to gregdek's presentation |
| 11:43 | sdziallas | (that was one of the most awesome talks I ever heard, yes) |
| 11:43 | bernie | wow, I tuned in exactly at the same time you called my name :-) |
| 11:43 | SeanDaly | but what sold me was Simon at the fedora table, who helped me to load an SD card with early SoaS |
| 11:44 | which never booted, but I decided to become involved | |
| 11:44 | bernie: the technical name for that is "magick" | |
| 11:44 | sdziallas | :) |
| 11:44 | bernie | lol |
| 11:44 | SeanDaly | I agree that a banner wuld not have pulled me in |
| 11:44 | JT4sugar | If we wait the world could forget about us. Tying into the Fedora movement and the new possibilities is big. Having activities is important but having stability and predictabiltity in Teachers eyes is paramount! |
| 11:45 | SeanDaly | and I think our experiences show the importance of contact with existing contributors |
| 11:46 | Walter has suggested for some time that we develop Sugar Stories - each of us telling what we do, why we do it, how we became involved | |
| 11:46 | JT4sugar | SDZ and his story is the news!!!!! |
| 11:46 | SeanDaly | JTsugar: if Read doesn't work in Mirabelle, we can't talk about stability :-/ |
| 11:46 | sdziallas | Maybe I've got something to propose then. |
| 11:46 | SeanDaly | yet |
| 11:47 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Well then if if it doesnt work we need to ask for help to make it work |
| 11:47 | garycmartin | SeanDaly: I think many potential contribs' are already here, and aware of Sugar/OLPC, sure there are new folks to be found, but it's getting to folks who have drifted away, or never felt they can contribute. A lot of this is how the community comes across (having gone through 1K emails from various olpc/sugar lists it's quite painful to read a lot of the messages). |
| 11:48 | SeanDaly | garycmartin: a good point |
| 11:48 | sdziallas | What if we got Sugar Stories off the ground. Now. And combined it with a Sugar Boots effort. Basically, telling people that We Are Real People with a story and working for this to happen. And that there's something that works on their machine, letting them give it a try. |
| 11:48 | SeanDaly | whatever happened to that teacher who offered to help on the SoaS list? |
| 11:48 | JT4sugar | Asking for the help we need works better than hoping someone comes across the help we need. |
| 11:49 | sdziallas | +1 |
| 11:49 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Telling the world that SDZ a high school student is changing the World is news!!! |
| 11:50 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I'd much rather we revamp our Get Involved page, and put up stories from each of us, and mention what we are working on, than concentrate on Mirabelle |
| 11:51 | sdziallas | I wonder if there's a way to combile these two aspects. |
| 11:51 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: it's the classic recruitment approach... but use with caution!! |
| 11:52 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: the overhaul of the SoaS wiki page Mel did was aimed at making it a Contributors Portal - it talks now much more about getting involved. |
| 11:52 | (actually, combine, not combile) | |
| 11:52 | JT4sugar | Having just given the creation kit to 350 university researchers pushing them towards Mirabelle and having them engage Computer Science, Education, and English colleagues is my focus and I will leverage Red Hat at every turn |
| 11:52 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: I like what she did, just needs the pancake button further up |
| 11:53 | JT4sugar: Red Hat has played a key role in the OLPC project, let's just not burn bridges with Ubuntu, Mandriva et. al. while we're at it | |
| 11:55 | JT4sugar | Interestingly a speech at the conference was given about using GIT as a way for Rhetoric and Compostion people to collaborate on writing. |
| 11:56 | Its not burning bridges it shows growth and support of the ever increasing world market they want to get into and Sugar is the perfect inroad!! | |
| 11:56 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: not sure head of Canonical would agree with you :D |
| 11:57 | I have another idea for a possible angle: EU OSOR referencing | |
| 11:57 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: the head of Canonical doesn't have the currently best Sugar implementation in his distro. |
| 11:57 | SeanDaly: I don't think it's burning bridges, but mentioning facts, if we chose words wisely enough. | |
| 11:57 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: agreed, and that should change; I have wanted to go see him in London |
| 11:57 | JT4sugar | Im not sure he is worried about "Learning How to Learn" but we are |
| 11:57 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: true :) |
| 11:58 | SeanDaly: yes. but we shouldn't sell us undervalue just because somebody else doesn't care. | |
| 11:58 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: he certainly is, just look at how much he donated for education in South Africa |
| 11:58 | sdziallas | We obviously shouldn't go FEDORA IZ TEH BEZT DISTRO. But again, if we pick the right words, I'm not afraid there. |
| 11:59 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: I seem to remember that fedorizing of SoaS meant some European languages were dropped, is that the case? |
| 11:59 | sdziallas | No. |
| 11:59 | We still ship the same amount of languages as before. | |
| 11:59 | JT4sugar | At the end of the day its Children and Teachers. If he is that interested than have him port Sugar to all his deployed netbooks and systems. |
| 12:00 | SeanDaly | Does SoaS have all EU languages? |
| 12:00 | sdziallas | As far as I'm aware, it does. |
| 12:00 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: chicken and egg. he wants to spread Ubuntu |
| 12:00 | JT4sugar | Ubuntu is not Learning. Sugar IS!!! |
| 12:01 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: OK. Why don't I talk to them again about referencing Mirabelle. The stable base for customization bit is appropriate for OSOR and that would allow us to get away from credibility issues |
| 12:01 | JT4sugar: send those exclamation points to M.S., Esq., London ;-) | |
| 12:02 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: Mhm, interesting. |
| 12:03 | SeanDaly | If they reference us (my last meeting with them went well), we could manage to work our way out of this |
| 12:03 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, With Fedora and Sugar you can talk Community, Community, Community which is what it's all about in the end. Local Success!! |
| 12:03 | SeanDaly | In parallel though we absolutely have to work on recruitment |
| 12:03 | sdziallas | I have to make a phone call, but will be back in two minutes. |
| 12:03 | Yes, JT4sugar has a good point there, I believe. | |
| 12:03 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: Sure, it's just not news :-( |
| 12:04 | JT4sugar | Unless you decide that it is. And it is. The eye of the beholder |
| 12:04 | SeanDaly | However, it should be what we talk about in recruitment materials |
| 12:04 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: There is a new release. Which is enough reason for getting the word out. Whatever you say in this "word" can certainly concern Community (with a capital C here). |
| 12:04 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: not me, journalists |
| 12:05 | sdziallas: I am very concerned about damage risk | |
| 12:06 | JT4sugar | Ask the Journalists to help the World, which is exactly what we are doing. To bad if its not news to them it is to the caring people of the world. Just Ask. |
| 12:07 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I receive over 100 press releases every day on topics I have selected from the wire services. Every company or org behind them want to get their message out and considers their message important... |
| 12:08 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, If you put out this call to action I think you will be presently suprised. We are helping the world and if we don't stand on our own Mountaintop and say so who will? |
| 12:10 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I am 100% sure I will not be pleasantly surprised, i will take a credibility hit because I stuff up a busy journalist's mailbox with a fundraising request. No. Journalists report news. What we have to do is express ourselves, and luckily we have a website and a planet to do that |
| 12:10 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Do you really think they are waiting for another IPad article. We are the game changer. |
| 12:12 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: we have to present ourselves as the game changer. E-book readers are fundamental to that - we identified that. Mirabelle is lacking in the e-book reader department, through no fault of sdz's, but because we have a critical resources problem. |
| 12:13 | JT4sugar: we can present Mirabelle as "Back to Basics", but it turns out we had to go *very* far back | |
| 12:14 | JT4sugar | Being taken up with this kind of support from a distribution is news. Considering 500,000 to the palestinians and 20 million to East Africa. Sugar Sugar Sugar. No E-Book reader then straight out ask for the help. If you ask you will receive. |
| 12:14 | SeanDaly | The best thing to do is to come from an unexpected direction, wich OSOR is, and explain the back-to-basics approach |
| 12:15 | JT4sugar: we already did PR for those and it was widely covered. Journalists don't cover the same story twice. We need to ask, but not through journalists | |
| 12:16 | JT4sugar | At best it was a slight mention not a call out |
| 12:18 | Are best bet for help is with Mirabelle and we have five months to gear up for SoaS 4.0 the Teacher edition yes? | |
| 12:18 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: let me put it another way: nothing stops us from founding an online news site. This site could be entirely devoted to news about Sugar and OLPC and Fedora. No, wait.... |
| 12:18 | JT4sugar: No, i am suggesting we create a newsworthy event and fold Mirabelle into that | |
| 12:19 | Recruitment is a different topic and we have to work on that | |
| 12:20 | JT4sugar | I would like to see us in the Press and tech press asking for help that Tomeu has so eloquently pointed out on the lists that we need. And SDZ and Peter should be showcased for the Community work they are doing and example for all distributions to follow |
| 12:20 | SeanDaly | Caryl has just posted an interesting message on this to the list... and confirms stories of how sdz and i got involved |
| 12:21 | JT4sugar | Well that story should be told to the world did we mention SDZ is a high school student. A role model if I ever knew one! |
| 12:22 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: the only way to do that and get it printed is through an interview or guest post format. "FOSS Project X" needs contributors is absolutely not news! |
| 12:22 | JT4sugar: exactly, which is why I think we should redo Contributors page with our stories first | |
| 12:23 | JT4sugar: please consider the risk | |
| 12:23 | JT4sugar | SoaS Mirabelle!! A high school student helps to change the World!! Thats news!! and Fedora and Red Hat are involved. |
| 12:24 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: journalists could report that Sugar Labs is losing contributors, team leaders are resigning, SoaS has gone to Fedora since SL couldn't maintain it, most Activities don't run on latest SoaS which is too far ahead of installed base... shall I go on? |
| 12:24 | We are dealing with perceptions | |
| 12:25 | JT4sugar | The reward or lack of it is worth it. Where would we be without their work? Nowhere. It's worth the Praise and Encouragement others will likely follow suit. |
| 12:25 | If those are the questions answer them in the release | |
| 12:26 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I agree, we should get those stories up on our website |
| 12:26 | JT4sugar: no, that's shooting yourself in the foot department | |
| 12:28 | JT4sugar | Open source is a matter of churn and growth educating the public of these realities is the only way forward. The inability of linux to do that is why they are where they are. Sugar is about Learning how to Learn so lets help get that started |
| 12:30 | garycmartin | needs to go work soon... |
| 12:31 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: Red Hat, the major player in GNU/Linux, pulled out of the desktop market - they chose not to combat Microsoft. Fedora promotes first and foremost to contributors and potential contributors. We need to find a different way. |
| 12:31 | sdziallas | is back from his call. |
| 12:31 | SeanDaly | also needs to go soon... |
| 12:31 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Will we be doing a release to showcase Mirabelle and the new expanding relationship with Fedora? |
| 12:32 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: No, not unless we can get newsworthy news in there to distract from the lost features |
| 12:32 | sdziallas | sighs. |
| 12:33 | SeanDaly | Why don't we see what we can do with OSOR |
| 12:33 | In the meantime I must insist that we work on recruitment - the problem is critical, and generates other problems | |
| 12:34 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, I believe it would be a very useful for the University angle and to leverage the SoaS Creation Kits I just gave out. The work continues to move forward angle. As Peter said we are in our infancy. |
| 12:34 | sdziallas | It doesn't make sense to argue about recruitment and prevent words from getting out. |
| 12:35 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: as I've said, SoaS Creation Kit important tool for lowering rather than raising tryout barriers |
| 12:36 | sdziallas: I'm not preventing anything, I'm just opposed to risky and useless actions... we are short-handed and need to be efficient | |
| 12:37 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: we won't be getting efficient if we don't get the word out. |
| 12:37 | JT4sugar | Getting Mirabelle and then downloading Activities is not a barrier for those we a trying to recruit to help us. |
| 12:37 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: exactly! |
| 12:37 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: exactly! it just is for teachers. |
| 12:38 | garycmartin | (is _not_ for teachers) |
| 12:38 | sdziallas | I talked about chosing words wisely - people reading tech publications are exactly the people we need. If teachers are doing that, even better, because they have an interest there. |
| 12:38 | SeanDaly: this is hypocritical. | |
| 12:38 | You talk about recruitment and then turn around and turn everything down that doesn't target teachers. | |
| 12:38 | SeanDaly | garycmartin: yes |
| 12:39 | sdziallas | I hear OLPC wasn't run entirely by teachers, from what I know. |
| 12:39 | And finally, Rome wasn't built in a day. | |
| 12:39 | JT4sugar | I beleive I need this Mirabelle press release to allow me to continue to tell the story and Red Hat is a big part of that, they have been on board since the beggining. In the US its stability stability stability. |
| 12:39 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: not true. I am proposing we redo our Contributors page and communicate about it, just not to the press. For the press, we should communicate when we have good news... not risky news |
| 12:40 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: we *have* redone them. |
| 12:40 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: The Activities are not stable yet because we lack resources. It's too early! |
| 12:40 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: I'm not going to sit here still and wait for the ship to sink. |
| 12:40 | SeanDaly: No. | |
| 12:41 | You won't get ressources if you don't get the word out. | |
| 12:41 | If a teacher is reading a tech publication - rarely they do that - they are in most cases technical enough. | |
| 12:41 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: So let's get the word out. Efficiently. |
| 12:41 | cfalciola | Bad/mis-interpreted news tend to run faster and harms more |
| 12:41 | JT4sugar | This Mirabelle work altough not the smoothest of transitions is a big deal in regards to support and a huge step forward and should be heralded. I think we should announce it to the World! |
| 12:42 | sdziallas | SeanDaly: If "efficiently" means "don't" I'm not game. |
| 12:42 | JT4sugar: I'm with you there. | |
| 12:43 | SeanDaly | JT4sugar: I think so too, but with newsworthy news which hopefully will cover up the warts... which can harm us. |
| 12:44 | OSOR would do that. Something else could do it too. But remember that the 180° turn from our e-reader focus leads to conclusions that will not help us, quite the opposite. | |
| 12:45 | JT4sugar | SeanDaly, Six months from now with this stable base in place and activities coming into play all the time will help us. Believe in the community and let the chips fall as they may. No reward without risk. We are creating our own path! |
| 12:45 | SeanDaly | Again, I think we could brief tech journalists. Companies and orgs do that all the time without PR. But the recruitment needs a different treatment. |
| 12:46 | JT4sugar: Let's minimize risk, maximize Sugar awareness, and recruit new contributors! | |
| 12:46 | sdziallas | I have got to run. |
| 12:46 | JT4sugar | Ask the world straight up for help. The truth wins the end. This is an end game. |
| 12:46 | SeanDaly | me too |
| 12:46 | sdziallas | I won't let Sugar on a Stick rot in the dark. |
| 12:47 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, Fantastic work keep it up!! |
| 12:47 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: what rotting? |
| 12:47 | garycmartin | sdziallas: why do you think it'll rot in the dark? |
| 12:47 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: thank you :) |
| 12:47 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: yes, great work... let's please just work more closely together |
| 12:48 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, Please thank Peter for all his hard work as well and others!!! |
| 12:48 | sdziallas | garycmartin: that's the idea I got from this meeting. I might not be able to do press release but if it means I have to put my Sugar Labs hat off and a Sugar on a Stick or Fedora one on and blog, I will. |
| 12:49 | SeanDaly | I'd like to thank Peter, but I think he'd just flame me again :-( |
| 12:49 | sdziallas | grins. |
| 12:49 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, Make your own Mountaintop if you must |
| 12:49 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: no hat-switching necessary! Announce! |
| 12:50 | sdziallas | I dunno if somebody read "Oh The Places You Will Go" here. |
| 12:50 | SeanDaly | :D |
| 12:50 | sdziallas | It ends with a line: "And will you succeed?" - "Yes, 98 3/4 percent guaranteed. KID, you will move mountains." |
| 12:50 | SeanDaly | :D |
| 12:51 | sdziallas | I believe in the long-run we will altogether succeed with this. |
| 12:51 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: why not do a guest post on olpcnews? |
| 12:51 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, You inspire me!! And your story should be told. |
| 12:51 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: :) |
| 12:52 | SeanDaly: olpcnews has not covered the previous SoaS releases in full-depth, I don't think they will do this now. | |
| 12:52 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: and do you know why they haven't? |
| 12:53 | sdziallas | I don't know the story behind them, so no. |
| 12:53 | SeanDaly | (by the way all 3 olpcnews editors have told me to encourage guest posts) |
| 12:53 | sdziallas | nods. |
| 12:53 | JT4sugar | Sdz Gerald Ardito when hearing your age thinks so as well. I brought him in to present at the Sugar Workshop at the Computers and Writing Conference. Walter presented via adobe connect from Boston. |
| 12:54 | SeanDaly | I can tell you: they think we are not supporting OLPC enough. A guest post could challenge their thinking. |
| 12:54 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: that's awesome! :) |
| 12:54 | We should talk about this. | |
| 12:54 | I have got to run, will be back in something like three hours to get an announcement blog post out. | |
| 12:54 | SeanDaly | sdziallas: ok |
| 12:55 | need to end... | |
| 12:55 | any last comments? | |
| 12:55 | sdziallas | JT4sugar: btw, there will be an Education Summit at LinuxCon this year in August. |
| 12:55 | waves. | |
| 12:55 | SeanDaly | thanks JT4sugar, garycmartin, satellit, and of course sdz |
| 12:55 | JT4sugar | sdziallas, Congrats to you and the team on the release. Announce yourself if you must. It is a BIG DEAL!!! |
| 12:56 | SeanDaly | #endmeeting |