Αλλαγή ρότας στο OLPC;

Μετά την αποχώρηση της Mary Lou Jepsen, πέρσι, και του Ivan Krstic, τον Μάρτιο, τώρα ήρθε η σειρά του Walter Bender, μέχρι πρότινος νο2 στο OLPC, να εγκαταλείψει τον οργανισμό. Ο ιδρυτής και πρόεδρος του OLPC, Ν. Νegroponte, δήλωσε ότι ο Bender παραιτήθηκε λόγω κούρασης, αν και υπάρχουν ενδείξεις ότι στο OLPC συμβαίνει αυτή τη στιγμή μια μεγάλη αλλαγή στρατηγικής. Από την αρχή, ο οργανισμός βασίστηκε στο Fedora Linux για λειτουργικό σύστημα και σε ανοικτού κωδικα εφαρμογές για το μαθητικό φορητό XO, αλλά φαίνεται ότι αυτό ίσως αλλάξει στο μέλλον, μια και ήδη η Microsoft δουλεύει για μια έκδοση των Windows ειδικά για το XO. Γι' αυτό το λόγο, είναι αρκετοί οι developers που ζητούσαν από τον Negroponte να ξεκαθαρίσει τη θέση του, ιδιαίτερα όσον αφορά την πιθανότητα dual-boot XO με Windows και Linux, ή και μονο Windows με το Sugar. Η απάντησή του ήταν αυτή:

From:  	 [email protected] εκ μέρους Nicholas Negroponte
To: 	 devel-AT-laptop.org, sugar-AT-laptop.org, community-news-AT-laptop.org
Subject: on Sugar


People keep asking me:

Yes, OLPC's commitment to Sugar has changed. It is now larger, not smaller.
Contrary to inferences drawn by Walter's departure, the press and venerable
sources such as OLPC News, we are scaling Sugar up, not down. Let me explain.
 
Sugar is a very good idea, less than perfectly executed. I attribute our
weakness to unrealistic development goals and practices. Our mission has never
changed. It has been to bring connected laptops for learning to children in the
poorest and most remote locations of the world. Our mission has never been to
advocate the perfect learning model or pure Open Source. I believe the best
educational tool is constructionism and the best software development method is
Open Source. In some cases those are best achieved like the Trojan Horse,
versus direct confrontation or isolating ourselves with perfection. Remember
the expression: perfection is the enemy of good. We need to reach the most
children possible and leverage them as the agents of change. It makes no sense
for us to search for the perfect learning model.
 
For this reason, Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux platforms and
to run under Windows. We have been engaged in discussions with Microsoft for
several months, to explore a dual boot version of the XO. Some of you have seen
what Microsoft developed on their own for the XO. It works well and now needs
Sugar on top of it (so to speak).
 
As a non-profit, humanitarian organization, OLPC has a unique position, from
which it can change the world for children and learning. Laptop makers rushing
into the low-end marketplace is a perfect example of success of one kind.
Another will be what kids do outside school and with other kids around the
world. A third is what we do.
 
We are not a business, but need to be more business-like: meet schedules,
manage expectations and fulfill promises. To do that, we need to hire more
developers, work more together and spend less time arguing. Because of public
attention, anything we say will be quoted out of context. We can only speak
with our actions and those are only one: a reliable and ubiquitous Sugar. That
includes being more collaborative engineers ourselves and engaging the
community better. Our limitations are not financial, but identifying the
required human resources and resolve to do so.
 
What is in front of us is an opportunity for big change. Sugar is at the core
of it. To pretend otherwise would be a joke. That said, Sugar needs to be
disentangled. I keep using the omelet analogy, claiming it needs to be a fried
egg, with distinct yoke and white, rather than having the UI, collaborative
tools, power management and radios merge into one amorphous blob. Otherwise, it
is impossible to debug and will be limited to the small, albeit growing, world
of the XO hardware platform.
 
As we reach out to engage a wider community, some purism has to morph into
pragmatism. To suggest that this forsakes Open Source or redirects our mission
is absurd. Kids will be the agents of change and our job is to reach the most
of them. That is not just selling laptops, but making Sugar as robust and
widely available as possible.

Nicholas

Η απάντηση δεν ήταν ότι θα περίμενε. Υπήρχαν βέβαια και ορισμένες θετικές απόψεις:

Από:  	 [email protected] εκ μέρους Tomeu Vizoso 	 
Αποστολή:  	 Πεμ 24/4/2008 12:11 πμ
Κοιν.:  	 [email protected]; [email protected]
Θέμα:  	 Re: [sugar] [Community-news] on splitting Sugar

I agree with most of that, but I think that the biggest problem with
sugar on windows is the shell. It provides several features already
provided by the windows shell, and that overlap would cause severe
confusion and frustration to users.

Any suggestion on how to approach this?

Thanks,

Tomeu

Αλλά υπάρχουν και εντελώς αρνητικές γνώμες:

From:  	[email protected] εκ μέρους C. Scott Ananian
To: 	Nicholas Negroponte; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [sugar] [Community-news] on Sugar	

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Nicholas Negroponte  wrote:
>  For this reason, Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux platforms
> and to run under Windows. We have been engaged in discussions with Microsoft
> for several months, to explore a dual boot version of the XO. Some of you
> have seen what Microsoft developed on their own for the XO. It works well
> and now needs Sugar on top of it (so to speak).

You have been saying variations of this for a while now, but:
 * OLPC has not hired any Windows developers
 * OLPC has not adjusted its timeline to allow for time necessary for
such a port.

What are we to make of this?  Are you serious about Sugar on Windows
or not?  If you are, then you need to immediately hire *at least* 10
windows developers to actually perform the port, and inform the
deployment countries that we are placing a hold on new development for
at least 6 months while the port is prepared.  And the result, of
course, will be a new version of Sugar which is guaranteed to run *no
better* than the one on Linux.  From an IT management perspective,
this is madness.

If you are not serious about Sugar on Windows within the next year,
please continue to avoid 'now' and use 'might' and 'someday' when you
talk about it, and we'll continue to try to make Sugar-on-Linux
achieve its potential.  I approve of keeping OLPC's options open, in
case your current development team (myself included) cannot deliver on
Sugar's potential, but setting vague (and demoralizing) goals for
future development -- without actually devoting the resources to
achieve those goals -- is madness.  You have only succeeded in
alienating the developers you need to make Sugar-on-Linux work,
without actually achieving any progress on Sugar-on-Windows.
 --scott

--
 ( http://cscott.net/ )