Good for free software.

[Isabell Long]

Hi there,

Many of you who keep up with the news might already know this but I've
just been looking at the BBC News and seen this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8117064.stm

I think it's really good and a great step for open source software and
Linux.  Edubuntu does more or less the same thing with offering
educational packages, but this system has had so much publicity over
the world in this new 'Laptop Per Child' scheme that people know more
about it and are more likely than to jump at this than Edubuntu or
other Linux based systems.

Also notice the spelling mistake in that article - 'OLPC software to
power aging PCs'.

Isabell.
--
Regards,
Isabell Long.  <[hidden email]>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.
OpenPGP Key ID: C395CE07

[x_rob]

Well, I don't think Sugar is the greatest of interfaces to be quite honest, perhaps it could be better to just distribute bunty on a stick, I think they already do in some places. The most important thing here I think is that it got onto the BBC news website, a bit more high profile than usual; I just fear  people will see the relatively simplistic interface of Sugar and assume that all Linux distributions are like that and be put off from trying Linux again. I think it's basically a bit of hype over nothing tbh :P

2009/6/25 Isabell Long <[hidden email]>

Hi there,

Many of you who keep up with the news might already know this but I've
just been looking at the BBC News and seen this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8117064.stm

I think it's really good and a great step for open source software and
Linux.  Edubuntu does more or less the same thing with offering
educational packages, but this system has had so much publicity over
the world in this new 'Laptop Per Child' scheme that people know more
about it and are more likely than to jump at this than Edubuntu or
other Linux based systems.

Also notice the spelling mistake in that article - 'OLPC software to
power aging PCs'.

Isabell.
--
Regards,
Isabell Long.  <[hidden email]>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.
OpenPGP Key ID: C395CE07

[Connor Smith]

On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:29:44 +0100
Rob Barry <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Well, I don't think Sugar is the greatest of interfaces to be quite
> honest, perhaps it could be better to just distribute bunty on a
> stick, I think they already do in some places. The most important
> thing here I think is that it got onto the BBC news website, a bit
> more high profile than usual; I just fear  people will see the
> relatively simplistic interface of Sugar and assume that all Linux
> distributions are like that and be put off from trying Linux again. I
> think it's basically a bit of hype over nothing tbh :P

I think you're missing the important fact that Sugar was designed for
children. ;) It's not exactly going to be our sort of interface,
because we aren't the target audience. It's unfortunate, but at
present, Ubuntu (and even less so Windows or Mac OS X) is not really
suitable for the young children Sugar is designed for. I'm sure
Edubuntu is great for education for children of a certain age, but OLPC
(and thus Sugar) stated their target audience as between 6 and 12. For
this age range, Sugar is in my opinion perfect. Synaptic may be user
friendly, but it is far from child-user-friendly...

But, forgive me, I am a fan of Sugar Labs' vision.

cls

[Tim Dobson-2]

Connor Smith wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:29:44 +0100
> Rob Barry <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Well, I don't think Sugar is the greatest of interfaces to be quite
>> honest, perhaps it could be better to just distribute bunty on a
>> stick, I think they already do in some places. The most important
>> thing here I think is that it got onto the BBC news website, a bit
>> more high profile than usual; I just fear  people will see the
>> relatively simplistic interface of Sugar and assume that all Linux
>> distributions are like that and be put off from trying Linux again. I
>> think it's basically a bit of hype over nothing tbh :P
>
> I think you're missing the important fact that Sugar was designed for
> children. ;) It's not exactly going to be our sort of interface,
> because we aren't the target audience. It's unfortunate, but at
> present, Ubuntu (and even less so Windows or Mac OS X) is not really
> suitable for the young children Sugar is designed for. I'm sure
> Edubuntu is great for education for children of a certain age, but OLPC
> (and thus Sugar) stated their target audience as between 6 and 12. For
> this age range, Sugar is in my opinion perfect. Synaptic may be user
> friendly, but it is far from child-user-friendly...

Really?

Having used an OLPC XO on several occasions I've always thought that
despite it being a fairly radically different UI to what we are used to,
it is pretty intuitive. If you start using Sugar having never used a
legacy "desktop metaphor" UI (Windows/OS X/GNOME/KDE etc) then I think
it's just as easy to learn.

Oh and sugar isn't "simple" per se just more graphical, more aimed at
low end machines and slicker.

I don't see sugar replacing compiz fusion & gnome/kde etc but I do think
we could start to see it appearing on the devices I remember as talking
computers.

When I was growing up I always wanted one of these laptop-like talking
computers for like 7-8 years olds which played hangman with you etc.
These days, as low end netbooks really get cheap - I hope we'll start
giving children these sort of devices running sugar.

I don't think the sterotype of gnu/linux = this will actually start.
People generally won't and don't care what OS stuff runs if it feels
like an embedded device and sugar kind of does.

Tim