Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
2009/2/6 : > sorry if I seem like a pest, and I definantly do appriciate the volunteers > here, but what I am trying to understand here are the plans of the olpc > orginiztion itself. it's one thing to transition the maintinance of the > Sugar UI to an outside orginization, it's something very different to > switch from Sugar the distro (or whatever you want to call it if not > Sugar) to Fedora with the Sugar UI running in it. > > among other things, this would signal the end of the rainbow security > approach in favor of standard linux (or possibly SElinux) security. > > It would end the dual image 'hit a button to boot the last image' approach > as standard distros don't do that. and probably several other things. > > I'm not even saying it's the wrong thing to do. I'm just trying to > understand what the plan is. I can only speak as a volunteer too, but I can speak as one who intends to continue contributing to development, and I have participated in the discussions: The "plan" makes more sense when you look at it from a high level. OLPC used to have a fairly significant development team, and a QA group. It did a lot of development and testing. Now, there are only a couple of developers and no QA team. It's not practical to continue developing as happened before. Now, imagine if we could use someone elses software, e.g. Fedora, with no modifications (ignoring any loss of features, or let's say that no features are lost). Fedora have a release cycle, a QA team, a big community-based development group, etc. OLPC can continue shipping the same kind of thing on the machines, progressing at a similar or faster rate than previously, and it can do this with only a few staffers. This would be a perfect solution to the current problem. It sounds great, but there are challenges: OLPC has historically diverted from upstream and developed technologies in-house which have not really been pushed at or adopted by other communities. e.g. olpc-update, rollback boot, ... OLPC has also made some hacks to packages to better meet the goals of the organisation, at the expense of maintainability of the OS. This cannot continue in such a model where no modifications are made. So, the community (and couple of devs at OLPC) now needs to work on taking each of those hacks and features and integrating them into upstream-upstream (by that I mean the actual real upstream codebases, not just Fedora upstream) in a non-hacky way. Then the rest of the world has the technology too, and more significantly, the rest of the world maintains the technology (not OLPC). Yes, this is hard, and F11 may regress some features such as the ones you mention. But, by the very nature of the system, anything that is *properly* integrated for F11 will *automatically* be present in F12, F13, etc. So, given the large amount of community interest, I am confident we'll get there given time. Maybe not F11, but after. Let's also not forget that OLPC's target is deployments.. Some of the features have not seen much adoption. For example, rollback boot... At least in the deployment scenarios I have been involved in, NAND space is a commodity and we cannot afford having 2 OSs there (they want many activities, wikipediaEN/ES, gcompris, a few hundred mb of textbooks, etc). Although it would be a shame to lose such a feature, it is not something that I would see blocking adoption by the majority of deployments. Daniel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Fri, Feb 06, 2009 at 02:53:03AM -0800, da...@lang.hm wrote: > I'm glad to hear it's been going on, I would have expected such things > here on the OLPC developer list. are the folks working on other distros > (debxo, ubuntu, gentoo that I know of) aware of the work happening on the > fedora-olpc list? debxo. No. Thanks for the heads-up. -- James Cameronmailto:qu...@us.netrek.org http://quozl.netrek.org/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Life after 8.2.1 (was Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1)
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > (changing subject ...) > > It would seem to me that deployments will get to choose which software > to install. > [like] Luke's XOOS (http://lukego.livejournal.com/tag/xoos) is immature but > cool Hah! Yes that would be cool indeed! Letting the children build up their own software stack, with their own, home grown, favourite programming paradigms in a fully interactive environment all the way down to the bottom. What's not to like about this approach! And it would be a great learning experience ;o) /Ties ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Life after 8.2.1 (was Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1)
(changing subject ...) On 06.02.2009, at 11:13, da...@lang.hm wrote: > On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Michael Stone wrote: > >>> so after the 8.2.1 release the plan is to just switch to standard >>> Linux >>> distros? >> >> Speaking entirely as a volunteer: the answer depends on who you ask. > > sorry if I seem like a pest, and I definantly do appriciate the > volunteers > here, but what I am trying to understand here are the plans of the > olpc > orginiztion itself. it's one thing to transition the maintinance of > the > Sugar UI to an outside orginization, it's something very different to > switch from Sugar the distro (or whatever you want to call it if not > Sugar) to Fedora with the Sugar UI running in it. > > among other things, this would signal the end of the rainbow security > approach in favor of standard linux (or possibly SElinux) security. > > It would end the dual image 'hit a button to boot the last image' > approach > as standard distros don't do that. and probably several other things. > > I'm not even saying it's the wrong thing to do. I'm just trying to > understand what the plan is. > > In many ways, switching the XO laptop from using one special distro to > being able to select which of several different distros you want > pre-loaded on the machine would be a very good thing. but it is a very > significant step. It would seem to me that deployments will get to choose which software to install. Competition for that is starting, with various contenders, like OLPC's 8.2.x series, Debian's DebXO, Fedora's v. 12, SugarLabs' Sugar-on-a-Stick, olpcfriends' community distro (championed by mstone), some Redmond company is working on an OS, Luke's XOOS (http://lukego.livejournal.com/tag/xoos ) is immature but cool, etc. The various Linux-based approaches seem to be the most promising, in particular since they can share improvements easily. OTOH those who do not want to get dragged into distro politics might join Michael, and produce the best-adapted OS for the XO hardware? I personally like that, but we'll see I guess. And in the end, maybe not being officially endorsed by OLPC is even a virtue? - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Martin Langhoff wrote: > On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 11:16 PM, wrote: >> the first step is to track down the remaining XO only things > > that's what the 'fedora-olpc' mailing list has been all about for a while now. grumble grumble fedora centric US developers ;-) I'm glad to hear it's been going on, I would have expected such things here on the OLPC developer list. are the folks working on other distros (debxo, ubuntu, gentoo that I know of) aware of the work happening on the fedora-olpc list? David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 11:16 PM, wrote: > the first step is to track down the remaining XO only things that's what the 'fedora-olpc' mailing list has been all about for a while now. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Martin Langhoff wrote: > On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 6:02 PM, wrote: >> so after the 8.2.1 release the plan is to just switch to standard Linux >> distros? > > What follows is my understanding of what Ed and cjb mean when they > talk about future releases... > > Instead of a "9.1" done in the old way, staff and volunteers set their > eyes on Fedora 11, and ... > > - help ensure there is testing and polish of F-11 on the XO hw > - help ensure there is testing and polish on the packages we care > about (Sugar!) > - build images (and help others build images) based on a F-11 spin > - post-release fixes and polish are channeled via the Fedora updates stream > > it's very likely that the process will need some tiny bits of rigging > that don't belong to Fedora. Something similar happens with the XS. > Creating the 'olpc' user, setting gdm to boot straight into Sugar, > building the image in jffs2 or ubifs -- such steps of configuration > can be done in the %post script of a livecd or pungi kickstart. the first step is to track down the remaining XO only things (power management is the big one I can think of at the moment), and flush the remaining patches that are in the build for hardware functionality (there was a short thread right after the downsizing was announced where I asked some questions about this, but the people who had the answers were busy looking for other jobs) David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Michael Stone wrote: >> so after the 8.2.1 release the plan is to just switch to standard Linux >> distros? > > Speaking entirely as a volunteer: the answer depends on who you ask. sorry if I seem like a pest, and I definantly do appriciate the volunteers here, but what I am trying to understand here are the plans of the olpc orginiztion itself. it's one thing to transition the maintinance of the Sugar UI to an outside orginization, it's something very different to switch from Sugar the distro (or whatever you want to call it if not Sugar) to Fedora with the Sugar UI running in it. among other things, this would signal the end of the rainbow security approach in favor of standard linux (or possibly SElinux) security. It would end the dual image 'hit a button to boot the last image' approach as standard distros don't do that. and probably several other things. I'm not even saying it's the wrong thing to do. I'm just trying to understand what the plan is. In many ways, switching the XO laptop from using one special distro to being able to select which of several different distros you want pre-loaded on the machine would be a very good thing. but it is a very significant step. David Lang > Since I think that 8.2.0 wasn't half bad, I'm currently trying to persuade > people who feel similarly to work with me to assemble an 8.2.2 with some > useful > bugfixes and software updates, because I think that > > a) it's the right thing to do > > b) it will complement various upstream efforts (both in Fedora, Sugar Labs, > and the wider FOSS community at large) by helping to concentrate > deployment-specific testing effort on the most relevant parts of > their work > c) that it's important to deliver a product which directly meets the needs > of > existing deployments even when those needs don't precisely match the > needs > and goals of the larger upstream communities. > > Does this help clarify the situation? > > Michael > > P.S. - My current ideal list of changes would include: > > * fix the memory stability issue > * ship the new gabble w/ support for out-of-band stream tubes > * ship the latest gnash > > and I'd be very happy to discuss shipping various sugar or platform updates > as > well; e.g. java. > > What do you want to see in a new release? > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
I would like to see a java update. On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 3:25 AM, Michael Stone wrote: >>so after the 8.2.1 release the plan is to just switch to standard Linux >>distros? > > Speaking entirely as a volunteer: the answer depends on who you ask. > > Since I think that 8.2.0 wasn't half bad, I'm currently trying to persuade > people who feel similarly to work with me to assemble an 8.2.2 with some > useful > bugfixes and software updates, because I think that > > a) it's the right thing to do > > b) it will complement various upstream efforts (both in Fedora, Sugar Labs, > and the wider FOSS community at large) by helping to concentrate > deployment-specific testing effort on the most relevant parts of > their work > > c) that it's important to deliver a product which directly meets the needs > of > existing deployments even when those needs don't precisely match the > needs > and goals of the larger upstream communities. > > Does this help clarify the situation? > > Michael > > P.S. - My current ideal list of changes would include: > > * fix the memory stability issue > * ship the new gabble w/ support for out-of-band stream tubes > * ship the latest gnash > > and I'd be very happy to discuss shipping various sugar or platform updates as > well; e.g. java. > > What do you want to see in a new release? > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 6:02 PM, wrote: > so after the 8.2.1 release the plan is to just switch to standard Linux > distros? What follows is my understanding of what Ed and cjb mean when they talk about future releases... Instead of a "9.1" done in the old way, staff and volunteers set their eyes on Fedora 11, and ... - help ensure there is testing and polish of F-11 on the XO hw - help ensure there is testing and polish on the packages we care about (Sugar!) - build images (and help others build images) based on a F-11 spin - post-release fixes and polish are channeled via the Fedora updates stream it's very likely that the process will need some tiny bits of rigging that don't belong to Fedora. Something similar happens with the XS. Creating the 'olpc' user, setting gdm to boot straight into Sugar, building the image in jffs2 or ubifs -- such steps of configuration can be done in the %post script of a livecd or pungi kickstart. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
>so after the 8.2.1 release the plan is to just switch to standard Linux >distros? Speaking entirely as a volunteer: the answer depends on who you ask. Since I think that 8.2.0 wasn't half bad, I'm currently trying to persuade people who feel similarly to work with me to assemble an 8.2.2 with some useful bugfixes and software updates, because I think that a) it's the right thing to do b) it will complement various upstream efforts (both in Fedora, Sugar Labs, and the wider FOSS community at large) by helping to concentrate deployment-specific testing effort on the most relevant parts of their work c) that it's important to deliver a product which directly meets the needs of existing deployments even when those needs don't precisely match the needs and goals of the larger upstream communities. Does this help clarify the situation? Michael P.S. - My current ideal list of changes would include: * fix the memory stability issue * ship the new gabble w/ support for out-of-band stream tubes * ship the latest gnash and I'd be very happy to discuss shipping various sugar or platform updates as well; e.g. java. What do you want to see in a new release? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Ed McNierney wrote: > The "9.1" release was a very specific release planned for the first half of > 2009 - see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0 for one set of details - following > OLPC's stated plan of two major releases per calendar year. That specific > event is not going to happen. That's not at all the same thing as saying > "OLPC will never do another software release again". OLPC will not > undertake, on its own, another major release of the software package we > currently ship with each XO. Several things are happening, however: > > 1. An 8.2.1 release is nearing completion, and I expect OLPC will continue to > produce minor feature-driven point releases (8.2.2, 8.2.3) as needed to > support our deployments. This is in contrast to our previous plan of > schedule-driven major releases twice a year (of which 9.1 would be the next). > > 2. Several people are working actively with the Fedora community to ensure > that Fedora 11 works as well as possible on the XO. Sugar will be an > available desktop environment on F11 as it is in F10. Some users and/or > deployments may choose to use F11 on their machines instead of 8.2.1, > > 3. Other distributions (DebXO, Ubuntu, etc.) in various shapes and sizes are > available for the XO, and I haven't heard any sign that those activities will > end. I hope these will continue to offer additional alternative solutions > for XO users; one size does not fit all. > > The specific discussion about etoys is that originally 8.2.1 was planned as a > more limited bug-fix release, with a major release coming shortly afterwards, > so it made sense for major etoys updates to wait for the 9.1 release. Since > the contemplated 9.1 release will not happen, and since some of the original > customer-driven schedule pressure for 8.2.1 has gone away, it seems to now > make sense to include the planned etoys update in 8.2.1 instead in order to > make the update available to as many of our users as possible as quickly as > possible. so after the 8.2.1 release the plan is to just switch to standard Linux distros? it's one thing to skip the Q2 2009 release becouse you do a Q1 2009 release. saying that there is no replacement for it strongly implies that the Q4 2009 release (or future releases) are not expected to happen either (otherwise the next one planned would be the 'replacement' for the Q2 2009 release it's not even that I think it's necessarily a bad move to make (I've ranted frequently enough about my disappointment with the OLPC software stack), but I would have expected this sort of thing to make major news (unfortunantly, probably with headlines like 'OLPC halts linux development') is this the sort of thing that NN was alluding to when he announce the downsizing and future plans and emphisised the possibility of Sugar on Windows? David Lang > - Ed > > > On Feb 5, 2009, at 11:32 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: > >> On Wed, 4 Feb 2009, Bert Freudenberg wrote: >> >>> Dear Release Manager, >>> >>> as we discussed on IRC today (and which I had not realized until >>> today) the 8.2.1 release will be pre-installed on XOs for much longer >>> than anticipated, since the 9.1 release has been canceled, and no >>> replacement is in sight. >> >> this is the first I've seen about 9.1 being canceled. >> >> if this is the case (and especially with no replacement planned), what is >> the plan for XO software going forward? >> >> David Lang >> ___ >> Devel mailing list >> Devel@lists.laptop.org >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
David - The "9.1" release was a very specific release planned for the first half of 2009 - see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0 for one set of details - following OLPC's stated plan of two major releases per calendar year. That specific event is not going to happen. That's not at all the same thing as saying "OLPC will never do another software release again". OLPC will not undertake, on its own, another major release of the software package we currently ship with each XO. Several things are happening, however: 1. An 8.2.1 release is nearing completion, and I expect OLPC will continue to produce minor feature-driven point releases (8.2.2, 8.2.3) as needed to support our deployments. This is in contrast to our previous plan of schedule-driven major releases twice a year (of which 9.1 would be the next). 2. Several people are working actively with the Fedora community to ensure that Fedora 11 works as well as possible on the XO. Sugar will be an available desktop environment on F11 as it is in F10. Some users and/or deployments may choose to use F11 on their machines instead of 8.2.1, 3. Other distributions (DebXO, Ubuntu, etc.) in various shapes and sizes are available for the XO, and I haven't heard any sign that those activities will end. I hope these will continue to offer additional alternative solutions for XO users; one size does not fit all. The specific discussion about etoys is that originally 8.2.1 was planned as a more limited bug-fix release, with a major release coming shortly afterwards, so it made sense for major etoys updates to wait for the 9.1 release. Since the contemplated 9.1 release will not happen, and since some of the original customer-driven schedule pressure for 8.2.1 has gone away, it seems to now make sense to include the planned etoys update in 8.2.1 instead in order to make the update available to as many of our users as possible as quickly as possible. - Ed On Feb 5, 2009, at 11:32 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: > On Wed, 4 Feb 2009, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > >> Dear Release Manager, >> >> as we discussed on IRC today (and which I had not realized until >> today) the 8.2.1 release will be pre-installed on XOs for much longer >> than anticipated, since the 9.1 release has been canceled, and no >> replacement is in sight. > > this is the first I've seen about 9.1 being canceled. > > if this is the case (and especially with no replacement planned), > what is > the plan for XO software going forward? > > David Lang > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On Wed, 4 Feb 2009, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > Dear Release Manager, > > as we discussed on IRC today (and which I had not realized until > today) the 8.2.1 release will be pre-installed on XOs for much longer > than anticipated, since the 9.1 release has been canceled, and no > replacement is in sight. this is the first I've seen about 9.1 being canceled. if this is the case (and especially with no replacement planned), what is the plan for XO software going forward? David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
On 05.02.2009, at 18:46, Chris Ball wrote: > Hi Bert, > >> We have had fixed Etoys / Squeak-VM packages ready for many months >> now, they just did not make it into 8.2 by a few days, and 8.2.1 >> was scheduled to be only a major-bugs fixing release, so we were >> holding out for 9.1. Since that is not going to happen we would >> very much appreciate if the updated RPMs would get included in >> 8.2.1. > > Thanks, I'm willing to accept this change. It's headed for a staging > build now; can I ask for your help testing it once we release it in > our > first 8.2.1 candidate build? (Which should be later today or > tomorrow.) Of course. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Please update etoys in 8.2.1
Hi Bert, > We have had fixed Etoys / Squeak-VM packages ready for many months > now, they just did not make it into 8.2 by a few days, and 8.2.1 > was scheduled to be only a major-bugs fixing release, so we were > holding out for 9.1. Since that is not going to happen we would > very much appreciate if the updated RPMs would get included in > 8.2.1. Thanks, I'm willing to accept this change. It's headed for a staging build now; can I ask for your help testing it once we release it in our first 8.2.1 candidate build? (Which should be later today or tomorrow.) - Chris. -- Chris Ball ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Please update etoys in 8.2.1
Dear Release Manager, as we discussed on IRC today (and which I had not realized until today) the 8.2.1 release will be pre-installed on XOs for much longer than anticipated, since the 9.1 release has been canceled, and no replacement is in sight. We have had fixed Etoys / Squeak-VM packages ready for many months now, they just did not make it into 8.2 by a few days, and 8.2.1 was scheduled to be only a major-bugs fixing release, so we were holding out for 9.1. Since that is not going to happen we would very much appreciate if the updated RPMs would get included in 8.2.1. The most severe bugs that are fixed there are #8351 (Composite characters not displayed correctly), #8608 (Mic LED stays on after quitting Etoys), #8700 (View-source key broken) and #8536 (Page up / page down / home / end not working). More bugs have been fixed since, but no features added. We did update the major version number (4.0 now) in the mean time because the latest release is now completely license clean, but from a user's point of view the features are identical to the 3.0 series. The latest release is in Joyride: etoys-4.0.2205-2.noarch.rpm squeak-vm-3.10-3olpc11.i386.rpm Please consider these to replace the ones in 8.2. Thanks, - Bert, for the Etoys team - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
