[sugar] Fwd: {OLPC Nepal} Re: [FOSSNepal] Re: Report: OLPC may eventually switch from Linux to Windows XP
-- Forwarded message --
From: Bibek Paudel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 6:18 PM
Subject: {OLPC Nepal} Re: [FOSSNepal] Re: Report: OLPC may eventually switch
from Linux to Windows XP
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi all,
While I personally think it is bad for OLPC to switch to Windows XP,
here a few observations that I have made:
1. Any development/education project meant for third world countries
is best when it is natively grown. A top down approach where some guy
in Boston teaches us how to change things in our neighbourhood is
never likely to understand and respect our situation and problems. He
has other priorities. A bottom-up approach should be devised where
grassroot organizations from different parts of the world collaborate
to form a mother organization that works in their benefit. Compare
this to Nepal's political situation where every other politician/media
claims to represent the people and be working for them. Things won't
that way in technology too.
2. Nicholas Negroponte is a man hungry of some position in history of
business and humanity, both. He thinks increasing the sales of laptops
is more important than the growing impact it is creating. Selling a
qarter of a million of laptops is a success by any means for any
profit-organization. I don't understand how it is not sufficient in
case of a first-of-its-kind project by a non-profit organization.
3. Nicholas Negroponte doesn't care. Using Windows in XOs has many
implications. Besides cost and the performance of the laptops, it
means you are forcing a company's products on all children. Compare
that to a government policy whereby it makes every school going
children mandatory to wear dresses from a certain dress-designing
company or study books from a certain publisher (eg. Ekta publishers).
Thats why we have a government book publisher and curriculum designer
in Nepal and government can't recommend any other books. I don't
understand how someone can impose the monopoly of using a
vendor-specific software on all kids. And why governments all over the
world should abide by that.
4. The issue of amorphic development of XO as said by Negroponte is
at best ridiculous. Having the best of the world's technology,
engineers and money at MIT, it shocks me how he allowed a project of
OLPC's scale fall at the hands of people who neither could have a good
architect for the software or the capacity to develop them
morphically. Had he never heard of the term software engineering
before? Why was the decision taken in first place?
5. What are all the people spread all over supposed to make of the
recent developments? At the behest of a single man or a group of such
men, should they be forced to change their working style, philosophy
and way of seeing things?
6. I wish someone starts a fork of Sugar and everything OLPC. Why not
Walter Bender? Start a fork. Or else the people at OLPC, if you have
all the democracy and its powers, why don't you remove such people who
are moving away from the OLPC's original principles? I just hope
something of similar nature happens.
If you agree with me, please forward this message to other mailing
lists of OLPC where people are likely to respond to this issue.
Cheers !
Bibek
On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 5:50 PM, sarose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
hey dude! your grandpa is great but you know my uncle Negroponte is
fool nonsense because he now hate Linux.
About Ubuntu, i don't know how to pronounce it. Please teach me as
well.
Try a survey with your friends or co-workers around. The answer
screams cries utterly. Don't forget to submit back to Uncle
Negroponte.
On Apr 24, 4:12 pm, Zico [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 3:42 PM, sarose [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
yes its bad news and a good lesson for the gnome/kde that has not
come
up with user friendly UI till this date.
You are very wrong, brother! Don`t you see the *blinking things* of
gnome/kde? And, how do you define friendly user interface? What more
do
you expect from Gnome/KDE? Please point out, we will be really glad to
hear
that.
just stop saying linux is ready for desktop.
Why should we do that??
neither its ready for my
dad nor its ready for my little brother.
I don`t know about your dad or younger brother, but Ubuntu is ready for
my
grandfather. Now, i am teaching my grandmother to use computer ( in one
word, Ubuntu ).
all its ready
for is server only.
Very wrong.
By the way, which distro do you use?
--
Best,
Z
--
Bibek Paudel.
http://blog.bibekpaudel.com.np/
==
--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
OLPC Nepal
http://olpcnepal.org
http://wiki.olpcnepal.org
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
--
Prakhar Agarwal
Technical Head - Library RD Team
3rd Year
B.Tech, IT
JIIT University,Noida
Life
[sugar] Educational software in schools
Hello everyone, I found this interesting article on educational video games in schools. please refer: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/26782 Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Latest news from Intel
Sorry for cross posting. Could not resist myself. Please, visit the link below. Some of you might have read it already. There's a substantial mention of OLPC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7334518.stm Regards, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Typing Tutor: LetsType Update
Hello Everyone! I have updated some sections of my proposal and it might sound interesting. Please refer: *Features* http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType#Features_of_.E2.80.9CLetsType.E2.80.9D *Future Developments* http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType#Future_Development Any feedback/suggestion is most welcome. :-) Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal (prakhar.jiit.googlepages.com) Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Typing Tutor: LetsType Update
Hello Samuel, Thanks for the appreciation. Your feedback has given some serious food for thought. I was not exactly thinking about children being able to actually customize the typing tutor in terms of design. I thought they will be able to modify it in terms of content. It would work this way: Lets suppose, they come across a new word and wish to have it included in the game then they can simply ADD it to the files through the tutor's interface itself. Same can be achieved by the teacher concerned by adding new exercises or tests. I'm not sure whether I can build this Self-Customizable feature in the GSoC duration. Giving children the feature of customizing/creating new modules within a game is indeed an excellent idea to implement. Some things that we can do are: 1. option for changing mouse cursors 2. modifying the letter-carriers, i.e, they can be balloons,balls,small cartoons and many more are possible. More inputs from everyone can really prove beneficial for me. Also, I'm not planning to exactly follow other existing tutors. Directly including some modules might be helpful, but I'll give it some time after discussions with my mentors and everyone. But I'll surely take care of the standards/desires from children's perspective. To help me in this regard, God has gifted me with many children around my vicinity!! I'll devote some time in organizing a fun day for them, wherein they will check out the features of XO games/activities and other existing tutors. I can clearly visualize all these thoughts in my mind. Children will really love it!! :-) .Let the ideas float.. Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Typing Tutor: LetsType
Hello Everyone! Please go through following links for your reference: My proposal: wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType My homepage: prakhar.jiit.googlepages.com Well, I have been going through some of the existing typing tutors for some days and have understood some important aspects common to all. In my endeavour to contribute a typing tutor to XO, I would also like to have your views. I suppose many of you must have used a typing tutor. It would be very useful for me to get an overview of your experience. I give prime importance to User feedback of any application. Therefore, I would like to initiate a small idea generation phase called *USER Phase* as the very first stage of developing the typing tutor activity. Post your suggestions/ideas here or at wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:LetsType They can be: 1. Features you desire 2. Important flaws that you noticed in your past experiences 3. New ideas 4. Suggestions on exercises/content for typing tutor 5. Suggestions on GUI(what best suits a child's level? I feel its a game, how about you?) and the overall look and feel 6. Any references for me? 7. Criticism is most welcome Participate openly in this *User phase* and win lots of praise and blessings from me!! I hope to have a healthy brainstorming session with everyone. Another Query: I have got some feedback regarding the support for multi-language from the start. I have no idea how to go about doing this and completing the localization within GSoC schedule. Keeping the widespread use of XO Laptop in mind, I have already mentioned in my application about localizing the activity in other languages soon after the English version is complete. Your suggestions in this context can help me a lot. Thanks! :-) Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Typing Tutor: LetsType
Hello, After discussions on IRC with everyone I came to know that tuxtype can not be ported to XO due its dependence on SDL graphics library. This is what I comprehended from the discussions. Also, there was an initiative to develop a typing tutor previously, but somehow it was not completed. Reference: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Typing_tutor So, I plan to develop this activity from scratch and put an end to the missing requirement. Working hard at it. :-) And regarding the difference between my plans and Tuxtype, I would say that it would be little early to comment on the differences. Firstly, I would aim at accomplishing the fundamental requirements of the typing tutor. Then in consultation with mentors, developers and users, I will further enhance the features. Right now I'm studying the current typing tutors. Please do participate in the Typing Tutor's User Phase :-) It has been initiated for getting inputs from everyone and come up with results of Idea Development Stage. Cheers, On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Charles Cossé [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Isn't Tux Typing already there? Could you discuss differences of your plans to Tux Typing, and explain what would be new/better/different? Just curious, Charles Cosse On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Prakhar Agarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Everyone! Please go through following links for your reference: My proposal: wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType My homepage: prakhar.jiit.googlepages.com Well, I have been going through some of the existing typing tutors for some days and have understood some important aspects common to all. In my endeavour to contribute a typing tutor to XO, I would also like to have your views. I suppose many of you must have used a typing tutor. It would be very useful for me to get an overview of your experience. I give prime importance to User feedback of any application. Therefore, I would like to initiate a small idea generation phase called *USER Phase* as the very first stage of developing the typing tutor activity. Post your suggestions/ideas here or at wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:LetsType They can be: 1. Features you desire 2. Important flaws that you noticed in your past experiences 3. New ideas 4. Suggestions on exercises/content for typing tutor 5. Suggestions on GUI(what best suits a child's level? I feel its a game, how about you?) and the overall look and feel 6. Any references for me? 7. Criticism is most welcome Participate openly in this *User phase* and win lots of praise and blessings from me!! I hope to have a healthy brainstorming session with everyone. Another Query: I have got some feedback regarding the support for multi-language from the start. I have no idea how to go about doing this and completing the localization within GSoC schedule. Keeping the widespread use of XO Laptop in mind, I have already mentioned in my application about localizing the activity in other languages soon after the English version is complete. Your suggestions in this context can help me a lot. Thanks! :-) Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- AsymptopiaSoftware | [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.asymptopia.org -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Typing Tutor: LetsType
Hey, even I'm new here and have a lot to learn. So, gearing up for the real thing. Thanks for your appreciation Charles. Be in touch. And do participate in the User Phase. Any idea/suggestion would be very helpful. Take care. Cheers, On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 11:30 PM, Charles Cossé [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Aahh... thanks for clarifying that for me. I am new here, and i did not realize that pygame/sdl stuff would not work on the XO. So, given what you have said here, then i wish you best-of-luck pursuing your project. All the best, Charles Cosse On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Prakhar Agarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, After discussions on IRC with everyone I came to know that tuxtype can not be ported to XO due its dependence on SDL graphics library. This is what I comprehended from the discussions. Also, there was an initiative to develop a typing tutor previously, but somehow it was not completed. Reference: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Typing_tutor So, I plan to develop this activity from scratch and put an end to the missing requirement. Working hard at it. :-) And regarding the difference between my plans and Tuxtype, I would say that it would be little early to comment on the differences. Firstly, I would aim at accomplishing the fundamental requirements of the typing tutor. Then in consultation with mentors, developers and users, I will further enhance the features. Right now I'm studying the current typing tutors. Please do participate in the Typing Tutor's User Phase :-) It has been initiated for getting inputs from everyone and come up with results of Idea Development Stage. Cheers, On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Charles Cossé [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Isn't Tux Typing already there? Could you discuss differences of your plans to Tux Typing, and explain what would be new/better/different? Just curious, Charles Cosse On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Prakhar Agarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Everyone! Please go through following links for your reference: My proposal: wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType My homepage: prakhar.jiit.googlepages.com Well, I have been going through some of the existing typing tutors for some days and have understood some important aspects common to all. In my endeavour to contribute a typing tutor to XO, I would also like to have your views. I suppose many of you must have used a typing tutor. It would be very useful for me to get an overview of your experience. I give prime importance to User feedback of any application. Therefore, I would like to initiate a small idea generation phase called *USER Phase* as the very first stage of developing the typing tutor activity. Post your suggestions/ideas here or at wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:LetsType They can be: 1. Features you desire 2. Important flaws that you noticed in your past experiences 3. New ideas 4. Suggestions on exercises/content for typing tutor 5. Suggestions on GUI(what best suits a child's level? I feel its a game, how about you?) and the overall look and feel 6. Any references for me? 7. Criticism is most welcome Participate openly in this *User phase* and win lots of praise and blessings from me!! I hope to have a healthy brainstorming session with everyone. Another Query: I have got some feedback regarding the support for multi-language from the start. I have no idea how to go about doing this and completing the localization within GSoC schedule. Keeping the widespread use of XO Laptop in mind, I have already mentioned in my application about localizing the activity in other languages soon after the English version is complete. Your suggestions in this context can help me a lot. Thanks! :-) Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- AsymptopiaSoftware | [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.asymptopia.org -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher -- AsymptopiaSoftware | [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.asymptopia.org -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Typing Tutor: LetsType
Thanks Edward, I'm onto that. On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Edward Cherlin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Charles Cossé [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: According to this (for just one example): http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/games/2007-April/36.html SDL and PyGame *do* work on the XO. So, what's the official word on this? http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Pygame Work in progress allows Pygame via SDL to interact with the Sugar (GTK and DBUS) environment. Mike Fletcher did the PyGame tutorial at PyCon 2008. It certainly works in some form. Ask him. His tutorial material should be online somewhere. Prakhar, I'm not trying to be a nuisance re your plans, but i've got a game of my own that i'd like to port to the XO, and am just asking because it relies on SDL/PyGame. I found my game mentioned here (under Language-leanring games section): http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Educational_content_ideas/language_learning The game is TuxWordSmith ( http://www.asymptopia.org/index.php?topic=TWS) and i'm interested to port this, and others, to the XO, and like i mentioned, i'm just getting started figuring out how to do it. Thanks, Charles On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 12:25 PM, Prakhar Agarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, even I'm new here and have a lot to learn. So, gearing up for the real thing. Thanks for your appreciation Charles. Be in touch. And do participate in the User Phase. Any idea/suggestion would be very helpful. Take care. Cheers, On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 11:30 PM, Charles Cossé [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Aahh... thanks for clarifying that for me. I am new here, and i did not realize that pygame/sdl stuff would not work on the XO. So, given what you have said here, then i wish you best-of-luck pursuing your project. All the best, Charles Cosse On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Prakhar Agarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, After discussions on IRC with everyone I came to know that tuxtype can not be ported to XO due its dependence on SDL graphics library. This is what I comprehended from the discussions. Also, there was an initiative to develop a typing tutor previously, but somehow it was not completed. Reference: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Typing_tutor So, I plan to develop this activity from scratch and put an end to the missing requirement. Working hard at it. :-) And regarding the difference between my plans and Tuxtype, I would say that it would be little early to comment on the differences. Firstly, I would aim at accomplishing the fundamental requirements of the typing tutor. Then in consultation with mentors, developers and users, I will further enhance the features. Right now I'm studying the current typing tutors. Please do participate in the Typing Tutor's User Phase :-) It has been initiated for getting inputs from everyone and come up with results of Idea Development Stage. Cheers, On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Charles Cossé [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Isn't Tux Typing already there? Could you discuss differences of your plans to Tux Typing, and explain what would be new/better/different? Just curious, Charles Cosse On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Prakhar Agarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Everyone! Please go through following links for your reference: My proposal: wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType My homepage: prakhar.jiit.googlepages.com Well, I have been going through some of the existing typing tutors for some days and have understood some important aspects common to all. In my endeavour to contribute a typing tutor to XO, I would also like to have your views. I suppose many of you must have used a typing tutor. It would be very useful for me to get an overview of your experience. I give prime importance to User feedback of any application. Therefore, I would like to initiate a small idea generation phase called *USER Phase* as the very first stage of developing the typing tutor activity. Post your suggestions/ideas here or at wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:LetsType They can be: 1. Features you desire 2. Important flaws that you noticed in your past experiences 3. New ideas 4. Suggestions on exercises/content for typing tutor 5. Suggestions on GUI(what best suits a child's level? I feel its a game, how about you?) and the overall look and feel 6. Any references for me? 7. Criticism is most welcome Participate openly in this *User phase* and win lots of praise and blessings from me!! I hope to have a healthy brainstorming session with everyone
[sugar] Application for Typing Tutor
Hello Everyone, I have finally submitted my application yesterday. I have put together all the details on wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType Your feedback is valuable, please provide your comments/suggestions. It would be very useful for me. Also, please refer my homepage: prakhar.jiit.googlepages.com Thanks for participating!! Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Update wiki with info of GSoC mailing list
Hello, I wanted to update this wiki page : http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Communication_channels with the details of recently formed GSoC mailing list. But, the page is protected. So, I have put the list info on discussion page: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Communication_channels Regards, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University, Noida, India ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] GSoC 2008- Importance of Typing Tutor
Hello Everyone! I'm an undergraduate student from India. Recently, I conducted an online survey and discussed with many developers and XO users at #olpc and #sugar channels about the requirement of a Typing Tutor. I believe that typing tutor is one of the most essential and crucial applications required in XO. This software should be developed at the earliest. OLPC's aim to provide the children with opportunities to explore and experiment is not fulfilled by only providing the required hardware. We need to equip them with the knowledge of using the machine for efficient learning which in my honest opinion, is the *Very First* building block of a child's future through OLPC. This role can be easily and efficiently played by a typing tutor utility. It will help children learn typing in a fun filled and effortless manner and most importantly they will get familiar with the interface of XO machine. I have developed a typing tutor called TypeTut and a text editor named TextPRO which won plaudits from industrialists. Both were developed at university level and were regarded as best designed applications. I have already created a sample design for the application. So, I'm ready to contribute to the motive of OLPC. Looking forward to a healthy collaboration with OLPC. Contacts: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (GTalk), Prakhar (IRC) Regards, -- Prakhar Agarwal Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida, India ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
