sdziallas talks tag:sdziallas.com,2010-03-27:/blog/sebastian//2 2010-12-15T07:25:35Z Movable Type Pro 5.0rc3 Moving On. tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.70 2010-12-15T06:58:21Z 2010-12-15T07:25:35Z Sebastian Dziallas Moving On
"Moving on" -- picture by .craig taken from Flickr, licensed under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

The Short Version: As many of you might have noticed, my activities within Sugar Labs have been fading lately. I'd like to take the only responsible step and hand my responsibilities off.

The Long Version: I didn't expect to see myself writing this email. I'm currently a student at Olin working really hard to make it through finals and at the same time fighting RSI and dealing with other things (http://sdziallas.com/blog/sebastian/2010/11/a-kid-in-the-candy-store.html). But I also feel that I've been dragging this e-mail out way too long. I'm sorry. Nevertheless, I'm proud of what we accomplished over the past years.

I have great memories from the initial release of Sugar on a Stick at LinuxTag (http://sdziallas.com/blog/sebastian/2009/06/strawberries-for-everyone-now.html) and I still smile when I think of how we recovered from the ridiculous unsustainability of the second release (http://opensource.com/education/09/12/tasty-blueberry) and eventually even made the third release as a team together (http://sdziallas.com/blog/sebastian/2010/05/mirabelles-they-are-there.html). Looking back, I found myself skimming old wiki pages and blog posts (http://blog.melchua.com/2010/06/04/the-history-of-the-soas-mirabelle-release-learning-from-the-past/).

I'm particularly thankful for the experiences I had and the people I met. However, I feel that it's time to move on. I'll be unsubscribing from a couple of mailing lists, but I'll continue to work on bridging open source and education on various levels and I'm always open to direct email. Just a ping away. Email this address.

For Sugar on a Stick, Peter Robinson has alreading been leading the effort up to the latest Mango Lassi release of Sugar on a Stick and done an incredible work over the past year, leaving me confident that everything was taken care of when I had to focus on my studies (both in Germany and the US). I know from personal experience that taking on this work isn't an easy task and I don't want to assume that you're just going to continue doing it infinitely. It is your call. But you've done a great job. Thanks, Peter!

Good luck Sugar Labs. You've come a long way. Don't lose track of your mission.
]]> A whole bunch of Sugar Activity Updates is coming... tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.64 2010-07-30T23:20:57Z 2010-07-30T23:51:02Z ...to an F13 installation near you. Soon. We need a little feedback from you, though. Specifically for the following ativities.ReadTurtleArtCalculatePhysicsPaintPippySince they haven't been pushed to the testing repository, yet, you can grab the builds from Koji (the links are on... Sebastian Dziallas Soon. We need a little feedback from you, though. Specifically for the following ativities.

Since they haven't been pushed to the testing repository, yet, you can grab the builds from Koji (the links are on each update's page) or wait a few days and then run yum --enablerepo=updates-testing sugar-*. We're particularily interested whether #1900 is fixed for you with the latest Read update and whether the other activities still perform as they should.
]]> Summer of Code: Moar Newz. tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.63 2010-07-27T11:16:50Z 2010-07-27T12:21:45Z I've been a little calm in terms of blogging about GSoC lately, since I'm getting ready for my move to the US. There are a couple of things I've been working on lately after pushing the sugar-smolt code upstream, though.One... Sebastian Dziallas move to the US. There are a couple of things I've been working on lately after pushing the sugar-smolt code upstream, though.

  • One of the major obstacles for the user in terms of creating Sugar on a Stick - and we have received reports about this - is that the instructions are either outdated or confused and the interfaces very wildly between different platforms and distributions. We've started addressing the first by working on a Creation Kit for SoaS v3. This doesn't mean all is shiny now, but we're getting there. We've recommended Fedora's LiveUSB Creator over the past release cycles when possible and would to continue to build on that. Hence, I've been trying to make it easier for users of other distributions to use the LiveUSB Creator. While I haven't had much success, yet, this is something I'd like to keep an eye on.
  • I've been working with Peter Robinson on getting Sugar into EPEL. We've gotten a large chunk of packages built already in the appropriate branch. Watch out for announcements coming your way.
  • Lucian, who's also doing a GSoC at Sugar Labs and working on porting Browse to Webkit (the result being Surf), has fixed one of the major regressions that affected SoaS v3. The Read activity didn't work due to upstream changes in evince's python bindings (#1900). However, thanks to this work, I've been able to take a new activity bundle, package it, and push it as an update to F13. It's currently in testing, so if you do get a minute, please comment on the update.
]]> Sugar Smolt is now in... Smolt! tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.62 2010-07-10T16:00:51Z 2010-07-10T16:18:11Z I've been working on a Sugar GUI for Smolt as part of my GSoC. Thanks to Mike McGrath, this code is now part of smolt's next branch in GIT. I'm pretty well on schedule with that, given that next week,... Sebastian Dziallas part of smolt's next branch in GIT. I'm pretty well on schedule with that, given that next week, midterms are happening. You can either check the code out yourself already or wait for a new release coming out. We're also looking forward to including this code in the next iteration of Sugar on a Stick, where it'll help users to submit their hardware profiles more easily.]]> LinuxTag: Recap! tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.59 2010-06-20T20:57:39Z 2010-06-20T21:52:26Z Looks like I'm a little late at catching up with my backlog. Oh well.I attended LinuxTag earlier this June (thanks Simon for hosting me!) and had the chance to meet and catch up with a lot of folks I hadn't... Sebastian Dziallas Looks like I'm a little late at catching up with my backlog. Oh well.

I attended LinuxTag earlier this June (thanks Simon for hosting me!) and had the chance to meet and catch up with a lot of folks I hadn't seen in a while. Sugar Labs also had a booth there and it was really good to see people (especially kids) playing with Sugar. Most popular activities included Maze, Physics and Speak. However, also Walter's new Abacus activity quickly gained interest.

Sugar Labs BalloonsI also learned that waking up three hours late (when having a talk scheduled in the morning) is probably not the best of all ideas -- probably unless you ask the cab driver. Got there in time, though and gave my talk on Leveraging Communities.

Sugar Labs also announced Sugar on a Stick v.3 (Mirabelle) widely at LinuxTag. Shameless plug goes here. Was a good time.

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