Walter Bender — Taking Sugar Beyond the XO Laptop

waderoush writes "While the One Laptop Per Child Foundation tries to reboot after drastic staff cuts, Sugar, the original open-source graphical interface for OLPC's XO Laptop, is rapidly evolving into a stand-alone learning platform that can run on any PC. Walter Bender, who left OLPC last year to start the non-profit Sugar Labs, has given a detailed interview about 'Sugar on a Stick' — the USB drive that allows any machine to boot into the Sugar environment. Bender also describes the Sugar upgrades coming in March — including better tools for file management, portfolio presentations, and Python code hacking — and talks about his hopes for expanding Sugar Labs and getting Sugar into more classrooms than OLPC can reach through its hardware."

Comments

XO Security Model

[Anonymous Coward]

What I found most interesting about the OLPC wasn't Sugar, the networking, or even the hardware. It's the Bitfrost security system, which is a different take on implementing security.

To my mind, it presents a radical way of approaching security, and seems entirely different from that taken by Microsoft. That is, instead of locking out applications based on whether they have proper credentials, it locks applications out based on bad behaviors.

I'd like to see this approach taken and explored more fully. Linux and other Open Source OSs will be facing more exploits and attacks, and a security model based on how trustworthy an application behaves instead of the credentials it carries seems a much saner approach.

Re:like etch-a-sketch,sugar = a "tool for expressi

[ElSupreme]

A lot of people bash the environment as being bad. But I doubt they use it. It is a bit different that a PC/MAC but really other than file storage (which you can do via the terminal the old fashioned way) it is really a good interface. I actually have one, and would use it more if I actually bought a USB keyboard. That keypad is not much better than a cell phone qwerty pad (other than the spill resistance and cool green color).

Re:eh?

[corsec67]

My TV has a USB port. (It is there for firmware updates)

Can this boot Sugar on to my TV?

Re:Schoolkey

[mhall119]

I have my own XFCE desktop with educational games, aimed at slightly younger kids (aged 3 and up), that I developed for a charity.

See http://www.quinncoincorporated.org/ for screenshots and a beta download of a CD ISO.

Re:like etch-a-sketch,sugar = a "tool for expressi

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Orrrr.... as numerous studies have shown, when someone does not have preconceptions they can adapt much easier. Similarly the younger someone is, the more they can adapt to change.

But, meh. Easier to blame the users, yes?

Re:View Source

[mhall119]

And an operating system shell needs to be both fast and solid. Sugar is neither.

Sugar, if I recall, is basically an application launcher running the Matchbox window manager, with a consistent look and feel between applications. In that respect, Sugar is not an OS Shell at all.

The second problem is the code isn't simple like BASIC used to be. It's object-oriented event-handling GUI code that uses containment based layout, multiple libraries, sound servers, uses magic numbers etc. It'd be hard to figure out for an adult, let alone somebody new to programming.

While you are largely correct, I think you missed the point. The kids that would be using sugar aren't going to read the python code and try to determine what the program is doing. Rather, they will look for something that looks vaguely similar to what they want to change, change something about it, and see what happens. Repeat enough times, and they're starting to get an understanding of Python and programming. I don't know about you, but when I saw my first program code, I didn't read it top to bottom for an understanding, I skimmed it for words that I was interested in, and started changing stuff.