Day Two

On the second day of class, we were thrown right into the Open Source projects and were told to pick the top 3.  There were so many options available (ranging from developing a music player like iTunes, to working on parts of an open source operating system for kids).  While the list of options seemed endless, our team quickly narrowed it down to the following three options:

1.  SugarLabs
2.  One Laptop per Child
3.  Open Office for Kids

The main reason we narrowed it down to these three was simple:  easy to get involved, and there's a lot of work to be done.  As a homework assignment, we decided to divide up the work by each of us looking a little deeper into one of the top 3 open source projects, and to report our findings on Tuesday to make our final decision.  My responsibility was Open Office for Kids, and here's what I found:

Pro's:
- Available for development on all operating systems.
- Seems to be an active project -- recent contributions from other developers.

Con's:
- C++ -- not exactly my favorite, but I suppose I could use the experience.
- Not much documentation to get started easily.
- Most contributors speak French (which will make it difficult to get in contact on IRC... considering that none of us are fluent).

Overall, I don't think this will be the top choice.  The impression that I got on Thursday was that our team was pretty much set on SugarLabs.

SugarLabs is the best option because it makes it really easy for us to start out.  They have plenty of great documentation to follow (guides to follow, etc.) to help us get moving quickly.  The community seems very active, and is open to new developers.  What stands out the most is that SugarLabs is basically an environment for us to hopefully develop (start and finish) our own learning-based game for kids, using the existing operating system and API's that the community has to offer.  In a way, it would be like developing an app for the iPhone or Android, but maybe a little less complex.

The idea mentioned in chapter two of TOS made an interesting point when it talked about "Contributor Mountain".  Most people aren't driven to Open Source Software just by the sheer act of wanting to participate, but more because they see changes that can be made that can help improve the software.  When someone spots a bug, an active user will (at the very least) inform someone about it.  A more proactive user may even decide to take action themselves in fixing the problem, and Open Source Software allows us to have that capability -- to always actively make changes that will positively affect the software's development.