Keeping track of Edubuntu packages

[Jordan Mantha]

On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 5:53 AM, David Van Assche <dvanassche at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just to start a little bit of discussion here, first thanks Jordan for
> the thorough breakdown of where we are and where we are going. In
> terms of the Edubuntu apps, maybe we could list them here in terms of
> importance, take a look at the versions, and suggest some extra
> packages that should go in there, since AIUI there we about 300mb to
> play with. As a start, along with Moodle, Mahara (e-portfolio system
> that works along side moodle or alone) would be worth integrating. It
> is already available in intrepid as a package (1.4)

First, yes, we really could use a nice listing of what apps are
included with Edubuntu. This would be a really nice little project for
somebody who'd like to get involved with Edubuntu development or just
contribute a little back. What I would suggest is to create a scratch
wiki page for each release (start with Intrepid and Hardy). Probably
something like wiki.ubuntu.com/<your name>/EdubuntuIntrepidApps would
work well. Let the mailing list know if you do that so we don't get
duplicates and we can help. Once the list is fully populated, perhaps
with brief descriptions of the apps, we can move that content to the
edubuntu.org website so that it's more easily found with the rest of
the critical Edubuntu info.

Secondly, it would also be nice to add more packages to Edubuntu. I
think our first priority should be to the existing applications we
ship, making sure we look at bugs [0], have updated packages [1], and
everything is well integrated [2]. Once we've got that in hand though
there are lots of possibilities to grow Edubuntu's app selection.
There's currently 300-400 MB of free space available on the CD.

I have a fairly decent wiki [3] page that lists packages that we
should look at including in Edubuntu. The basic requirement is that
packages must already exist in the Ubuntu Universe repository. This
list isn't "we should package this app", but rather "we should promote
this package to Main and ship with Edubuntu". Please feel free to
start discussions on any of these apps, what's missing from my list,
etc.

> If we get that data, I'll add that to a page on edubuntu.org so we
> have a better idea of what edubuntu is...

agreed

> There has also been a big discussion on squeak/scratch/e-toys on the
> sugar lists, and its real status. Turns out one can actually obtain
> both the source, and the license in the latest incarnations seems to
> be totally free now (scratch status is unclear.) Is there still a
> problem with the development model here? IE, the squeak/etoys users
> work in a VM? Obviously regardless of sugar being in or not, etoys and
> squeak are valuable tools for teachers.

I'm hopeful that Squeak will be much better in Jaunty. Historically
Squeak has been non-free so we haven't been able to ship it. I did the
best I could to at least keep it operational but it could *really* use
a dedicated maintainer who can transition to a newer, free-er Squeak
that can include etoys and perhaps scratch and squeakland. For my
part, I'm quite certain I won't have any time to maintain squeak
myself but am certainly open to sponsorship/advisement if somebody
wants to step up to take it on.

-Jordan

[0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/~edubuntu-bugs/+packagebugs
[1] http://qa.ubuntuwire.com/multidistrotools/edubuntu.html
[2] increasing the pre-release testing efforts would really help to
spot problems
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JordanMantha/EdubuntuMIRCandidates