Google Wave and Sugar: what's next?

So, yesterday I posted a entry discussing how Google Wave actually implements the collaborative vision Sugar (and OLPC) were working towards. (It's a shame we didn't have better contacts with Google while I was at OLPC; Google was actually on OLPC's board, and beta-ing Waves would have been a very fruitful partnership.)

If you agree with the premise: what should the next steps in a Waves-ification of Sugar be? Eventually Google promises to release "the lion's share" of its source code, for both server and client, so getting the google server installed on the school server is one task — but not one which can be done immediately. Implementing Network Principles is another necessary precondition, in order to use Wave's DNS-based participant naming system ("SuzyQStudent@lima.peru.schoolserver.laptop.org" or whatever). That's something which can be done now. What else?

Eventually, when the source code drops, making the waves client work offline would be important, since Waves (and embedded gadgets) basically replace Write and Sugar's bulletin board. Waves edit XML trees, so porting existing activities to use XML-based file formats will go far in integrating them into a new Wave World Order. I haven't seen any demo of a waves-based drawing activity/gadget (tuxpaint is a favorite of most kids), so Waves Paint would be a fun project if you want to start playing with the Waves extension APIs.

More controversially, work on Waves-enabling a next-gen Journal could be interesting. As predicted by proponents of the Journal for some time, the "wave of the future" (so to speak) is filesystem-independent storage. Waves in Google's demo are titled and searched like email messages, not as "documents" in a filesystem hierarchy. However, we had repeated requests to unify Journal storage and traditional filesystems, for (a) better interoperability with existing systems, and (b) sneakernet collaboration. In my mind, this would mean exporting a waves-like view of an existing filesystem, as I proposed for the Journal, where directories are interpreted as slightly-special tag markers. One could imagine implementing a "Wave Server" based around this idea, in effect using the filesystem as the wave database. With the magic of Wave Federation, these "filesystem" waves can interoperate with other wave clients and servers. This standalone file-based server might also server as the basis for "one child under a tree" wave editing. (For that matter, a robust sneakernet implementation of the Wave Federation Protocol would also be very useful!)

Exciting times! Wave promises to bring OLPC/Sugar's vision of ubiquitous collaboration to life at long last. Google has the funding and development resources to tackle what is in effect a bottom-up reorganization of the software stack. OLPC/SugarLab's role is peripheral but vital: strongly lead the development of offline or "flakey connectivity" aspects of this technology so that it can be used everywhere from the solar-powered jungle to the dense urban cities, and to provide the educational software on top of the platform so that kids can *learn* as they collaborate and create.

Syndicated 2009-05-30 22:18:40 from C. Scott Ananian

Google Waves of Sugar

Google announced Google Wave today, an "attempt to imagine what email would be like if it were invented today". It has a robust collaboration infrastructure strongly grounded in distributed systems theory. If I were (re)starting the OLPC project today, this is certainly what I'd base Sugar on — with as much corporate support from Google as possible, since the project is strongest when it has strong allies.

I believe you could make each school server into a Wave Provider, using the Network Principles I drafted while employed at OLPC to ensure appropriate DNS-style naming. Any document format based on XML can be made collaborative using the Operational Transform mechanism. The journal's large scale history/versioning mechanism could be based on the same principles, as So6/LibreSource demonstrated. And the UI demonstrated in the keynote (which I haven't even fully watched yet) would be an exciting way to implement the neglected Bulletin Board feature.

It would be an exciting start to the Sugar project! But given the existing code base, is there now too much bathwater around the baby to consider swapping the child out?

Syndicated 2009-05-28 21:24:33 (Updated 2009-05-30 22:19:51) from C. Scott Ananian

Science

I liked the new Star Trek movie, but I wish they'd paid some attention to physics. When the main technical substance is named "red matter," you know the science consultant isn't on call. C'mon, name it Rubidium Dilanthumide or something -- technobabble's not hard if you're trying at all.

But it was the orbital mechanics that really annoyed me. You can't, y'know, just drop a spiky anchor straight down to earth from orbit. Nor can you "fall" out of the belly of a space plane: you're already falling. That's what being in orbit is. And there's this thing called an atmosphere? You ever heard about it? Air resistance? Friction? It makes things hot. And winds! C'mon, at least give your unanchored space tether thingy some sort of guidance rockets along it's length to keep it going "straight down". It would make it cooler. Your heroes rocketing down, enveloped in huge plasma fireballs, dodging the giant blasts from the cable's guidance jets... It would be science-tastic.

Also, Starfleet: the bottom of a gravity well is not a great place to build an Enterprise. How exactly did you get that thing up into orbit? Without setting the corn fields on fire, I mean. Maybe another long spiky anchor chain lowered from space? And some hamsters in a wheel to crank it up?

And while I'm ranting about atmospheric physics: although I liked Spock's ship's dramatic swoop down into the atmosphere as a popcorn-munching crowd pleaser, from an orbital mechanics standpoint? Not so much. There's all this atmosphere in the way, and that's a space ship. And you thrust backwards to go "down" from orbit. And the scale's all wrong w.r.t. the length of the "drill cable" and the distance to orbit and the color of the sky and amount of atmosphere... but I can probably stop now.

Dear JJ Abrams: please hire someone who knows something about space for your sequel. I can deal with conventions like "explosions in space still make sounds" because it's more fun that way and "artificial gravity onboard all ships" because it makes the filming affordable-- but I expect at least a token attempt to make orbital space something other than a really dark room high up.

<small>Posted via LiveJournal.app.</small>

Syndicated 2009-05-09 16:58:35 from C. Scott Ananian

Somerville Open Studios!

I'm one of the painters participating in Somerville Open Studios this weekend: Sat/Sun noon-6pm, 40 Quincy St. Come on by and see some of my paintings! Mars, dogs, square dancers, swamps, and golden spirals will be ably represented. I regret that I wasn't able to complete my ironic juxtaposition painting pitting Fermat's spiral against fibonacci's sequence; you'll have to wait until next year for that one.

Syndicated 2009-05-01 15:10:22 (Updated 2009-05-01 19:18:07) from C. Scott Ananian

SDR 0.4; JDoctest 1.4

I released SDR 0.4 last night (while watching a fabulous Woz on Dancing With the Stars), and JDoctest 1.4. SDR's release mostly signifies that I'm finally moving on from the breathing code; JDoctest has a number of minor improvements.

Syndicated 2009-03-10 18:54:01 from C. Scott Ananian