Re: [Server-devel] Questions for today

[Sebastian Silva]

Hi Tony,

The people developing the Sugar Network are an international team comprising people from different backgrounds.

Sugar Network is not a cloud-based resource. It is an offline / online decentralized communication mechanism which runs at three levels (everyone seems to love cake charts):

    SUGAR NETWORK DIAGRAM

  +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
  | network.sugarlabs.org |    // instance runs backend node + frontend web service
  +-----------------------+
 /      restful API*     /     // ability clone + sync entire SN database even over USB (sneakernet)
 +-----------------------+
 | optional schoolserver |     // instance too, runs backend node + frontend web service
 +-----------------------+
/   same restful API*   /      // gives access to resources at server or central server
+-----------------------+
| laptop with SN plugin |      // XO clients have special view in sugar to access
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

(*) http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Platform_Team/Sugar_Network/API

The Sugar Network is designed to transport abstract objects across the connected/disconnected gap by leveraging schoolservers to concentrate user interactions and contributions and providing a workflow for synchronization, with or without a central server.

Find information about the (still untested!) design of sneakernet functionality at:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployment_Platform/Sneakernet

At the moment, only XO users are authenticated to the network (using sugar's crypto keys). Web users are "demo".

Please try it and let us know how we can improve it, and do join the conversation at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sugar-network (in cc) for technical questions.

Best regards,
Sebastian



El 08/08/13 05:40, Tony Anderson escribió:

Hi, Sebastian

My concern was email access in deployments which only have access to the
Internet by taking a usb drive to an internet cafe. I thought that Peru was
developing such a capability at least for software distribution. The deployments
I am working with do not have access to the internet and so are unable to use
cloud-based resources.

Tony


On 08/08/2013 11:39 AM, Sebastian Silva wrote:

El 06/08/13 08:33, Tony Anderson escribió:

As mentioned, there are server developments at many deployments. What would be great is a co-operative team that would work to provide capabilities in a way that can be distributed widely. I am sure that Peru is working on a method to deliver email via usb drive (and internet cafes). I just don't have any visibility in the method taken, the technology employed, or whether the development can be applicable outside of Peru.

We've made a significant effort to have all of our development visible upstream:
http://git.sugarlabs.org/network
http://git.sugarlabs.org/platform

Also most of our technical and non-technical documentation is in English:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Network
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Platform_Team/Sugar_Network

We are server-solution-agnostic and merely provide a set of specialized services packaged for major distributions at this time. To take advantage of all Sugar Network capabilities, a patched Sugar shell is necessary (SN-plugin). It adds a special view to participate in the Sugar Network.

It is interesting that we are specifically trying to tackle the downstreams/upstream cooperation/distribution issue. Still, we're not planning to add an email gateway to the Sugar Network at this time, but expect most communication to happen over the Sugar Network support forums / knowledge base, which is also accessible using a regular browser:
http://network.sugarlabs.org/

Regards,
Sebastian