[kidsgames] Status

[Kidsgames Project Coordinator - Jeff Waddell <jeff@smluc.org>]

Hello everyone,

I appologize for my apparent lack of movement on this list.  The truth is
that I've been working on many projects (some related, some not) as well
as fighting with (and mostly losing to) my inadequate hardware.

I would like to know what everyone's current status is with this project,
if they don't mind, for the purpose of moving us closer to our goals.

I know with school starting [at least in many places in the US] many
people are overwhelmed with things to do.

I'll start with mine, and include the direction I am heading.

=======================================================================

Currently testing NOTHING.  I would really like this to be different but
my hardware crashes if I'm in X for very long, so all the neat graphical
apps out there are completely untestable for the foreseeable future (I
thought this was being caused by gnome, yet I can reproduce the crash
simply by playing too many .mid files with timidity in CONSOLE only mode,
so gnome is not the ONLY culprit anyway.... could be bad RAM, a heat
problem, a bad CPU or motherboard, or some other wierd problem).  And, 
no I don't have funds to rectify this problem at this time.  This
doesn't even touch the hell I've gone through getting my router to work
properly, but I'm not going into that at this time.

If people need the binaries for certain apps to test. I *could* compile
them on a few different machines I have available to me remotely and make
those binaries available on the sourceforge ftpsite.  Simply make a
request if any tester's out there need this.

Working with the Light Princess effort (as I hope many of the rest of you
are as well ;)

If all goes well we will be able to produce a HOW-TO for creating/writing
edutainment software for linux.  Long way to go here.

Our sourceforge presence has not changed appreciable, nor has anything
been added to our FAQ-o-matic at smluc.org.  I've been thinking hard about
how to make these resources more useful to us and have been considering
petitioning the sourceforge PTB (powers that be) to move the kidsgames
project into a foundry as that seems to be more in keeping with what we
are trying to do with this project.  [I'm a bit reluctant as the
current games foundry has several pieces to it that are BROKEN...]  Any
comments or thoughts. If we don't move the project into a foundary, how
can we better utilise what is available as a project.  I.E. can we use
the task sections, documentatioin sections, or ????  Any ideas on what to
do with these resources (and volunteers to help do it) would be greatly
appreciated.

I did finally get the wordlist database onto the sourceforge ftp site for
those interested in it. 

I've registered Rolfer the Gopher's Grocery Store with Sourceforge (see
the rtg-grocer project) as another spawned game.  I've not had time as of
yet to get all the information I have put up on the site, however I hope
to be able to do that soon, maybe this weekend.  I know that this project
will need an artist or two to create the "sprites" needed for it
[especially Rolper as I hope to use him across several games].  I hope
to be able to tap into the light princess talent for that.

On the subject of spawned games I would like to link to all these various
projects that are affliated with kidsgames from kidsgames webpages in some
way, yet I don't wish to appear that kidsgames is trying to somehow "take
over" any of them.  Would the author's of the games that would like us to
link to their project pages (I'm thinking primarily of funnelling
developer/artist talent to you, not necessarily getting more "user's",
if that makes any sense) please contact me either privately or on this
list, indicating what would be of use to them.  I  feel it would be really
nice if kidsgames had some type of logo that author's could use to put on
their site's to indicate that we are associated in some way.  Don't know
if that's useful or not, but I think it would make me feel better about
our visibility.  I believe higher visibility would bring more
developers/artists letting us get more done collectively.

There are several other games in my head that may or may not ever get out
of my head.  It will depend on whether I can communicate what I'm after
and get the resources to create said games.

I've been working with the debian-jr project and they are pushing me to
become an official debian developer/maintainer which I do intend to do, it
will take time though.

Are there any other projects similar to debian-jr for the other
distributions? 

I know some people are disappointed at the apparent slow movement of
kidsgames, I mean we are almost a year old and what working project can we
point to and say it is because of us?  I don't know that we can claim
any, yet we have caused some thought to be given to this issue and
gathered many of the people who can contribute together, I hope this
*will* prove to be a useful and worthwhile endeavor, remember that what
we are trying to do is not particularly easy.  At least I assume that if
it was it would already be done and we would not have the need to do it
:) 

I have not yet compiled the information I gathered about various hardware
configurations in the group, I thank you all for the information and I
will try to make my motives for gathering it more clear when I post that
aggregrate information.

I've recently subscribed to yet another list (home-ed) which is focused on
Home Schooling.  I intend to bring a few of the people on that list into
this project if they will come.  I've seen some interesting math games
that *could* possibly be adapted to computer if we can entice these people
to give us permission [and perhaps help] to use what they have created.

I would like to produce a report/press release as to our project status
as of 1 year to be posted on various linux news sites (such as
linuxtoday.com and/or slashdot.org, others?)  Any suggestions on what
would be useful to someone unfamiliar with the project appreciated.

If anyone has any suggestions for funding of hardware for various member's
of this group to be better able to create these games, please share them.

If anyone has any suggestions as to the direction this group should be
taking reqarding anything, please do not hesitate to share.
=======================================================================

Sincerely,
-- 
Jeff Waddell
jeff@smluc.org

Kids Games Project Coordinator
main website at http://smluc.org/SIA/kidsgames/

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