Mel.availability(“FREE!”)
January 8, 2009 – 11:45 amSome folks have heard the news about OLPC’s 50% staff reduction, particularly in engineering, and have asked me how I’m doing. Here’s the short version:
- I’m happily running around with contagious enthusiasm in the engineering/education/OSS-hat directions, as normal.
- Tomorrow is my last day at OLPC as an employee.
- Tomorrow is my first day back at OLPC as a volunteer. (Hey, I’ve been a volunteer for over 2 years, an employee for 3.8 months; I haven’t forgotten how to Get Things Done in the former capacity… Uni chapters, Jams, Summer of Content, etc. are all things that I did as a volunteer.) In particular, I will be continuing to manage testing for the 8.2.1 release, and also now have More Time to hang out and help at Sugar Labs. Woo!
Many thanks to all the friends, teammates, coworkers, and family members who’ve been so supportive in helping me think and work through things in the last few weeks, especially the last few days – and if you have any ideas for shiny projects that might be interested in a Mel, do let me know. I’m young, foolish, and relocatable. ;-)
Whee! Much to do now to wrap up, more updates coming when I have a breather – in the meantime, have an old post I’ve been forgetting to put up (next post, in just a moment… note that it won’t show up on Planet {Laptop, Sugar Labs} because it’ll be in not-my-special-feed-for-that, but you can click through to the actual blog if you’d like to read.)
*up up and awayyyyy*
4 Responses to “Mel.availability(“FREE!”)”
Nifty, I guess. Does this also begin your tenure as a vagrant hacker, or are you leaving room for another office-slave type dealy at some point?
By DJ on Jan 8, 2009
Well being redundant is no fun especially in a fun job like OLPC, but I’m happy that you’ll be starting again as a volunteer for the project and that means there won’t be strings attached to your work – just the desire to help.
Good luck in the future and see you somewhere in the interwebs!
By Jerome G. on Jan 8, 2009
Good for you. But no need to limit this new opportunity to exclusively a voluntary role. For people like me, it is now easier to determine where my OLPC related donations and mindshare should go to in order to support OSS-education.
Some ideas:
1) Sugarlabs should create a way to become a supporting “member.” One time donations are great, but harder to budget payroll on for an enthusiastic team of developers. Plus, it gives donors bragging rights when they pull out their “membership card” to show their buddies.
2) How about an activity bounties page? I know some people who would be more than happy to put a bounty on for improvements on the video chat activity.
3) OLPC will happen, and very soon, but probably not through the XO brand (at least not exclusively). OSS and cheap hardware will be key to this, and it will not be limited to 3rd world countries. Seems like a nice niche for consulting. I know who I would NOT be calling if I happen to be sponsoring a school to establish OSS based learning. Let the world know you are available and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Anyway, I strongly believe that history will show this is all for the better for all of us. Cheers!
By Aibun on Jan 8, 2009
Hi Mel,
sorry to hear about your (and everyone elses) redundancy. OLPC and Sugar Labs will hopefully be around for years to come forwarding the mission. And I expect great floss folks like you will be around from time to time keeping things moving. Good luck in your next endeavor!
By Kevin Mark on Jan 9, 2009