GCompris : past, present, future. 11th November 2010 – Latinoware Brasil Bruno Coudoin

Why GCompris ● In 2000 when I started it there was almost nothing relevant as Free Software for small children. ● My wish was to promote GNU/Linux in schools. For ethical reasons, it is best to teach our children with Free Software.

How ● Start simple, release early, release often. ● KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. No over design ● Take the problems as they come while keeping the right direction.

Encouragements ● From the start, despite the poor graphism and lack of functionalities, some people found GCompris on the Internet and encouraged me. ● My own children became beta testers and requested some features. ● The Free Software Fundation includes Gcompris in the official list of software they support.

Communication tools ● Hosting provided by sourceforge.net => No need to manage the project infrastructure. Source code is hosted by Gnome. ● ● Mailing list ● Instant communication through IRC

Publication and events ● Several publication is Free Software magazines but not only. ● Presentation of Gcompris in events like RMLL in France, Fosdem in Bruxel,... ● => Very important to create a community around the project.

Contributions ● Stay open to critics. ● Be open to allow people to join the” project easily. ● I am not a director, I don't tell contributor what they have to do, I only help them to do something useful for the project.

Contribution (2) ● Translated in more than 50 languages ● The graphism ● Adding new activities ● Structural modifications ● Packaging, creating binary version for the different GNU/Linux distributions

Contributions (3) ● Documentation (e.g. How to use Gcompris in classroom from Ofset by Jacques Bon) ● Adaptations, refining the pedagogical content with the help of teachers ● Cultural adaptations (e.g. nudity in paintings, national flags)

Type of users ● At home ● At school ● At the hospital ● In nursing home for retired people

Users, count yourself ● Hard to know how many users we have. Some number anyway: – 1000 Downloads / day – 1500 Visitors / day ● GCompris is deployed widely : – In Perou via the OLPC/ Sugar project – In Portugal in the Magellan project – In spain in Extremadura, Andalousie,... –

In classroom ● Managing classroom with italc

Business ● Increasing our audience with a Windows and MacOSX version. ● And at the same time commercialize it in order to: – Give and advantage to the GNU/Linux version – Finance / Motivate the development – Increase the audience by being distributed in commercial distribution channel.

Technology ● Based on GTK+ for the core ● Activities in C or Python ● The drawings use a canvas based API (goocanvas) that makes it easy to program: goo_canvas_rect_new (root, 100, 100, 400, 400, "line-width", 10.0, "radius-x", 20.0, "radius-y", 10.0, "stroke-color", "yellow", "fill-color", "red", NULL);

Under construction ● These last 2 years, a lot of structural work has been done: – Split the code in independent activities ● This allows us to be used in the OLPC /Sugar project. ● Replaced the obsolete GnomeCanvas by the GooCanvas ● Allows the dynamic resizing, no more need X to change the resolution.

New activities ● Rewrote the animation – Added a timeline – On peut remonter dans le temps maintenant. ● Game of the differences ● Lights off ● Details (of famous paintings) ● Hangman ● And as always many graphical improvements...

And the future... ● The future depends on you… ● Activity ideas ● My roadmap : – More activities in the reading / writing – Wiktio2xml : – Porting to MacOSX PowerPC – Activities around photo, music