Jobs Offers Free Mac OS X For $100 Laptops

bonch writes "Steve Jobs offered Mac OS X free of charge to the $100 laptop effort by the One Laptop Per Child project. However, his offer was declined because the project was looking for a 100% open source solution. The laptops will now be running on Red Hat Linux on AMD chips."

Comments

Free publicity

[gcnaddict]

Gee if I was an OS writer Id do it too - its free publicity!

I feel so glad for the red hat crew right now, because theyre going to get lots and lots of promotion from this :D

Re:Free publicity

[strider44]

*sigh* does *noone* read the article? I've already written this several times in several different threads. This isn't free publicity for Red Hat - they're helping funding the project! They've donated a couple of million dollars to this project: "Five companies -- Google Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Red Hat Inc., News Corp. and Brightstar Corp. -- have each provided $2 million to fund a nonprofit organization called One Laptop Per Child that was set up to oversee the project."

Re:Free publicity

[swillden]

The entire project is purely a publicity mill for the involved parties.

A publicity mill, certainly, but what leads you to believe that it is "purely" a publicity mill? Are people only allowed to do good things if there is absolutely zero benefit to themselves?

At some point, cynicism becomes just another form of stupidity.

Silly?

[SultanCemil]

Does this seem like a little bit of zealotry? I mean, why not use a nice, EASY*TO*USE OS instead of something the under-priviledged people using this machine will have to struggle to learn?

Re:Silly?

[wlan0]

"We declined because it's not open source," says Dr. Papert, noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Re:Silly?

[jaiyen]

Zealotry perhaps, but if it was Microsoft giving away XP you just know all the comments here would be about how it's only a trick to lock-in new users to Microsoft software. Isn't that argument equally valid (or invalid, depeding on your pov) for Apple too ?

Re:Silly?

[Reaperducer]

As I said in another post though this is a low powered low resource computer (a third of the power of the Mac Mini) designed to be powered by a hand generator, and OS-X isn't exactly renouned for being great for extremely low powered computers.

Actually OSX works great on computers with a third of the power of a Mac Mini. Tiger is more than fine on my wife's 500Mhz iBook with just 300 megs of RAM. And I saw a guy in the Apple Store today with a Wall Street edition Powerbook (read: under 300 MHz) and the tech was stunned to see how responsive and usable Tiger is on it.

So, aside from making assumptions and being misinformed, what was your point again?

Re:Silly?

[1u3hr]

Later in TFA they talk about MS's involvement. They're "very friendly" to the project. I expect when and if this gets close to production, MS will announce virtually free versions of Windows for these laptops, and push them out through schools, and students never seeing the Linux screen after the first day when the teacher hans out the Windows CDs. MS has shown they'd rather pay people to run Windows than see Linux get a foothold.

Re:Silly?

[Waltre]

I think his point was less about "m3g4h3Rrtz!!!1" and more about "power consumption". From memory, PowerPC requires more electrical power to operate than Intel P4. I believe this was a contributing factor in the recent switch by Apple.

Re:Silly?

[Golias]

If Bill Gates made the same offer, would your response be similar?

He did say "nice." I've heard Windows described a lot of ways, but never like that.

Giving Windows to poor kids is something Marie Antionette might do, were she alive today.

Here's the thing, if the people behind this program were truly interested in helping people, why not accept the free copies of OS X (and heck, even free copies of Windows, if they are ever offered) and let the recipients use whichever one they want.

If I were Steve Jobs, I would make the very same offer directly to anybody who gets one of these laptops. Put out an ad that says they can bring their free Red Hat laptops in to any Apple Store Genius Bar, and the techie working there will gladly install OS X on it for them.

Re:Silly?

[cosmo7]

Apparently Apple is now doing OS X on Intel. I'm surprised there hasn't been anything about this on Slashdot recently.

Re:Silly?

[humina]

"What?!

In what ways can you tinker with Linux that you cannot tinker with OS X? In fact, OS X gives you far more to tinker with because not only do you have the keys to the kernel and the BSD layer and X11, but also to everything that Apple provides. That answer makes no sense whatsoever."

Well I can't tinker with:
quartz, iwork, iphoto, itunes, airport extreme, spotlight, quicktime, isync, ical,imovie, apple's mail, safari (but you can tinker with safari's rendering engine), ichatAV, garage band, idvd, all the pro applications, and much much more.

Of course by tinker I mean:
-look at the source code
-make modifications to the source code
-distribute the code along with my changes without the possibility of getting sued.

Apple will not allow any of this.

Re:Silly?

[arminw]

.....noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with....

That tells me that this project is doomed right now. The supposed recipients of these computers don't want something to tinker with, but a computer they can actually USE to COMMUNICATE and learn stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with computers as such. This is like giving a telephone to someone, but requiring that they first learn the laws of electricity before they can use it to call their friends. To use a gas driven water pump for irrigating a field, it is not neccessary to learn the details of how an internal combustion engine works. To use a computer tool, it should not be required to be able to "tinker" with it. With OSX a knowledgeable person CAN tinker with it, but 99% of those computers will NOT be tinkered with by their users. Because Linux is designed by tinkerers for tinkerers, it will never be a general use computer by the unwashed, non-technical masses.

It seems that people around here immediately ascribe the worst motives to any large company that wants to help even a tiny bit in making this a better world.

Re:Silly?

[mph]

Well I can't tinker with: quartz, iwork, iphoto, itunes, airport extreme, spotlight, quicktime, isync, ical,imovie, apple's mail, safari (but you can tinker with safari's rendering engine), ichatAV, garage band, idvd, all the pro applications, and much much more.

So, how do you tinker with those applications on Linux?

Re:Silly?

[Barrellina]

The supposed recipients of these computers don't want something to tinker with...

Saying all users don't want to tinker is as dumb as saying that all users do want to tinker.

...a computer they can actually USE...

Being able to tinker with a device does not mean the device is not useful. If, using your example, a kid gets a cheap water pump and wants to modify it an any way - the addition of an internal purification filter (or whatever... I don't know enough about pumps to think of anything clever) for example - he will not be able to.

It's great to get something that just works and, if so motivated, be able to tinker with it to better address your personal needs. It may even increase its usefulness.

To use a computer tool, it should not be required to be able to "tinker" with it.

This is correct. But that's not what is being said. The OS should be "tinkerable"... that's not saying that tinkering is a requirement for using the computer, but a requirement for the OS. Whether the user tinkers or not is up to them.

Re:Silly?

[the quick brown fox]

Hmmm, I read that as the designers wanting to tinker with the OS themselves (i.e. modify it to suit its unique hardware features/limitations and usage scenarios), not the designers thinking users would tinker with it. If nothing else, the fact that the OS, applications, and data all need to fit within 1GB of storage (and only 128MB of RAM)... if you trimmed that much fat from OS X I'm not sure how it would be any better/different than Linux.

Because Linux is designed by tinkerers for tinkerers, it will never be a general use computer by the unwashed, non-technical masses.

It's not clear to me that this is intended to be the kind of "general use" computer we are used to. Maybe it will only really be designed to run the productivity suite it comes with, along with some simple games... like GEM, back in the 80's. And if the exposed surface area is small enough, there's no reason Linux can't be plenty friendly (ever tried TiVo?).

Re:Silly?

[the quick brown fox]

Check out Damn Small Linux, just one of the many "minimal Linux" distros out there. Less than 50MB, includes (from their site):

XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, links web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (FLwriter), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox window manager, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, and pcmcia support, some wireless support.

Too bad no emacs... that probably would've tripled the size ;)

Re:Silly?

[Space cowboy]

In which case they have open source equivalents on OS X and you can tinker with those.

The point is that OS X is a unix-based system, shipped with an X implementation AND a load of (closed source) other stuff. All you're doing by not using OS X is removing the 'other stuff'. Look at darwin-ports for the equivalent to apt-get...

The Mac UI is streets ahead of linux and windows in terms of useability (IMHO, but hell, I'm writing this!), it's been designed with thought for how to make things simple, rather than just available. I think it's a shame that they won't get access to it...

My personal opinion is that RH put $2M into the project, and don't want someone else's OS running the show, put real or implied pressure on the project heads, and OS X is turned down... The losers are the end-users, in this case...

Simon

Re:Silly?

[MrNiCeGUi]

First, OS X is not Unix-based, it's Unix-like, since it's not using officialy licensed Unix code.
Second, I don't think these laptops will be very powerful, so there's also the question how well would OS X perform on them. With Linux they can use a custom configuration (probably with XFCE) that would be pretty snappy. Getting OS X would be of no use if the system would crawl.

Re:Silly?

[humina]

"That tells me that this project is doomed right now....This is like giving a telephone to someone, but requiring that they first learn the laws of electricity before they can use it to call their friends."

Seriously. When I run Unbuntu I am constantly trying to figure out how my Kernel allocates memory to my programs. A computer made by MIT researchers and backed by millions of dollars I think is the definition of failure. Those dumbasses at MIT are probably going to require that everyone compile their window manager. This project is doomed I say.... DOOOMED!

Re:Silly?

[humina]

"As for speed, I've never noticed it being slow."

Are you running OS X on a $100 laptop? There are a lot of tweaks and GUI candy that I can turn off on a GNU/Linux install. Since Quartz is not open source I cannot tweak it to run really well on a $100 laptop. From a MIT researcher perspective I would go with GNU/Linux so that I would have the control to disable extra Quartz or program components. Do I need a music jukebox that can connect to a music store selling $1 DRM laden music tracks in a third world country? Can I mess around with spotlights settings to make some slight changes to optimize it for my $100 laptop? With apple, or other proprietary software developers, it's file a bug report and then start praying something happens and wait. With GNU/Linux, the MIT lab or anyone for that matter can start working on improvements. As Joe or Jane researcher at MIT I would go with GNU/Linux where I have more control.

Re:Silly?

[jasonditz]

So is this laptop going to include some sort of lockout chip whereby it will refuse to run any code that doesn't include source? I have to admit I haven't used red hat in a couple of years, but don't they still include, for example, closed source device drivers and a closed source JDK?

Assuming the offer of OSX was going to include a free copy of xcode (which seems reasonable), I don't see where the major difference is. Was the well-documented but closed source nature of Aqua really the deal-breaker? And more importantly, is it really fair to assume that all of the impoverished masses of the world are willing to trade Aqua for an inferior performing, but open source alternative?

Why not offer both, and let the end users decide which they'd rather have? Unless, of course, this isn't really about freedom.

Re:Silly?

[klez23]

That's redikulus. Why would Apple switch processors NOW, when they're just about to go bankrupt?

Re:Silly?

[DrXym]

Who says its the end users doing the tinkering? I'd suggest it was the project developers who want to do the tinkering, such as modifying what apps are on the box as shipped, writing drivers, changing the default settings, the artwork, the remote administration settings and anything else which must be locked down or modified to suit the requirements.

An analogy would be someone like Netgear who choose Linux to power their ADSL model. I expect they want to tinker with it quite a bit too but it doesn't mean they expect their customers to.

Re:Silly?

[arminw]

.....Or, much more likely, they want to alter it to run well on the extremely unique hardware....

That is really the bottom line. I hope that these machines turn out to be useable tools for the recipients, no matter what software runs on them. Nothing is more frustrating than a tool that gets in the way of a job that it needs to be used for. Linux is certainly capable of being adapted to this and can be set up to work for the intended recipients. OSX as it is shipped certainly would not work too well on this minimal hardware without some trimming.

The designers of this system have the same opportunity as Apple does in that they can design the hardware and the software TOGETHER and come up with a useable system. I hope that the money spent on this project will not result in a pile of computers that will not be used, but will bring this modern tool to many.

Re:Silly?

[mspohr]

One of the most important factors in making a computer that people can USE is having it in their own language.

"Tinkering" with the OS to put it into the local language is very high on the list of mods. Linux already has very many languages supported and this project should stimulate more.

Sometimes it's tough

[El Cubano]

However, his offer was declined because the project was looking for a 100% open source solution. The laptops will now be running on Red Hat Linux on AMD chips.

Sometimes it's tough to stick to your principles. However, in the long run it is always better not to compromise on your beliefs.

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[jcr]

However, in the long run it is always better not to compromise on your beliefs.

What if those beliefs are asinine, as in this case?

-jcr

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[rayde]

exactly! honestly not trying to troll here, Mac OS X is a tried and true (and awesome) desktop OS. Red Hat certainly has a good track record as a server OS but it has certainly not yet proven to me that it is worthwhile on the desktop.

I say they should reconsider taking the Mac OS X. Those users who want to tinker will be able to download Linux anyway. (GUESS WHAT, LINUX IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE FREE. Mac OS X is not.)

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[LnxAddct]

Everyone compares APT to RPM, you are wrong. Compare apt to yum, apt handles dependencies for deb and yum handles dependencies for rpm. If you go grab a random DEB off the net, you'll have dependency hell too. The problems you speak of haven't existed for years. Red Hat is also more free than Ubuntu, which infringes on several patents. Red Hat has better hardware support, it has the support base, the community and the ease of use. Not to mention Red Hat gave 2 million dollars in funding to the charity making these laptops. The more I hear people complain about Red Hat, the more I realize they either listen to FUD too much or haven't used it in years. In case folks forgot, Debian had plenty of its own problems a half decade to a decade ago, and even today. Ubunutu is currently the flavor of the day, just like Gentoo was 12 months ago. Red Hat has shown consistency. When you've been around as long as Red Hat, its assumed a mistake will be made here or there,but they've always more than made up for it and considering all they provide for the community (They don't just package up other people's code and call it a distro, they actually code large portions of it themselves and then give it away) they deserve more slack from /.

Regards,
Steve

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[Alien Being]

They rejected OSX in favor of a better solution.

You should not dismiss the concept of Open Source software as a "silly doctrinaire reason". The economic impact of adopting proprietary software could be enormous and long-lasting. It's critical that this technology be sustainable in the long term without dependence on a single foreign entity.

Apple could easily be gone in ten years, but there will be a continuity of Open Source software until the next ice age.

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[Bingo Foo]

I'm sure Red Hat will stick to their principles by taking a tax write-off for every OS installed too. That's $50 per install of pure donated software value, right?

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[Jobe_br]

I disagree. Principles is one thing, succeeding is another. We forget that using a computer is a difficult and even scary experience for the vast majority of folks, particularly those with very little education. Packing laptops with what is still widely considered the most user-friendly operating system on the market today would certainly have been a wise move, IMHO.

I've been a Linux user for roughly 7-8 yrs, not an old-timer by any means, but I've hit most of the distros, many when they were still in their infancy (RedHat, Mandr[ake/iva], etc.). I've installed Ubuntu for my sister-in-law and many developers at my company use it. But personally (when I'm not posting from my XP SP2 ThinkPad), I'm on a Mac. I just don't have to spend as much time "messing" with things. And that's the fact of the matter.

Flame away.

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[Hosiah]

We forget that using a computer is a difficult and even scary experience for the vast majority of folks, particularly those with very little education.

This fallacy that you cite is at the heart of the whole problem. You know, my daughter is nine, and she's grown up in an all-Linux household. She knows her way around several distos (we have multiple computers) and routinely runs live Linux CDs as well. She uses the whole machine (albeit with a heavy focus on games and educational software), right down to toying with the Python command line occasionally. Mind you, she's still able to use the Windows computers at school, which she sees as almost-acceptable substitutes (she's been heard to complain to the teachers that the computers at school crash, however, stating "They're not supposed to do that.", and expresses disdain for the lack of games that come with a Windows system. OK, I'm proud.). Mind you again, she didn't come to this expertise through having Linux drilled into her head. She just picked it up the way kids pick up anything else, by watching mom and dad. We had Windows on dual-boot on one machine for a long time (it came with one machine which somebody threw away and I brought home and fixed), but she picked Linux over it. I finally deleted Windows when nobody in the household had started it for a year.

What's our secret? Simply that "It's too hard." are words, more than the seven words you can't say on television, that never pass the lips of her mother and I. It turns out that people have a damn-near-infinite capacity to learn if you simply give them the tools to use, the manuals to read, and don't make a federal case about how hard it is!!!!

But thank you so much for doing your part to make this world a dumber place. Thank you for spreading the proprietary party-line that we are too stupid to understand computers, and hence are better off being enslaved by those who know the secret. Thank you for discouraging tomorrow's Einstein before he ever got started. Keep on spreading that FUD!!!

Re:Sometimes it's tough

[Tilmitt]

They rejected OSX in favor of a better solution. You should not dismiss the concept of Open Source software as a "silly doctrinaire reason". The economic impact of adopting proprietary software could be enormous and long-lasting. It's critical that this technology be sustainable in the long term without dependence on a single foreign entity. Apple could easily be gone in ten years, but there will be a continuity of Open Source software until the next ice age.

Well since open-source software will always be around, if Apple does go down the drain they can always just use some open-source OS then. As with the PowerPC Macs, they won't just become instantly useless and fantasmagically explode when they're no longer being developed.

biggest mistake ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots.

Give them a laptop the kinds can more easily use to accomplish their task.

I am an avid Linux user.. But i sure hte hell wouldn't expect most kids to figure out how to configure or install some applications at this point in Linux's development.

Re:biggest mistake ever

[bertramwooster]

two things.

i suppose the installation and configuration is going to be done beforehand by some experts who can tinker better with an open-source sytem. and i expect using GNOME is more or less equivalent to using OSX for a person who has not used computers.

besides, i expect linux is better suited for use on more generic hardware than osx is.

Re:biggest mistake ever

[pomo monster]

Or maybe you'll just end up with a lot of $100, laptop-shaped holes in the wall. Mud brick wall.

Look, they can still install a Linux distro, if that's what they want to do, even if OS X comes preinstalled. Those who want to tinker with their operating system will undoubtedly do just that. Those who want to tinker with other stuff--Wikipedia, email to the developed world, whatever--they probably won't want to uninstall OS X, and as far as they're concerned, they'll be the better for it.

free?

[rjhall]

Open videocard? no
open chipset? no
open OS? of course! We have principles.

Re:free?

[barc0001]

Perhaps you could point out some open chipsets and video cards they could have taken advantage of, given their budgetary and quantity needs?

Re:free?

[Apotsy]

They're MIT, they could just design their own.

(or they could just admit that the whole thing is a giant pile of vapourware and has only gotten any attention because it has the MIT name associated with it -- just like everything else the Media Center "produces")

Re:free?

[dreamchaser]

Yes, and we all know that designing video and other chipsets wouldn't cost them anything at all...I think you dropped your clue, you can pick it up at the Lost and Found.

Re:free?

[ClamIAm]

What you neglect to mention is that there's a fundamental difference between hardware and software. Hardware costs money every time you make a copy of it. Copies of software can be "made" for virtually nothing.

Re:free?

[dana340]

Open Chipsets? Are there such a thing? You might as well build a whole new architecture. The foundation of this project is standing on the shoulders of older technology that is somewhat tried and true, and now cheap to manufacture. It's pointless to design new chipsets from scratch.

Re:free?

[leoc]

Surely it is easier to stand on Apple's shoulders than to turn Red Hat into a workable general-purpose desktop OS?

Red Hat is already a workable general purpose operating system, but that is besides the point. MIT is not looking for a general purpose operating system, they are looking for a specialized, device specific OS that is open source. Despite all the Mac fanboy protestations, going with OS X would have been a step backwards.

Re:free?

[dangitman]

MIT is not looking for a general purpose operating system, they are looking for a specialized, device specific OS that is open source.

but why? That doesn't make much sense in the context of this project. if the goal is to help people - why put this software ideology and zealotry ahead of the wants or needs of users?

Despite all the Mac fanboy protestations, going with OS X would have been a step backwards.

What the hell does this have to do with "Mac fanboys"? It seems that it is the Open Source fanboys who are damaging this idea by excluding helpful tools, based on their narrow ideology and zealotry. OS X has many advantages. Linux has many advantages. They are not mutually exclusive, if it were not for this ridiculous thinking. Why not allow people to choose? Do poor people have to have their decisions made for them, unlike the lucky wealthy people? Do we know what's best for them? Imperial hubris.

If your plan is to indoctrinate the developing nations and poorer people through software - then you would be better off not bothering.

Re:What?

[bach37]

If Steve offers OS X to you for free, you take it.

Yes!

Red Hat sucks

No!

What?

[wlan0]

Red Hat? It looks like they've been helping, but wouldn't using something like Debian Embedded be better, as it could be less bloated?

Re:Looking for OSSOS?

[Threni]

> I thought it was offered free? So where's the problem?

Your understanding of the word `free` in this context.

The real strategy

[Mrcowcow]

To really get publicity, he shouldoffer it for free to the general public! Now that would get media attention.

Re:The real strategy

[rookworm]

To really get publicity, he shouldoffer it for free to the general public! Now that would get media attention.

And that's what it's really all about in the end. If they adopted OSX, there would be massive vendor lock-in all over the world. Not to mention, they would be dependent on Apple for support due to Closed-source api's. With a free (libre) solution there would be none of this trouble. Not to mention localization possibilities.... This is essentially an empty offer, since they'd have to be nuts to accept it.

Hardware Requirements?!

[JoeShmoe950]

While fast for what it does, OSX does quite a bit. Will you really get a 3d accelerated GUI environment to run on a $100 machine? That seems like asking a lot from the hardware which costs so little. While OSX is nice, I've heard that it can be somewhat slow on even a 700mhz iBook. Do we really want to use it on a $100 laptop?

Re:Hardware Requirements?!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not exactly like RedHat is slim and light either, with bloatasaurus apps like OpenOffice and Firefox. Really, the most efficient choice would have been Windows XP/Office XP which runs fine on a 700mhz x86.

Re:Hardware Requirements?!

[JoeShmoe950]

If your going to use an incredibly stripped down version of OSX, which no longer even resembles OSX to a large extent, why use OSX at all?

Re:Hardware Requirements?!

[daveschroeder]

...

I didn't say it would be a "incredibly stripped down" version of OS X that wouldn't resemble OS X.

I said it would be a version of OS X targeted for this platform and program. In other words, all the comments like "OMG, I heard some of OS X's special fancy graphic effects are slow on an iBook, so, OMG, how would it run on a $100 laptop?!??!?!??!!11111one" are completely irrelevant, because the 3D graphic effects aren't what's important. It would most certainly resemble OS X, and would in fact be OS X, and the things that are most important about OS X are things like its frameworks and APIs, and extensive support for languages and extensively polished user interface.

Re:Hardware Requirements?!

[MaestroRC]

I still digress on this.

I have (currently) OS X 10.4.3 installed on a 400MHz iMac G3 (original graphite DV model). The actual specs are 400MHz/1GB RAM/7200RPM disk (120GB, for no reason at all). It runs Tiger just fine, and it's actually faster with Tiger than it was with Panther. Sure, it's not always quite as smooth as OS9, but it does it all in stride, and does a lot more than OS9 would allow me to do on it.

OS X has some neat tricks for older machines, including disabling the 3D effects when the machine can't handle it (this one definitely can't, it's an 8MB ATI Rage Pro). There's no interaction required to disable them, it just doesnt do it. Sure, it doesn't look as good as on my powerbook or my roommate's Dual 2.5GHz G5, but it does just fine for email, browsing, and streaming iTunes music to our Airport Express.

OS X could be made to run just fine on whatever machines they throw at it, I think.

Re:Hardware Requirements?!

[The Infamous Grimace]

OSX barely runs at all on a G3 these days (you can coerce it, but it's awful). can't imagine how painful a $100 laptop would be.

I just recently upgraded to a 500MHz G3 laptop from a 300 MHz G3 laptop. Both run OS X (10.4 now, 10.3 then). Both run great, and while the G3 300 required XPostFacto to get 10.3 loaded, it didn't require any great 'coercion'. You really should check your facts before posting.

(tig)

Re:Hardware Requirements?!

[mpcooke3]

lol of course!

But I think 1 gig ram is optimistic for a $100 laptop!

Redhat? Why?

[SocialEngineer]

I don't see any reason why they couldn't take a nice bare-essentials distro, and build to it from the ground up. I've set up Slack boxes to work rather pain-free for computer illiterate users. No worrying about having to use bundled crap.

Oh well, I'm biased. Grain of salt ;)

Sensible Choice

[external400kdiskette]

Free installs doesn't mean all upgrades and software will be free and the choices might not be as high when you don't want to spend any $ for the software that you'll need to go along with the OS.

By choosing Red Hat not only do they have a free OS and practically guaranteed free upgrades, they'll also have a huge selection of free software to get maximum use out of the laptops.

Re:Sensible Choice

[c_forq]

Last time I checked OS-X can run most, if not all, of those free programs (OS-X being BSD based and all). And it's not like there aren't Linux programs you have to pay for (Cedega ring a bell?). The upgrade concern seems okay for me, but your software comments are just BS by my understanding.

In other news...

[artemis67]

Morton's Steakhouse offered to give all of the kids a free steak dinner, but the project declined, saying they needed to stick to their previous decision of powdered eggs for everyone...

Re:In other news...

[Trogre]

Morton's Steakhouse offered to give all of the kids a free steak dinner, but the project declined, saying they needed to stick to their previous decision of powdered eggs for everyone...

I think you'll find it's more like:

Fluffy Bunny's Candy Shop offered to give all of the kids a free lolly bag, but the project declined, saying they needed to stick to their previous decision of providing fresh vegetables, books on farming, ploughing and harvesting equipment, irrigation systems and bags of seed for everyone.

Re:In other news...

[Hal_Porter]

Those are Gnu/Eggs. The genome is open source, reverse engineered from Monsanto's Ultra Long Shelflife product and can be downloaded from the Gnu site. They are somewhat hard to crack, but a GNUEGG:SLEDGEHAMMER:HOWTO is available by typing Esc-Ctrl-Shift-X-Power Button at the Emacs 'organism' prompt. Even after reading the GNUEGG:AFTERTASTE:FAQ (Esc-Ctrl-Shift-X-Break monitor with a brick) intently, and cooking them at 500 degrees celsius as directed, they still taste somewhat sulphurous.

We asked some Africans how they felt about this decision, but they looked at us with total contempt before grabbing our wallets and were last seen heading in the direction of Mortons.

Re:In other news...

[leoc]

Give these kids a steak and they will eat well for a day. Give them the knowledge to grow their own livestock and they will eat well for life.

Next up for MIT - the $100 iPod Project

[mr_don't]

Pelease from MIT... The $100 iPod project will let every child in every developing country download Sheryl Crow's new single to their own U2-branded iPod.

Re:But they don't go for it...

[shmlco]

"...noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with."

So they declined a world-class OS with commercially available software because the designers (who are not the intended users) wanted something they could tinker with. Makes sense to me....

Re:Looking for OSSOS?

[jcr]

It is akin to offering cigarettes to school children for free.

WHAT? OS X causes lung cancer? I'm SHOCKED!

I borrowed this from Stallman

Didn't you get the memo? RMS is a crazy hippie.

-jcr

Re:What?

[strider44]

Red Hat, however, doesn't take an overwhelming amount of system resources, which I presume is ever so slightly important for something that's supposed to be able to be powered by a hand powered generator. Besides, Red Hat is also donating a couple of million to this project, something which Steve Jobs doesn't seem to be doing.

Re:good!

[shmlco]

"More critical thinking skills for the kids that get to fix their linux installs instead of clicking on pretty icons."

Uh, how about kids who are actually using the notebooks to get their homework done... and not needing to FIX their linux installs at all!

Re:What?

[Pantero Blanco]

Somehow, I don't see OS X running very well on a $100 laptop.

Re:What?

[Trogre]

Thank you for your contribution to the campaign. Our department will send you your free t-shirt and mug as promised. Please allow 2-5 days for delivery.

In order for us to more easily identify you in future, would you kindly append your Apple Fan Club membership # to your sig? This will allow for more timely notification of prizes and special offers.

Thank you again.

Sincererly,
Ms A. Shill
Apple Marketing Ventures

Zealotry?

[olddotter]

Well their reason for not selecting it might be zealotry, but I have to beleive that they can create a Redhat based distribution that will work with their hardware all the time. That is part of the Apple secret. If your hardware is a small handpicked set, then having an OS that just works is that much easier.

Re:What?

[mboverload]

Actually, OSX runs VERY well on an old 333MHz iMac with 64 megs of ram. I won't take the latest version, mind you, but it works well. No lag in the dock or anything.

But the blondes!?

[Scrameustache]

More critical thinking skills for the kids that get to fix their linux installs instead of clicking on pretty icons.

It's that attitude that's keeping the bimbos out of the computer dating sites you know!

No to OSX but with a wave to Windows?

[duffahtolla]

He also says Microsoft, which is a financial contributor to MIT and a backer of its Media Lab, has undergone a change in attitude about the $100 laptop. "Their first reaction was to laugh at the idea, then the next reaction was kind of antagonistic," he says. "Recently, they're very friendly."

Be afraid, be very afraid..

And Mr. Negroponte, after meeting with Mr. Gates, now says, "The machine will run anything, including Windows."

MS might be planing a way to ursurp all those laptops after they've been distributed. Hope Jobs does the same.

Red Hat wasn't always bad.

[CyricZ]

Red Hat used to be a quality distribution. But we have to go back to the Red Hat 5.x and 6.x days to notice that.

As time has gone on, there have been many improvements that they have failed to adopt. Dropping support for RPM in favour of APT is one such improvement that they didn't make. The whole GCC 2.96 debacle sure didn't help their reputation amongst developers.

Either way, you are correct, Red Hat is not the way to go. Mac OS X, especially free, would have been the best possible choice. Not considering that, Kubuntu would have been the second best option. It'd offer a solid, coherent KDE system, built upon the power of Debian.

Re:Red Hat wasn't always bad.

[CyricZ]

Because aside from Mac OS X, it's the easiest operating system to use. And ease of use is very important when you're trying to make computing available to basically every child. KDE is a very easy desktop environment to use. It's also very coherent.

Not only that, KDE has superior support for internationalization. That will be a real benefit when getting these laptops to children in Asia and Africa, for instance. Such children may not know English, and thus will need to rely on the excellent translations provided by KDE.

Another thing to consider is how easy APT makes updating packages. Even from the command like it's something a child could do with ease.

Re:Red Hat wasn't always bad.

[arminw]

....Mac OS X, especially free, would have been the best possible choice....

Would that choice not depend on what the primary uses that this $100 machine were to be used for? Also would that include the iLife programs and would there be enough RAM to run those? Certainly for e-mail and web surfing OSX would likely work quite well. OSX set up as a limited user is very easy to use by almost anybody. If the $100 hardware were certified by Apple to truly work with OSX for the intended uses, the rejection of the offer smacks of pride by someone associated with that project.

Re:Red Hat wasn't always bad.

[Trogre]

A minor correction:

Apt is not and never has been an alternative to Rpm.

Apt is a sophisticated front end for the packaging system, be it Rpm or Deb. The basic front ends are /bin/rpm and /usr/bin/dpkg for RedHat and Debian respectively.

Yum is another front end. The Fedora Project went with Yum, after spending some time with Apt as an option.

RedHat still prefers up2date, but you can still install apt or yum at your option.

Re:Red Hat wasn't always bad.

[scott_karana]

The fact the Red Hat is one of the largest companies directly supporting the development of many OSS projects, including GCC, doesn't change your mind at all in this matter?

I like how you portray old Redhat in a good manner, and then talk about the equally old GCC2.96 problem to detract from the MODERN version.

Either way, you are incorrect. Almost any Linux distro you could get would be a great choice these days, and one that has commercial might put into its deployment can't be purely bad. As for OS X, I'm not sure whether it'd be a better choice, myself...

I love the justification...

[daveschroeder]

"There are people in developing countries who have never seen computers so it's not like, 'How is this better than Windows?"'

Well, with that argument, why not just hand them a pile of dogshit?

That's the most useless justification for staying with Red Hat Linux as I've ever heard.

Further, it's not as if Red Hat-proper is "free". You can bet your bottom dollar that Red Hat is seeing dollar signs out of this deal. Big dollar signs.

Sure, Jobs may have been in it partly for ulterior reasons as well - I'm not going to pretend to know what he's thinking - but considering that the entire core of Mac OS X is open source, and what's not open source is a very polished, easy to use, major-vendor-supported OS with amazing language and multilingual support, revolutionary accessibility support, including the first commercial OS to include a free full-fledged spoken interface, and so on, I think that rejecting it out-of-hand on the basis of wanting to be "100%" open source is a little bit short-signted and foolish, when one steps back and looks at the big picture.

I literally can't believe MIT rejected this offer.

(And no, there wouldn't be concerns with system requirements. Apple would have engineered a targeted version of Mac OS X specifically for this program.)

Re:I love the justification...

[1u3hr]

You can bet your bottom dollar that Red Hat is seeing dollar signs out of this deal. Big dollar signs

Probably their payoff would be cohorts of students who were weaned on RH Linux moving into the business world, in countries where the IT infrastructure is minimal or based on pirated software. Instead of the usual dilemma of lock in to MS these countries face when they want to go legit, they'll be free to choose Linux if they want. MS will have to fight for the market instead of having it fall in their laps as it does now due to lack of support or familiarity with anything else.

Re:I love the justification...

[afaik_ianal]

You can bet your bottom dollar that Red Hat is seeing dollar signs out of this deal. Big dollar signs.

Yes, you're right. Big red dollar signs to the tune of $2,000,000. The only dollar signs they are likely to see out of this are years down the track, when these students are making purchasing decisions for their employers...

<rant>...or putting up annoying posts on /. saying, "Eh??? But <<Insert distribution name here>> sux0rs. Redhat is so much better!", just like half the gits who have commented on this story.</rant>

Re:I love the justification...

[SoSueMe]

Further, it's not as if Red Hat-proper is "free". You can bet your bottom dollar that Red Hat is seeing dollar signs out of this deal. Big dollar signs.

Yes, they are CONTRIBUTING $$$ to this project

And no, there wouldn't be concerns with system requirements. Apple would have engineered a targeted version of Mac OS X specifically for this program.

You can say this with such surety?
Please explain.

Re:I love the justification...

[ClamIAm]

You can bet your bottom dollar that Red Hat is seeing dollar signs out of this deal. Big dollar signs.

Yeah, because the kids that are buying/getting $100 laptops will surely turn around and license RHEL for thousands of dollars. /sarcasm

Dear Steve,

[simpl3x]

You had a fantastic little platform in the Newton. The profile of the educational version was perfect. If you would simply provide such a platform again, at a reasonable price, and provide development tools such as HyperCard, you wouldn't need the hundred dollar laptop effort. YOu could create your own!

Making it easier for us to contact your company with such proposals would be nice also.

Apple-Intel Implications

[ndansmith]

Did Steve Jobs offer to have OS X running on AMD chips? I presume that Apple already knew what processor the $100 laptop would have. I do not know the ins and outs of Apple's agreement with Intel, but I wonder how they feel about this. Still, since Apple is not actually manufacturing the laptop, I guess they can run their OS on whatever they want. Still, it is interesting to note that Apple would considering running OS X on AMD products.

Red Hat?

[Tetrachromatic]

Should've gone with Debian/Ubuntu.

Double slashdot standards as usual

[wondercool]

Unbelievable the reactions.

Apple offers it's OS-X free and everybody in this sections says take it.
Imagine Microsoft would offer Windows for free for this device? Everybody cries out loud.
(You can already see some reactions like that around this reaction)

I think it's very wise not to tie yourself to any vendor.
With commercial OS makers, you will have to hope they keep the terms the same in a couple of years and as Seymour Papert said: you can't tinker.

It's also a bit weird that Mr Jobs refuses 3rd party hardware makers to use OSX and now he suddenly 'donates' OS-X...

I admire both sides

[MourningBlade]

Apple, for offering up their hard work for free for a great idea. Apple wants people to be able to have a good, modern system for people to work with that is easy to learn and use.

Thank you, Apple.

I also admire the laptop project for turning them down. The point of a computer is not just to "do things" - it's to learn that things can be done. It wasn't pocket calculators that changed the world, it was readily-available, general-purpose, programmable computers.

Having a tool you can study and modify in great depth is a wonderful thing. It's not just a tinker-toy set, it's a tinker-toy set and ready-made large-scale projects *in that set* for you to study and alter/improve upon.

This is the same thing that brought about "hacker boom" of the TRS 80, of the Apple ][, and, yes, even early DOS - except this is larger scale, more sophisticated, and more flexible.

The $100 laptop is not about writing school reports, it's not about web logs, and it's not about accounting software. It's "here's what you can do, here's the tools to do it, and here's how it can be done - come join us."

That is the ultimate goal of Free software, and it can not be accomplished using Mac OS X, no matter how excellent a system OS X is.

Do not underestimate kids.

[carlmenezes]

I think sir, you will find that kids are FAR more adept at grasping unknown concepts than you and me. We have our ways and are set in them. To learn something new, we need to get away from what we are used to. Kids don't have that disadvantage. Believe me, I know from experience. They grasp Linux as fast as they grasp Windows. From what i've seen (I setup a linux computer lab for an orphanage in India and helped them decide the computer syllabus for the school), Linux helps more because the brighter kids start poring through the man pages and start mucking around with shell commands and scripting after some time (all we told them was that if they needed to know about something, use "info " or "man " - nothing else). They actually learn from it and sometimes they ask you about options that you didn't know existed :) With Windows, the help from both Windows and the command shell isn't too great and the chance to experiment isn't really there. They also appreciate choice. Give them an option to choose their window manager at the login screen and they will go through every single one! Why? Because they can and because they're curious.

Sure, Mac OS X is a great OS that just works. Sure its a real steal at no cost. But for kids, the cost of the OS doesnt matter. The fact that it just works is good. But what they really want to do is get into the internals and rip it apart to see what makes it tick. What better candidate than something that's open source? They dont have deadlines to meet. They are not bothered by customers who inist on their documents being in the MS Office format. For kids, it's about the concepts. If it doesn't work, they'll try for some time to see why. They will ask you why it doesn't work. They will try to fix it. If they can't they will ask you. They will listen while you tell them what's wrong. If you can fix it, they will watch you doing it very carefully, trying to understand what you are doing and asking 100 questions in the process. If you can't fix it, they forget about it and move to something else.

Do not underestimate the kids' thirst for knowledge and their ability to acquire it :) Sure, there will be those who dont want to learn. That is something that won't change regardless of WHAT you're trying to teach them. But for those that DO want to learn, anything will do.

Re:Do not underestimate kids.

[carlmenezes]

I guess what I'm trying to say in a nutshell is...a box of lego pieces that may or may not fit each other is much more stimulating to a kid's ability to learn and explore than a pre-made action figure that walks and says something.

Re:Do not underestimate kids.

[pomo monster]

How about all the other kids who, instead of playing with their computer's fundamentals, would rather play with word-processing, art, design, or communication? These activities are all stimulating to a kid's ability in different ways, and it seems that being forced to mess around with their OS would detract from their learning in these other regards.

Re:Looking for OSSOS?

[smittyoneeach]

Actually, having had a lengthy private conversation with the gentleman, I think I can say that RMS is a sane fellow with a sincere belief that liberal programs help people.
I shared with him that quote from Civ IV "The bureuacracy is expanding to support the needs of an expanding bureaucracy" but the point seemed to elude him. Possibly he focuses on the results, rather than the ethical vacuum existing within the Beltway.
At any rate, among the problems with the opaque OS X binary is that people can't learn much from it. I can't say that I have spelunked deeply within all of the tarballs in /usr/portage/distfiles, but I do look at them now and then. Having that latitude is not to be casually foregone, for all OS X is eyecandyville.

Why not for US students...

[ajlea2k]

I may have read it wrong, but the page at MIT says that this is for "developing nations". Its not bad enough we lose a lot of tech jobs to offshore companies, now we have to provide free laptops to "developing nations". I am not saying it isn't a cool initiative, and yes a lot of families here can afford to buy their kids laptops, but where's the push to get them into the hands of underprivileged American kids? And then to get schools to actually USE the technology in a meaningful way... My son attends a "progressive" middle school with a "technology" program...so far he has played Sim City and built a 4 foot tower out of paper cups.

Re:Why not for US students...

[be-fan]

Who said anything about "free laptops"? The whole point of this project is to be sustainable --- to design and build a laptop that could actually get sold for $100, without requiring donations or anything of the sort. That, in part, was why this Apple proposal was rejected.

Re:But they don't go for it...

[brarrr]

You know, I laugh at the RTFA posts that usually come out when someone makes a bone headed comment. But I don't think I've ever seen a RTFS post (correct me if I'm wrong, it may have happened before) so here goes:

How bout that summary for this article that points out that THEY DIDN'T GO FOR IT and hey, what's this, a post about how THEY DIDN'T GO FOR IT. Who to believe? My world is torn asunder.

Next you'll see people cutting and pasting without attribution! Heavens to betsey.

You haven't given it a chance

[StarManta.Mini]

when I tested some Java apps on a Mac.

There's your problem.

Try to actually use one. Use the iApps. Use Safari. Use Terminal. Tinker. Play. Break stuff and fix it. The system is so much cleaner, more logical than Windows (and with a few exceptions, Linux)... and of course far easier on the eyes than anything else out there.

(You are absolutely right about Java, though. It's pretty poorly integrated.)

Regarding the application menu being at the top: look up Fitt's Law. It's far easier to shoot the cursor to the top of the screen or the corner than it is to aim the mouse at a 24-px-tall bar. That's the main reason for the menu being the way it is.

Re:Looking for OSSOS?

[jcr]

Actually, having had a lengthy private conversation with the gentleman, I think I can say that RMS is a sane fellow

Sane, perhaps. But still wrong.

The first time I met him, I mentioned an interest in writing an emulator for PDP 8 through 11 for NeXTSTEP. He tried to convince me that I should write an x86 emulator instead, and give it away for all the usual bullshit altruistic reasons. I told him that if I ever gave code away, it would be code that I enjoyed writing.

-jcr

Well Thank God!

[Comatose51]

Well thank God they rejected it. Otherwise, poor starving children will be running a better OS than me and such travesty cannot stand!

Re:corporate charity == GOOD

[duffahtolla]

But if all the courseware is initially setup for Windows, would they then be able to run linux? Most likely not, and then we have a repeat of what we have today. A fractured OS landscape, with MS leading the way with patented document formats and restricted liscenses.

We want to educate these children, not torture them with litigation and incompatibilties.

Ignore the research, it's only research

[dpbsmith]

Apple may have used intuition or good taste when they put a single menu bar at the top of the screen initially, but later on they did research which backed it up.

The edges of the screen are prime real estate and are easy targets to hit because the mouse pointer is constrained by the screen; effectively the menu bar is infinite in height. In order to hit a menu bar at the top of a window, you need to decelerate and hit a target that is fairly small. You need to do precision control in two dimensions instead of only one.

I think one of the reason Windows users are always complaining that using the mouse is slower than the keyboard is because putting the menu at the top of the window makes the mouse slower to use than if it were at the top of the screen.

Bruce Tognazinni devotes an entire chapter--27--of "Tog on Interface," (1992, Addison-Wesley) to this very topic. He cites four or five pieces of research.

But, never mind. It's only research. Tognazinni wrote--in 1990!--"People for years have been explaining to me that in this era of giant screen monitors, we just have to do something about those menu bars way up there at the top of the screen; that menu bars should be attached to windows, or pop up beneath the cursor or something. Anything, just so they aren't up at the top of the screen any more." And I am sure people will be doing it fifteen years from now, too.

Re:Ignore the research, it's only research

[bani]

What about the thing in the top left corner telling you which window actually has focus? (hint: it's the one with the exact same fucking name).

Bzzt. Wrong!

If that's not enough, what about the fact that one window seems to be 'hovering' a little 'higher' than the rest of the windows (casting a shadow double the size of unfocussed windows).

Bzzt. Wrong again! Thanks for playing.

I really don't see how anyone who's used OS X for more than 5 minutes could have trouble telling which window has focus.

Then I guess you haven't used OS X for more than 5 minutes.

When windows are unfocussed, OS X offers a title bar style change, title bar text changes color, windows get visibly larger shadows, and a boldfaced, 13 pt label that is always at the same point on the screen.

That's the way it should work. This is not the case here though.

The window you think has focus actually does not.

Try it.

BIG HINT: It's NOT the software update window. If it did, the OK button would be blue. Therefore, the software update window does not have focus.

And no, this isn't a photoshopped image either. It's straight from OSX 10.3.9.

What more do you want? Should the window flash orange and red every five seconds? Should it speak the name of the focussed window? What would make you happy?

A bit of consistency would be make me happy.

Re:Ignore the research, it's only research

[thrift24]

I always found the argument as to why a global menu bar should be used quite silly.
 
The argument as you've given it is that you don't have to be precise to perform an action because you can move from your current pointer position to the global menu bar by flinging your mouse to what is pretty much an infinitely sized target at a screen edge. While this is great, the truth of the matter is that most of the time after you have performed some action on the global menu bar you now want to get back to the window you just came from, and now you have to perform precise mouse movements to get back to the window. This is worse on higher display resolutions as the pointer has a greater distance to traverse before reaching it's target.
 
So what it really comes down to is your screen resolution, usage patterns, and personal tase.

Re:Ignore the research, it's only research

[kelnos]

XFCE - the most Mac-like desktop for Linux, has a menubar at the top.

No it doesn't. And it's "Xfce" or "xfce", not "XFCE".

While we're talking about similarities, Xfce's design is actually heavily influenced by CDE, not the Mac. Granted, with successive 4.x releases, we've moved away from that heritage, but you can still see the CDEish roots.

Re:What?

[Lucidwray]

I have to agree with this. I recently needed a second computer at home, so i broke out my old 400Mhz G3 PowerMac. I installed OS 10.3 on it and with only 128M of ram it's still pretty fast. It impresses me every time I use it. For web surfing and email there isint a whole lot of difference between it and my PowerBook G4 1Ghz.

Re:The Mac Demographic (Re:OS X easy to use -- wh.

[JabberWokky]

Fitts' Law is for different thinkers.

Or anybody using KDE...

--
Evan

Re:Free publicity -- What?

[Golias]

And how, exactly, does the fact that they're donating money indicate that they're not in it for the publicity?

He didn't say it wasn't publicity. He said it wasn't FREE publicity.

Red Hat is not getting free publicity. They are buying publicity for two million dollars. That's pretty fucking far from free.

Then again, Red Hat has been stretching the definition of "free" in a lot of ways over the last couple years, heh.

Software freedom isn't silly.

[jbn-o]

Doesn't it seem like pro-proprietary software zealotry to think that refusing an opportunity to lose one's software freedom is pitched as "zealotry"? No, framing this issue as zealotry won't help you understand what is really going on.

Ease of use is not freedom. Ease of use is a subjective assessment (everything is probably roughly equally hard to learn when you have no experience with computers) that doesn't address educational goals to the degree software freedom does. Any software can be made easier to use and people don't need to rely on proprietors to do it for us. We can and should do it for ourselves and share the results with people (particularly those who will share their improvements with us). This is part of the spirit that got us the free software OSes we enjoy today.

What Apple is offering here is a gratis opportunity to put on some handcuffs and choose between a set of masters. Some of MacOS X is free software but not all of it. Why subject the kids to a computer they can't control completely? Why help them grow an addiction to proprietary software that will be hard to break? I realize that /. readers tend to think this way only of Microsoft, but Apple is offering a comparable deal here: no software freedom, more like "the first bite is free".

For more on this, I recommend reading Why schools should use exclusively free software.

Re:Software freedom isn't silly.

[Capitalist1]

You don't "lose freedom" by using proprietary software. You gain the opportunity to use the software.

Before you obtained the closed-source software you had, what? The freedom to stare at a blank screen? The freedom to modify the power button state? The freedom to write your own completely from scratch? How do you lose any of that joyful freedom by using a closed source package?

Re:Software freedom isn't silly.

[jbn-o]

Running the software for any reason is only a part of software freedom. In fact, it's the first part of the Free Software definition. It's the part that is supplied by just about all programs (but some programs even cut this off after a certain amount of time). What you don't get is the freedom to inspect the program, to learn how it works, or to share copies of the program, to help your neighbors, or to modify the program, to make the program suit your needs. In short, you miss out on all of the other parts of what makes a program Free Software. You could have used a different program to do that job, or written one yourself, or hired someone to write the program for you, then you would have software freedom. But with proprietary software, the proprietor is purposefully denying you your software freedom.

My Main Beef...

[mitchell_pgh]

I'm a little more forgiving to Apple (as compared to Microsoft) as Apple has an Open Source foundation (Darwin). Also, just look at the numerous open source foundation items found embedded in the OS. http://www.apple.com/opensource/ Granted, some of this is just marketing BS... but comparing OS X to XP simply isn't fair to the good work Apple has done working with the Open Source community. Sounds like the $100 laptop project threw the baby out with the bath water.

Re:Free publicity -- What?

[kers]

I don't think that Coors really has much of an opinion on that free Cher concert, and yet they donated money to it

What "Free Cher"-consert? What did they pin her down for and how long time was she in jail?

not really....

[carlmenezes]

for a kid, something like GIMP is MORE than enough...heck, they will use the default paintbrush tool and the default color and start drawing. At the end, the drawing is a bunch of squiggles. But to them, it's an ice monster. They will ask you how to change colors. You show them, they're happy. They will find out the rest in their time. You then show them gradients....they play with them...Sometimes you get a little ahead of yourself and try to explain to them layers, opacity and filters...they lose interest. Why? because they want to draw their ice monster and all they need is 3 shades of blue.

With kids, what I've seen is that their imagination plays a MAJOR role in what they do. So, something even as limited as paintbrush is good enough to them. The ones who want to learn more about drawing will do so. They will come to you with questions. You show them how to do what they want and they will remember because that is what they are interested in.

Same with word processors. They will play with font sizes and bold, italics and underline fonts and will explore every button on the word processor to see what it does. They'll use character and line formatting to write "their story". Maybe a few figures here and there. it won't be structured and it won't need a table of contents - and openoffice is more than capable for those needs. They are also not bothered by it's sluggishness...to them...that's the way it works...no complaints.

Its the same with something like inkscape...as long as they can print their pictures or save them to work on them again, they're happy.

And yes, I do know what you're talking about and when stuff goes wrong, they will wait for you to fix it and then they're happy to get back to what they were doing. One thing with Linux stuff...you generally only have to fix it once. Once it works, it works well. That suits kids perfectly.

Re:OS X easy to use -- what are people smoking?

[IntlHarvester]

The universal menubar provides a context menu that never moves.

Which was great when we had 9" monitors. Whether it is such a good idea when you have a 30" display, or multiple 20"+ displays is an arguable point. Saying you can just "fling your mouse" when the target is actually several feet away is really dubious.

Being the cynic that I am, I tend not to think that Apple had done research proving a fixed menu bar is the best for large displays. Instead they keep it around because it's a Mac visual trademark that distinguishes them from the competition.

Re:The Mac Demographic (Re:OS X easy to use -- wh.

[Tim Browse]

I like the way this attitude (and the same pictures) come around in comments on Apple related stories every now and then on slashdot - I love the irony of people who claim to 'Think Different' making their point by essentially saying "Look at these attractive people - don't you want to be like them? If you use this OS you will be attractive!"

Way to sidestep the global marketing brainwashed groupthink and reject the use of sex to sell products! You certainly are creative and revolutionary. Well done.

Re:Free publicity -- What?

[Lally Singh]

Because they may be doing it for higher causes. Some people, even those in corporations, still would like a better world for their kids.

Closed-source APIs?

[mrchaotica]

What, you mean like this?

If you think about it, GNUStep running on Darwin is already damn close to replicating OS X with Free Software. Sure, there's a few things missing (notably, Core*), but if OS X started getting really widespread adoption like this, those holes would be patched up quick.

Re:Are these "$100" laptops going to be online?

[Scrameustache]

How about an online connection? It seems like all the cool kids are online, now, right? Isn't that the point of these things? Getting modern?
My cynical side thinks that this might be a nice gesture, but not much more than that

FTFA:

To get the price down, an eight-inch diagonal screen -- smaller than standard notebook computers -- will run in two modes, with a high-resolution monochrome mode for word processing and a lower-resolution color mode for Internet surfing.

You're kidding right?

[Aqua OS X]

"very well?" You must have a LOT of patience. I've placed OS X on older G3 Macs, and I've found it incredibly difficult to be productive. Processes take forever.

I can hardly stand OS X on an older G4 with 256 megs of RAM.

Re:Looking for OSSOS?

[Richard Dick Head]

.. that makes Linux a cigarette do-it-yourself kit complete with rolling papers ..

I guess that would make BSD a doobie do-it-yourself-kit? Now I know why BSD is so much better! 'cause Herb is the word, my man.

Why these laptop designers are idiots

[Overly Critical Guy]

They want an operating system "that can be tinkered with," which displays the standard Slashbot geek assumptions:

1.) That everybody is a goddamned operating systems kernel engineer instead of a user who wants to get some fucking computer work done. 95% of you people have never even modified a single line of your local Linux kernel source tree.

2.) That there will always be a majority of kids who aren't interested in staring at lines of source code to feel good about their "software freedom." Give me a break.

3.) That the tiny minority of kids who would actually be interested in Linux and 100% open source would just wipe OS X off the laptop and install Linux for free anyway.

4.) You guys obsess over making every little kid a coder, when XCode/GCC ships free with OS X, and these kids could have been designing the next great Cocoa apps. Cocoa simply whips the butt of everything else out there.

5.) There are TONS more creative kids than coder kids, and think of all the incredible creative stuff that would have been nurtured here. iLife ships for free with OS X. Now these kids won't get to have Garageband for free, or iPhoto for free, or iMovie and iDVD for free. But hey, now they get to experience the joy of having to install two entire desktop environments and libraries just to run each other's apps! Have fun with a "package management system" and a fragmented filesystem hierarchy that dumps files all over the place instead of in well-designed bundles!

6.) Which leads to my final point. These kids will be taught the wrong ways to do things instead of the right ways. App bundles, real application APIs, real drag-and-drop, etc....

But, the designers' wishes triumphed. Oh? What's this? Red Hat donated $2 million to this project, and now they're getting used over OS X? Ah, that's why. So much for free and open. Only the designers got what they wanted. I guarantee a kid given a choice and presented both systems would have gone with Apple...

Re:Why these laptop designers are idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the biggest reason this was a dumb choice. OS X for a cheap, generic AMD laptop? That could have been leaked and perhaps we'd have a better OS X86 with regards to generic PC hardware support. Hey, Steve doesn't want it leaked, but in the end it's good for Apple to extend their platform

p.s. whoever modded you Troll can't argue your points. I'm sick of seeing this kind of censorship on /. If you disagree with someone, reply, dont mod down as "troll" or "flamebait." That makes you look lame and I target you guys in meta-moderation

Re:Why these laptop designers are idiots

[l3v1]

Now these kids won't get to have Garageband for free, or iPhoto for free, or iMovie and iDVD

Right, like these apps would run usably on these hundred bucks configs.

XCode/GCC ships free with OS X, and these kids could have been designing the next great Cocoa apps. Cocoa simply whips the butt of everything

Narrowminded. You say we shoudln't "force" linux and linux dev tools on them. Instead we should force cocoa on them ? Nice.

kids will be taught the wrong ways to do things instead of the right ways

Ok, so your argument is that the osx way is right and the linux way is wrong. Not much to even begin with.

kids who would actually be interested in Linux and 100% open source would just wipe OS X off the laptop and install Linux

Actually this is the only argument that makes some sense.

everybody is a goddamned operating systems kernel engineer instead of a user who wants to get some fucking computer work done

Well, linux users' majority doesn't even know what the kernel is. They still manage fairly well. You telling that linux usage is all about code hacking then you're only fudding here.

to feel good about their software freedom

Actually, telling and informing people in their early computer years about alternatives to MS and Apple is Not A Bad Thing. Teaching them to think outside of the MS and Windows frame actually could lead to some real benefits on the genral OS evolution.

Re:Free publicity -- What?

[humina]

"Some people, even those in corporations, still would like a better world for their kids."

You'll notice that you said some people in corporations. The official stance of the corporation however is not to give everyone a warm fuzzy feeling inside. The only purpose that a corporation has is to make profit. Yes many individuals want to create a better world. Some of those individuals work in corporations. Those individuals should be commended for their forward thinking views.

The corporation would be pissed if it participated in any community service that did not receive any attention, publicity, mind share, or free advertising. The bricks and stones of a corporation headquarters don't shine a little brighter when it has helped another person.

Real story here: Licensing OS X

[Thu25245]

The real story here has nothing to do with $100 laptops, Linux vs Mac OS X, or Open vs. Closed Source.

Steve Jobs proposed an arrangement under which Apple would allow computers other than its own to run Mac OS X.

Just this summer, Apple VP Phil Schiller was telling the media, "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."

Now, this is a long way from selling boxed copies of OS X for installation on whitebox PCs, much less a bundling agreement with Dell...but still, it's a significant development. What other devious schemes might Steve Jobs have for OSX86?

Re:Meh, depends on how you look at things.

[Space cowboy]

I'll feed the troll...

I'm not sure who's trolling here. I do know you're wrong on a fair few points...

1) I've never modified kernel code myself. But if I wanted to, or had to, I could. With an open-source kernel, you're free to change things on a whim. With a proprietary kernel, even if you have the technical ability, you're screwed.

Your point being ... what, exactly ? You *are* aware that the kernel in OS X is open-source, aren't you ? That all the source code is there, available for anyone to hack on ?

2) I don't browse through random source code for fun (though sometimes for profit), but open-source software gives me that warm-and-fuzzy feeling because I prefer the whole community attitude (for the most part) over some monolithic corporation that's more interested in getting me to fork over $100 for their latest app. Others might take a strictly moralistic stance.

Ah, I see, you're *not* aware that it's an open source kernel (google for 'Darwin OS X') at the heart of the mac ? I guess that makes this point moot too...

3) I suppose they could install anything they like. Choice is good.

I can't see how that's an argument in favour/against either. With either solution they can reformat the drive and install whatever they want ...

4) Sure, Cocoa is nice. GCC is also nice. wxWidgets is even nicer, and easily portable across both OSes. Preferences vary from person to person, and YMMV.

*cough*, *choke*, *gurgling death rattle*. You *have* to be kidding. I've used WxWindows for cross-platform apps, and Cocoa blows it away! I've been coding for the last 25 years, and the Mac (and I only started using them a year ago!) is by far the best platform I've ever coded on.

• Key-Value observing and coding - the ability to treat any class just like a dictionary, instance variables as keys within the dictionary,
• bindings - KVO/KVC with transforms and automatic linkage from the UI designer ... I saw a demonstrator build an entire web-browser without typing any code!
• core-graphics, core-image - have you *seen* quartz composer (C-G, C-I) ?
• Core-data, with the fully-integrated UML-like GUI data-model definer ?
• The UI tools (Interface builder) are truly excellent on the mac, and Xcode is developing into something really useful.
• The debugging tools are excellent (gdb, shark, bigtop, CHUD, objectalloc, etc.)
• Finally, the language - objective C is simply gorgeous - all the power of object-orientated coding with precisely 1 syntax addition and ~10 keywords. Stunning in its simplicity and way more powerful than is first apparent because of the runtime binding.

You are also aware the standard compiler is gcc on the mac, right ? I only ask because you didn't seem to know that Darwin was OSS...

5) Silly me, I didn't realize that modern *nix distros were strictly coding environments. And here I've been mixing audio, putting together home movies, editing photos, and doing my daily email/document/browsing/desktop-yada-yada on Linux. Must be a bug.

Er, I don't think there's anything to compare to the iLife suite on Linux. You're aware that people really make entire movies using Macs, right ? Really. The creative tools are second-to-none. And of course, it runs all the stuff that Linux runs because that's all OSS...

6) You misspelled "Mac" as "right".

Well, that's a matter of opinion. I think the Mac way works, but I'd not go so far as to label it the 'right' way. I think it's *a* right way.

Last I checked, if someone gives you $2M and an operating system with no costs attached to it, you aren't paying them anything -- ergo "free". If the source i

$100 lamp?

[MacDust]

You're not too far off!

"In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home."
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html

So this $100 laptop does not necessarily have to be used as a computer.
Heck, if they can overclock it, maybe it can be a hotplate too!

The parent is missing the point.

[poofyhairguy82]

They want an operating system "that can be tinkered with,"

That THEY can tinker with.You are assuming that these laptops will be just like any other personal computer you or I know. What they will probably be is a "virtual book" which has an easy way to write documents, surf the web, and use built in educational programs:

He said the child could use the laptop like a text book.

As in an appliance, not a full laptop. So that means that Jobs probably offered to have OSX at the core of this appliance and the project people said "its easy for us to make a limited purpose box with Linux because WE can tinker with it." As in the development libraries for the visual stuff is open. Plus they are not going to ship the laptops in single pieces, so there will be extreme nerdiness involved to get them to work:

The device will probably be exported as a kit of parts to be assembled locally to keep costs down.

So its not like the project leaders turned down $100 iBooks for the kids.

But hey, don't let my making sense get in the way of your Linux bashing party.

Re:Stupid Ideological Fools

[be-fan]

Linux is just as easy to use as OS X (I use both), especially GNOME (which is designed according to many of the principles of classic MacOS). Ease of configuration is irrelevant here --- these will be closed-box systems that come pre-configured. They won't be any different from cell phones that use Linux, in this regard.

The decision to stick with open source is not a matter of ideology. The whole point of this exercise is to come up with a computer that can be provided to developing nations without "strings attached". That's why they're working so hard on the hardware to get the price down to $100. They're not trying to start a charity to give away computers --- if they were, they could easily use second-hand computers, or donated machines. Using OS X means depending on the charity of Apple. What happens if Apple decides to withdraw support for the program? What happens when new versions of the OS come out --- will Apple provide those for free? Using an OS that isn't tied to a corporation is the only way to deliver these machines the way they want to deliver them.

Re:How about food to those famine victims first?

[be-fan]

You can't fix a country from the bottom up. It's a losing endeavor. Clean water, while a problem, isn't the root cause. It's fine to treat the symptoms, but thinking like "we could supply a family with safe water for years for the price of one computer" is counter-productive. Without that computer, we will have to supply that family with water, permanently.

Let me tell you a story. There are dams in parts of Bangladesh that are designed to keep out flood waters. Ever year, the government spends money repairing those damns. Every year, many of them fail. Why? The contractors are corrupt --- they never fix the damns completely, because they know if they fail, they'll have more business next year. So what's the solution. To keep patching the damn? Or addressing the corruption?

Bangladesh has two big problems: political corruption, and economic stagnation. Fix these two, and while the other problems won't magically fall into place, it will allow progress to be made on the rest. One of the best ways to fix these two problems is education. Bangladesh needs to develop a nucleus of talent which can build businesses that can act as the nucleus for economic recovery. Moreover, Bangladesh needs to develop local talent. As it is, large numbers of well-educated people leave the country for Europe or the United States. This drain, in conjunction with the poor economy and poorly-educated populace (along with rather deep-seated cultural issues) is what allows the continuation of the political corruption that strangles the country.

I say these things as a Bangladeshi who now resides in the United States. Most Bangladeshis, at least the educated ones, will tell you the same thing --- while water safety is a noble endeavor, it's not arsenic that's killing that country.

In other words..

[TheHornedOne]

...instead of getting things done and interacting with the rest of the world, these kids will have the pleasure of fucking around with RPM dependencies and libc incompatibilities. Great, principled move fellas.

Re:OS X easy to use -- what are people smoking?

[zsau]

Indeed, and even Fitt's law says that right here is quicker to get to than the edges of the screen. Thus, we should all be using right-click menus. (They've got other advantages besides.) The common argument that they aren't discoverable is only true so long as most applications don't use them. If they become the default, then people will naturally right-click if they want to see what they can do.

And you can't just "fling your mouse" anyway, because you have to pick which menu you want, so once you've flung it, you have to re-aim. If (as is common on Windows) you run your windows all maximised anyway, the menubar is just slightly below the top of the screen; the re-aiming needed to find the right menu item isn't a whole lot more than it is on the Mac. The flexibility that per-window and context menus (compared to top-of-screen ones) buy with respect to reducing the distinction between "application" and "window" is also something that must be considered when designing your new GUI.

Re:What?

[edesjardins]

Besides, Red Hat is also donating a couple of million to this project, something which Steve Jobs doesn't seem to be doing

And how much do you think that all of those copies of Mac OS X that would be given away for free would be valued at?

64MB is a bit skinny for OS X

[kitzilla]

I'm running OS X on several older machines these days, including two 300MHz G3s. Panther works quite tolerably under these circumstances -- so long as you've no expectations of quick graphics. Basic video streaming, sure, but don't expect the latest Apple codecs to be anything other than painful to watch.

But this is with 256MB + of RAM. 64MB? You're gonna have a LOT of disk caching going on. More than I'd be able to stomach, though your mileage may vary. If you're really running OS X on 64MB, add a bit of RAM and see what a difference it makes.

I did find a G3 that wasn't happy with OS X: a beige Powermac. OS X is supported through Jaguar, but the Powermac just wasn't interested in playing at 266Mhz with its stock 64MB RAM. I reloaded OS 9 until I can scrounge up a 256MB stick or two. Then I'll add a PCI video card and load Panther. It'll be fine.

Panther must be the second-biggest bargain in OS these days, right behind Linux. $50 new at Amazon, and it runs pretty much everything you can do with Tiger.

Re: apple has wanted to do this since 1979

[johnrpenner]

just to set the record straight -- donating computers to kids and schools
has long been part of steve jobs' mission -- he personally offered to donate
a hundred thousand computers to every school in america back in 1979...

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist /sj1.html

(exerpt from Smithsonian Interview with Steve Jobs)

SJ: There were two kinds of customers. There were the educational aspects of Apple and then there were sort of the non-educational. On the non-educational side, Apple was two things. One, it was the first "lifestyle" computer and, secondly, it's hard to remember how bad it was in the early 1980's. With IBM taking over the world with the PC, with DOS out there; it was far worse than the Apple II. They tried to copy the Apple II and they had done a pretty bad job. You needed to know a lot. Things were kind of slipping backwards. You saw the 1984 commercial. Macintosh was basically this relatively small company in Cupertino, California, taking on the goliath, IBM, and saying "Wait a minute, your way is wrong. This is not the way we want computers to go. This is not the legacy we want to leave. This is not what we want our kids to be learning. This is wrong and we are going to show you the right way to do it and here it is. It's called Macintosh and it is so much better. It's going to beat you and you're going to do it."

And that's what Apple stood for. That was one of the things. The other thing was a little bit further back in time. One of the things that built Apple II's was schools buying Apple II's; but even so there was about only 10% of the schools that even had one computer in them in 1979 I think it was. When I grew up I was lucky because I was in Silicon Valley. When I was ten or eleven I saw my first computer. It was down at NASA Ames (Research Center). I didn't see the computer, I saw a terminal and it was theoretically a computer on the other end of the wire. I fell in love with it. I saw my first desktop computer at Hewlett-Packard which was called the 9100A. It was the first desktop in the world. It ran BASIC and APL I think. I fell in love with it. And I thought, looking at these statistics in 1979, I thought if there was just one computer in every school, some of the kids would find it. It will change their life.

We saw the rate at which this was happening and the rate at which the school bureaucracies were deciding to buy a computer for the school and it was real slow. We realized that a whole generation of kids was going to go through the school before they even got their first computer so we thought the kids can't wait. We wanted to donate a computer to every school in America. It turns out that there are about a hundred thousand schools in America, about ten thousand high schools, about ninety thousand K through 8. We couldn't afford that as a company. But we studied the law and it turned out that there was a law already on the books, a national law that said that if you donated a piece of scientific instrumentation or computer to a university for educational and research purposes you can take an extra tax deduction. That basically means you don't make any money, you loose some but you don't loose too much. You loose about ten percent. We thought that if we could apply that law, enhance it a little bit to extend it down to Kthrough 8 and remove the research requirements so it was just educational, then we could give a hundred thousand computers away, one to each school in America and it would cost our company ten million dollars which was a lot of money to us at that time but it was less than a hundred million dollars if we didn't have that. We decided that we were willing to do that.

It was one of the most incredible things I've ever done. We found our local representative, Pete Stark over in East Bay and Pete and a few of us sat down an we wrote a bill. We literally drafted a bill to make these changes. We said "If this law changes

Re:Free publicity -- What?

[vertinox]

but to say you dont have an obligation to your stockholders is bunk, its everything they teach in school and in the real world, its all about keeping your stockholders happy. There the ones that tell you what to do if you screw up and they are the ones that replace you if needed, your more then obligated to keep them happy. At least in a public company situtation.

The problem is that statement is way too over-generalized and doesn't really ecompass what the real nature of a corporation charter.

IANAL or a MBA, but I have looked into creating an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) and know about it than I would like to know. Shareholders can often influence a company if they are the owners with voting stock. If the company does not have voting stock then then it is just monetary sway of keeping the investors money with the company.

People have been told over and over again that the purpose of a corporation was to make a profit and appease the shareholders which is totally unfounded when you look at the nature of a corporate charter in legal terms. A legal charter is nothing more than creating an artificial entity that protects its investors from litigation of their personal assets when someone sues the corporation. You sue the corporation and it runs out of money, but you can't go after the shareholders.

That said... A corporation is only obligated to appease share holders if it wants to. I mean the board member and CEOs could in fact declare all corporate elections null and void and have a revolt of sorts, but they would quickly loose the capital of all the investors unless of course the investors went along with the people still in power.

Corporations do need money to operate to pay its employees and needs an investment base in order to grow, but if someone created a corporation and made it so that they had firm control of the leadership process, they could very well not intend to make any money at all if they so choose to do so.

They may not get investments or capital support from others in the process... So it wouldn't be very long lasted.

But it is a fallacy to assume that corporations are forced by law to make money. They only do so because it benefits those running them, work for them, and those who invest in them.