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Proprietary Parts in OLPC Project Draw Criticism
An anonymous reader writes "The Jem Report is running a story about the recent controversy surrounding the hardware used in OLPC laptops. Some devices require NDA's to write drivers, and some parts require firmware that cannot be freely redistributed. Richard Stallmann and Theo de Raadt oppose the use of such devices. Jim Getty defends OLPC's choice (de Raadts response). Jem Matzan has interviewed all sides and published the answers."
In case you were wondering, I was.
..and he can work for a day, teach him the sourcecode and he can work forever.
No, seriously, the OLPC (and other development projects) should be about empowerment. And for this goal open source is the way to go.
If you take a look at e.g. agriculture, you see a lot of (probably) well meant development projects that ended in dependence from some major company and did in the long run as much (or more) harm as they helped.
(And, by the way, OLPC is - intended or not - a political statement though not about free software. But there is a connection.)
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
You need to use OSS or FLOSS or F/OSS as an acronym for open source, not OS. Certainly not in the same post as using it to mean Operating System too. Also CS is short for "Computer Science" not closed source. Your post was really confusing till i figured out what you meant.
Note to anti-RMS trolls: if you RTFAs you'd see that Stallman and Theo are not spewing anything and, in fact, are quite civil about it. They never suggest that it should be nothing at all instead of proprietary. They state their objections and their suggestions.
RMS even states that some OSS developers signing NDAs (a big no-no to him) so that they can see the specs in order to write Free firmware may be a solution. Hmm, sounds like a COMPROMISE.
RMS has been very civil in our extensive mail exchanges.
Theo de Raadt, on the other hand, has not been civil in the slightest.
FTA: There is an ongoing effort to negotiate with Marvell for the right to freely redistribute this proprietary code, while at the same time some OLPC-contracted developers have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to access Marvell's hardware documentation in order to create a free software replacement for it.
It's not the hardware that is proprietary, it's the current firmware that works with it. Marvell is okay with developers writing Free firmware for the hardware, but to do so the developers would have to see the hardware docs. Marvell doesn't want the documentation out in the open for everyone to see, so the developers have to sign an NDA.
May the Maths Be with you!
Theo, like many others, thinks that accepting NDA is a sell-out.
You really seems to be missing the point. One of OpenBSD goals is that "We want to make available source code that anyone can use for ANY PURPOSE, with no restrictions. We strive to make our software robust and secure, and encourage companies to use whichever pieces they want to."
Those views did not create open source, they created GNU and the FSF. I was freely exchanging sourcecode with friends and fellow developers long before I had ever heard of either of those two organisations.
Of course you were sharing, just like RMS.
You are right, they didn't create "open source", but they are key to its continued existance.
The problem is that there was a point in time where corporations decided that it was a bad thing, and they started imposing restrictions on that, like NDAs and tough licenses on code.
The FSF was created to protect what you did with your friends, and has the consequence of being useful globally.
Gettys says quite clearly that:
"A GPL Linux device driver for the Marvell wireless chip, the Libertas driver, still under development but also fully functional can be found in our GIT tree.
We are having open firmware for the Marvell wireless chip developed by Meraki. I don't know yet what license that code will be released under, though would expect it would likely be one or more of the MIT, LGPL or GPL licenses; but we'll have to think through the usage cases and needs of the communities involved before we can make that choice."
So yes, open and free drivers and firmwares are being developed as we speak. So is this an issue not about what OLPC will use in the future, but about what they are temporarily using at this very moment?
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The straightest path for the project may have been OSS, but I seriously doubt that OSS is the ONLY WAY.
Yes, it is the only way, because OSS is *part* of the OLPC project's goals. The project not only wants to provide laptops, it wants to provide *open* laptops, so that kids in impoverished countries can poke into the internals and learn how their computers work, and how to change how their computers work. The project wants to help educate a new generation of programmers and computer scientists as well as provide all of the other educational benefits. OSS is critically important to that goal.
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Intel's Classmate PC is beefier than the OLPC - faster processor (900MHz), 1GB of flash (double the current iteration of half a gig), twice the RAM, XP embedded SP2, and costs about $100 more due to the larger processor and memory.
And due to the closed-source operating system, does not provide the same educational potential as the OLPC. Allowing kids to tinker with the guts of the software is part of OLPC's goals, and the Classmate does not achieve them.
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The goal is to maximize profits. It's a fucking corporation, not some charitable organization.
If you think you are right, I think you should tell that to the web site management:
The MIT Media Lab has launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop--a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been created, which is independent of MIT.
It's not the standard for-profit corporation as you suggest.
You can still write software for Windows, you just can't modify the kernel. But the kernel in Windows is very modular and most of the stuff that you'd want to do you can do. Basically, the only thing off limits is the scheduler and vm system. Filesystems, network protocols, etc are all modular. And for the most part writing drivers or extensions for Windows costs the same as Linux. You can do a lot of poking around the NT kernel with out any money. Just download VC++ Express and the Windows DDK/SDKs.
No, not true.
We already had the alternate firmware project underway.
Theo has not helped the situation in the slightest.
Filesystems, network protocols, etc are all modular.
Assuming you're willing and able to start from scratch, or perhaps from some example code. Having existing, working code to use as your starting point is incredibly empowering. Not only that, there's nothing that convinces you that there's nothing about your computer that's out of your control or beyond your understanding like being able to read, understand and change the code running it.
That second point is one that's difficult for Windows users to really understand. It's hard for me to explain just how powerful a notion it is, but I'll give it a shot. Most people, even most programmers, have a sort of fear of their own machines' complexity. There are numerous ways in which the machine does stuff they don't understand, and that lack of understanding leads to a kind of fear to do things that are unusual and might not work -- and might even have impossible-to-foresee side effects. Even worse, that fear leads them to assume that many things simply cannot be done.
A fully open source system is incredibly empowering in that respect. I remember very vividly the first time I really looked into how my Linux machine boots -- how the boot loader loads the kernel, how the kernel initializes itself then runs 'init', and how init processes inittab and runs the boot scripts. It was like a bolt from the blue when I realized that there was nothing in this heretofore "magical" process that was hidden from my understanding and manipulation. Every service, every process running on my system was ultimately started by init, and I could easily look and see exactly how, and why, and when. When stated that way it seems rather obvious that that's the case, but the impact of that knowledge when you actually see it for yourself cannot be overstated.
The leaders of the OLPC project understand deeply the way in which source is empowering, and it is a crucial aspect of their goals. It's instructive to note that they would not be satisfied with Theo's solution to this Marvell chip issue -- he'd be okay with closed source firmware, as long as it had freely available docs and an open source driver. The OLPC guys want the firmware to be open source as well, and they're working to that end.
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They don't need to supply pirated copies. Microsoft offered them free Windows licenses for the projects. They turned them down because a key part of the project's long-term goals included local industries producing clone machines based on the same designs (possible with some improvements) and based on the same software. This is only possible with a completely open system, something which they are now rejecting.
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It's not targeted at people who are starving. It's meant for those who, while they have enough food and have a place to live, are uneducated and stuck in poverty.
I doubt that laptops are going to magically educate people, and even if they do help somewhat, maintaining them won't be feasible.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.