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Microsoft Looking to Run Windows on OLPC
pete314 writes "Microsoft has been provided with a number of test models of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child computers and is trying to get Windows installed on them. The current design runs a custom version of Red Hat's Fedora Linux. Running Windows will take quite a bit of additional memory: the OLPC has 512Mb of Flash, where XP requires a minimum of 1.5Gb storage."
Bundled with level of corruption in OLPC-buying countries it seems pretty scary.
I bet Microsoft gets together a version of Windows for OLPC and then offers it to OLPC users for free or next to nothing. That's how it works, they give you the first copy free and then you get hooked -- pretty soon you're turning tricks in the alley just to get the security updates. I've seen it a thousand times.
512Mb graphics memory is exactly what Vista needs to run properly!
Oh, wait a minute...
I can't quite imagine how this would work. Windows is a much harder OS to maintain in the long run. All this virus, spyware and adware crap - those poor kids' lives are bad enough without it.
Besides that, I don't trust MS's intentions. I bet they are now working on how to squeeze some money out of this in the future. This is not exactly what I've expected from OLPC.
You might be a tad disappointed then.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of versions of Windows, including Windows Embedded and Windows CE, which run in a lot less RAM and reside on a lot less Flash. And even from the "normal" XP, there are a _lot_ of things which can be removed without the end user noticing much.
Sure, at that point you can still do the retarded thing and go "ha ha, so the full install didn't fit and they had to strip it down", but may I point out that the average Linux distro is even bigger than the full XP? SuSE Linux for example (to use an example from everyone's favourite, Novell) comes on a DVD or more than half a dozen CDs. Compressed. So that wouldn't fit there either.
As for slow, I don't know where you get your data from, but comparing my gaming XP box to my SuSE Linux 10.0 box, XP actually boots faster, and the GUI is quite a bit more responsive than X with either KDE or Gnome too.
I think MicroSoft's best bet at success would be a heavily stripped down version of Windows CE.
It might come as a surprise, but some of the devices running Windows CE actually have less RAM and ROM/Flash than an OLPC. So why would MS need to strip it down?
So please, let's cut it down on the arrogant-fanboy-disconnected-from-reality act. MS does have a lot of faults, but being stupid isn't one of them. They _do_ employ some of the best programmers, and can (and do) throw ridiculous amounts of money at a problem, if they really want to. And both Windows and compilers are something they have two decades of experience with.
They already know how to compile something for size instead of unrolling and inlining everything for performance. It's not like they have yet to discover "wow, there's this 'size' option in the compile options of MSVC."
And they already have the experience with porting and stripping Windows to a variety of platforms. They actually used to have NT versions for pretty much everything including RISC and a few other architectures. The XBox 360 itself isn't an Intel machine either. And there even was a version of CE that ran on the Dreamcast.
The only question is whether they want to, exactly what they want to do there, and how much effort do they want to put into a computer whose price would more than double if they actually sold a Windows OEM license with it.
Then again, they already know how to play the fake-charity card by giving away a 50 cent CD and counting it as the price of a full Windows license generously donated. (In addition to some real charity too, it must be said.) So they could just give away a locked down version of Windows to some kids who otherwise couldn't afford a Windows computer anyway, thus ensuring that a whole generation in those countries grows on Windows and Windows Media Player formats. It's good marketting. _And_ write it off a some hundreds of millions of dollars in Windows licenses generously donated to the poor countries.
On the whole, I wouldn't be surprised if the effort right now isn't getting Windows installed, but figuring out how best to lock it down and how much and what bait they can build into it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Bill Gates is possibly the most generous philanthropist on the planet."
Steal the world riches and your despised, give 10% of it back and your a hero.
Gates has fallen in love with his born-again persona as a human rights campaigner that he hopes everyone will forget was financed by years as a blood thirsty take-no-prisoners capitalist hun pushing zillions of dollars in license agreements on public school districts, threatening open source projects, patenting protocols, bullying and buying out competitors etc.
And so now he's so far into his own navel gazing delusion that he thinks XP is a good fit with the OLPC project. Oh wow man, he's just like up there with Ghandi and Jeebuz, aint he? What a joke of a man. It just goes to show you that money is indeed quite like a drug. The dude is HIGH.
Oh sure, he's the principle funder of the BSA by day but . . but, but by night he's the Poverty Fairy. Whoo.
I'm a big fan of FOSS in general but concerns about free code, open standards and the like are first world luxuries that really aren't important compared to getting these people better lives. If I could take a whole african country out of poverty in return for shutting down the copyleft lliscenses all together I would do it despite how much it would suck for me.
You don't sound very bright with that reasoning.
Copyright issues do harm actual people.
I live in Uruguay, and while now the economy is improving, we had a big recession, so we can't afford to waste money.
Our government agencies use Microsoft software almost exclusively for their desktops, and a lot for development. They have great lock-in, and it's very difficult to even propose a change.
The DGI (our version of the IRS) requires the use of a
Proprietary software has consequences down the line, it's not just a thing of abstract freedom. The freedom we could have with free software
That is an added tax on the people themselves, and that's millions of dollars that leave the country, instead of being invested here.
We are a third world country, although probably near the top of that heap. Proprietary software is one of the many anchors that keeps us down. If we could make all the software free, we could be spending licenses money in our own capable software people, and the rest, in social programs, that are still very lacking here.
To be fair, it only says that Microsoft want to "make [Windows] available" on the device, not pre-install it.
Here's my theory: MS wants to create a version of Windows for these devices, which it can let out into the wild, where it will be relentlessly pirated. They hope that the first thing that people do with their shiny new OLPC is zap the Linux install and dump Windows XP Micro (or whatever) on there instead -- even if it's pirated. It may not make them any money immediately, but it might give them a future customer, or at least prevent someone from growing up as a Linux user.
Or maybe, rather than relying on piracy, they could co-opt governments and teachers as a way of forcing Windows down onto students' computers. They'd "give" "free" copies of Windows (taking it as a charitable contribution no doubt) to schools, along with some sort of incentive package. Maybe a free 'real PC' for the teacher, running a full version of Windows. It would have educational software on it, but in order to be useful, all the students would need to be running the Windows OLPC version. So they can effectively leverage schools to use their power to eliminate Linux and replace it with Windows, even if Windows is less functional for the students themselves. All they have to do is make it a sweet enough looking deal for the government or administration, which they can easily do by making it look like a substantial "gift" on paper -- even though most of that dollar value will be in software. A "free" $99 copy of Windows has to be better than a $0 copy of Linux, right?
I had more hopes for OLPC when Microsoft was just ignoring it. Microsoft's attentions are like the Eye of Sauron -- you really don't want it resting on you for any length of time, and when it does, it probably means something bad is going to happen.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
*Balmer dreams:* Imagine a world where every single child in the 3rd. world has a windows machine with visual studio preinstalled and is learning .NET programming!
Imagine a *billion* developers working for 20 Cents per hour!
Imagine us (M$) developing Vista(tm)2 for under 2000 Bucks....
*Balmer wakes up*...
Oh no! They will have Linux on their OLPC's
*dials Microsoft R&D*...Hello, Steve here...no, forget Vista stability, get a few OLPC's and load up windows on them...512MB??!?
well, throw out some of the garbage, they wont pay for it anyway.
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango