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OLPC to Run Windows, Come to the US
An anonymous reader writes "'Yesterday Nicholas Negroponte, former director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and current head of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project, gave analysts and journalists an update on the OLPC project. Two big changes were announced — the $100 OLPC is now the $175 OLPC, and it will be able to run Windows. Even in a market where there are alternatives to using Windows and Office, there's a huge demand for Microsoft software. The OLPC was seen as a way for open source Linux distributions to achieve massive exposure in developing countries, but now Negroponte says that the OLPC machine will be able to run Windows as well as Linux. Details are sketchy but Negroponte did confirm that the XO's developers have been working with Microsoft to get the OLPC up to spec for Windows.' We also find out that the OLPC gets a price hike and will officially come to the US. Could this be tied into Microsoft's new $3 Windows XP Starter and Office 2007 bundle? Now that the OLPC and Intel's Classmate PC can both run Windows, is Linux in the developing world in trouble?"
I guess Bill Gates is going to stop criticizing the project now that it supports Windows...
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Now the system has 256MB of Ram and a slightly better processor, so yes it could now run Windows in theory. However as they always say, this is an educational project not a laptop project, and they are of course going to go with the stunning Sugar interface.
The dollar has fallen in value quite a lot, next month we'll no doubt see $250 OLPC if it keeps slipping.
My little Linux and tech blog
You know what's next ... the XO's in the real field [e.g. 3rd world nations] will start shipping with Windows instead of their OSS tools.
Yeah, MSFT won again!
I wonder how much it cost MSFT to buy them off....
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The problem is people like me fear that OLPC was bought off, and that the promise of a really open and accessible laptop for students has died.
You think it's hard to get proper tech support in the 1st world? Try it in a field school somewhere 500 miles away from the nearest large city. Running windows as opposed to the hardened linux they were developing is just inviting every random malware and virus to hop a ride through their laptops rendering them useless.
Also a lot of the innovative features like the grouping and shared sessions [as well as tailor made games/activities] probably won't be ported [or well] to Windows, leaving the kids with a really large lack of useful software.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Unless they can offer those 256Mb of RAM at a lower price than a smaller memory, it's a waste of resources. Better make an effort to lower that price than try to make it run windows. What next, the $999 OLPC to run a $300 Vista Starter Edition?
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If a picture is worth a thousand words my dissertation is going to be a dodle
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Even worse, windows is almost designed to preserve user's computer illiteracy - you don't learn how to use a computer, you rote-learn how to do some tasks using a computer running windows. The OLPC linux OS was designed to encourage exploration of what was underneath, all deliberately written in a simple programming language. The *reason* we have programmers today is because the early 8- and 16- bit platforms they grew up on encouraged exploration. My first computers came with complete schematics and a programming manual.
> is Linux in the developing world in trouble?"
Twelve hundred children an hour die, largely in said world, and mostly preventable deaths. (Source: UNICEF). That's things like malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, etc...
No offense meant, but can you imagine how much we shouldn't care what kind of operating system these countries are using? There are bigger problems to worry about.
Are you really trying to defend Windows portability by saying a defunct OS was once ported to a dead chip?
The death of Linux on OLPC is greatly exaggerated
I think you missed the bigger implication here...
None of us care if Billy G sells a crippled, OLPC-specific version of XP dirt-cheap, in a desperate bid to promote Windows adoption in the 3rd world. Exposing people to "Starter Edition" would most likely do more to promote Linux use than compete with it.
Given the price and specs change, and Microsoft's announcement of "embracing" the OLPC, some of us can't help but but 2 and 2 together and get 4. A decent Linux system doesn't need 256MB, while XP can barely run its own Explorer interface, much less any additional programs (and I wouldn't even want to try any of the Office apps such as Word) on anything less.
As the biggest issue here, you need to look at this from two perspectives - Ours, as (most likely) middle-class geeks posting from a Western nation viewing this as a really cool (and still exceedingly cheap) compromise between a palmheld and a laptop and cheap enough to consider nearly disposeable; And a third-world school looking at a total budget of $150 per year, trying to decide if they should buy an OLPC or rebuild the school that washed away in the annual spring mudslide.
Cheap toys vs still-expensive tools.
And lest you take that as baseless speculation, "However, Negroponte disclosed that XO's developers have been working with Microsoft Corp. so a version of Windows can run on the machines as well". No, not a "side effect". Boost the specs and boost the price just so Microsoft can play along.
I wonder how much Nick Negroponte's soul cost Mr. Gates...
The brilliance of the OLPC project is the almost crash proof simplicity of the product. A fresh start. For anyone who has used a (now defunct) Psion Organiser, one of the easiest to use and reliable (albiet unconnected) PDAs ever launched anywhere in the world, a user friendly stable GUI is what empowers people to focus on the task at hand, not the device. Think Toaster, Microwave or iPod. As a Mac user who has just spent two weeks playing with Vista, I wish to state as a software designer that MS products are a hindrance, not a tool for productivity. The majority of the world's greatest structures (Pyramids, Empire State Building, every (old) cathedral and church) ever build were designed and constructed before computers using intuitive tools - paper and pen(cil). Windows, and even OSX is a barrier to true creativity and expression. The unique GUI of the OLPC was a fantastic opportunity to start afresh and empower people who have never touched a computer before. Now all these people will do is send emails and run spreadsheets. How exciting. How original. How inspiring. Not. A sad sad day. I think it's time I got back together with my industrial designer and created an OLPC that meets the original vision of NN at MiT. Watch this space. (www.owonder.com)
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
I spotted a typo in you post:
... designed by the computer illiterate ...
Windows is designed by lawyers, marketing analysts and people who watch other people using Macs.
lower entry barriers
You're joking, right? Microsoft is nothing but barriers to entry. $$$ for this, $$$ for that, $$$ for the other. And then more $$$ to keep it all safe. And then the same again next year.
Slashdot contributers are mostly above average people but this same topic keeps cropping up. No company is a single faceted thing, if someone does something it not for a good or bad purpose soley, such a single sided idea from even an individual is hard to come by. If I want pizza tonight, is it soley a hommage to my love of Italy? Because I like take away food? Because its good value food? Because I feel like oily food? Because I saw Nicole Richie and figured if I can still see my penis when I look down maybe im too thin too? You can argue any number of them and they could all be true, even I wouldnt know the one reason why. Just because Microsoft dominates the market with aggressive tactics doesn't mean its not partially a good will thing. You can hardly say bill gates doesn't give back to the community, I don't know any other billionaire that's so altruistic, how much does jobs donate? If its a move to secure Microsoft's position as the most popular OS world wide, then of course that what they should do, that's what any company would do. Isn't the Linux community looking at the OLPC project as a platform to spread Linux? The one upside to Windows is that it will allow them to run software 90-95% of desktop users can run, having Linux on most the developing worlds computers but not on the developed is almost like a barrier they are trying to remove. But in fairness MS should do more to make a cut down version to run, god knows my VM Ware win2k machine boots so fast it makes me wonder what the hell XP and Vista is loading. Dual booted OLPC would be the best middle ground as choice should be something everyone has. Its what I feel the cornerstone of open source software is.
Negroponte has screwed open source by nearly doubling the OLPC price so it can run Windows. He's just back-stabbed all the people who donated a lot of time and effort into putting together a low cost laptop and the free as in speech software to run it.
The OLPC project is now dead, just like every other venture that capitulates with Microsoft.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
whatever it was worth... I am from a "3rd world country" a, but a price RAM to increase specs... for Windows?? the fact that this is at least a rumor is a bad side for what was once a purely open initiative - I guess I still wish them luck, but I won't be cheering for them anymore.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Wow. Imagine my surprise to find slashdotters who think the most important part of making a semi-affordable laptop for poor children living in third world countries is that it promotes open source.
I don't really buy the "wow, 128 extra megs of RAM and 512MB more hard disk space--THEY'RE SLEEPING WITH MICROSOFT!" nonsense. I could buy the parts for that RETAIL and not pay an extra $75, with the exception that probably nobody bothers to sell that kind of super-low-end hardware anymore.
More likely, they had a goal of $100 laptop and have realized that manufacturing isn't cheap. Costs run up all the time in projects of any scope. They've said all along that they expect the price to come down each year; that's an effect of manufacturing, not a magical "Microsoft tax" that apparently would only apply for one year.
Typing in from a country that is stuck amidst 1st world and 3rd world neighbors, and cant decide which category itself falls into, im saying that $175 price tag for OLPC means labeling it as "DEAD" with colorfully lettered stickers.
even in turkey $175 for such a device is way too much that any family wanting to buy one might ask the supplier whether they will let them pay in installments spreading over 12 or better, 24 months.
Needless to say that in countries that fall in southern and southeastern directions from turkey, which encompass most of the 3rd world countries, $175 will just make olpc a no gamer.
evidently someone sold their soul to some bastards. sad to see, as this olpc thing actually had a chance.
this $175 deal thing is apparently something to enable microsoft to push windows crap on them to third (and second) world so that they will create a userbase and a future upgrade market. if this shit goes through like this,i got to say that, as an it world participant and employee, i will consult anyone and any institution in my area against olpc and ensure i have a hand in its failure. despite i want it to happen very much, better not to happen, than to happen foul.
maybe everything is not over yet. If olpc contributors reassess the situation and pressurize the leaders, sold souls might be reclaimed, if it is not too late.
Read radical news here
There's a couple of decades of evidence as to how Microsoft "works" and this person seems to be aware of this. He/she knows that what is said publicly by Microsoft or associates is NOT related to reality since it is ALL PR and marketing-speak. BTW, the OLPC people have already said that they have increased the cost of the OLPC device by adding the SD lot AT MICROSOFTS REQUEST. Therefore, there is already evidence that they are adapting the system for Microsoft without an official partnership with them. The latest moves stating that they've increased the CPU performance, doubled both system memory and storage ALONG WITH stating support for Microsoft Windows makes it easy to put together the picture of what is going on and to fear the end of the OLPC project.
BTW, I agree 100% with the comments stated. Microsoft must see OLPC fail if it is not running Microsoft Windows. Microsoft is not out to save the world or educate the world and their only purpose on this earth is to sell Microsoft software. Negroponte and group are fools if they think Microsoft has ANY OTHER MOTIVE. Like I said, there are a couple of decades of evidence which shows how Microsoft 'works'.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I'd like to see what RedHat thinks about this. They invest so much in the new interface, and overall OS, with the hope to create something new, and more appropriate for kids, with very innovative features nowhere to be found in conventional PCs (mesh networking, real collaborative activities). Now the OLPC leadership is basically saying: "Sugar is nice, but let's put the old Windows as an alternative, regardless its feasibility in the use in a school environment, after all nobody was ever fired when buying MS products". To me that seems a slap in the faces to RedHat, and ultimately to the kids. This was supposed to be an educational project. As time goes by, it looks more as a business effort to sell dumb computers in developing countries. Nobody talks about content, how to use these things in schools.