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No Windows (Officially) On OLPC
Kadin2048 writes "Despite reports last week in major news sources indicating that the One Laptop Per Child project was in negotiations with Microsoft to bring Windows XP to the low-cost platform, Walter Bender, president of Software and Content at OLPC, said in an interview with Ars Technica, 'We are a free and open-source shop. We have no one from OLPC working with Microsoft on developing a Windows platform for the XO.'"
re MS forcing the price of the OLPC up with their hardware requirements look very silly now doesn't it.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
If there's one thing you can believe coming from the OLPC people, it's when they acknowledge that they don't have something!
I'm sure Microsoft did contact them, and asked for $50 in licensing fees per unit to ship it with Windows Vista Crippled Edition Ultimate, so Bender told them to bite his shiny ass.
I am glad to hear that it won't be Windows. Open software is a much better choice when you are trying to distribute low-cost computers to every child. Windows would have locked them into the Windows upgrade cycle, required frequent net access for updates, and would have just hidden a lot of the internals from the kids.
Open software, while it also requires updates, gives them a much better platform on which to learn. They can explore *nix operating systems, add programs - almost always for free, plus it will build an open software user base around the world. Not that that isn't already happening as more and more countries and companies switch to open source software, but by bringing on a new generation, this will be the push to put open source over the top.
They should definitely go with ubuntu in my opinion, then dell can outsource the technical support to 3rd world countries full of uber linux kiddies
Windows has no place on a system built with the ideals for which OLPC strives.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Good that children won't have to suffer through Windows and end up using it later in life because they don't want to climb another learning curve.
... I was hoping to run that at home for the few Windows applications I still need to use.
Bad because I was hoping Microsoft would release a "base" version of Windows with nothing but the bare essentials
I am sure some countries will be more than happy to get cheap laptops on one side and then install Windows on them in exchange for a large discount from Microsoft for their government's Windows/Office licenses on the other. Thailand, I am looking at you.
Some countries involved in the program are serious about free software, but I am afraid others are just looking for a bargain. Not to be pessimistic but I will wait to see what happens before considering the OLPC project as an incredible boon for free software, like some people here.
But everyone knows having a Windows OS teaches a child invaluable lessons in stress management!
I mean okay, it's a cool project, but can Negroponte stop being such a media whore for a moment or two? There's no reason to have a press release every time you make a design decision. In fact, this could be entirely under-the-radar.
I was looking forward to using the "show code" button on Windows.
BTW, yes there is an actual "show code" button on the keyboard. It's really cool. You can edit the code of most of the included applications and apply changes on the fly. I know it's for kids, but I REALLY want one of these laptops. Check it out at www.laptop.org
Open software is a much better choice when you are trying to distribute low-cost computers to every child. Windows would have locked them into the Windows upgrade cycle, required frequent net access for updates, and would have just hidden a lot of the internals from the kids.
Get real, these are not machines destined for upgrades and I seriously doubt a full blown version of windows would have ever be used.
Besides, if you want to get nit picky. Windows delivers updates very easily and wholly hidden should you choose. Its by far one of the easiest methods out there. Second, the people destined to get these machines are not going to care one whit about the "internals".
These PCs are not about exploring an operating system, its about getting to the end user the information they need to lead better lives. The last thing on the minds of the supporters is a war between unix and windows. They are more concerned with making sure these people can communicate with each other, receive information helpful to their daily lives (like weather), and provide education to children who may not have access to a teacher.
On a side note, I still think the OLPC is more feel good than do good. We are still relying on these governments actually doing what we want them to do with these tools and we still have the belief that people actually want them in the countries we are sending them too. My fear is way too many of these will end up along the roadside with the other trash.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
putting WinXP in OLPC would be like trying to stuff a hippopotamus in to a compact car...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The 1% of kids who care are the 1% who can do the most to power the economy. They are the ones worth supplying computers to, even at the effective $10000 per machine if you assume the other kids (99%) get no use out of their machines.
According to the OLPC news blog, a lot of the participating nations had asked for a secure digital card reader and they also noted that nand flash memory was dropping in price, so they wanted both updates before committing to huge orders, as a sort of future proofing, to make the machines viable for a longer time period. The geode processor didn't have a good enough flash memory reader, so they added an asic controller and did their own driver. Those upgrades fed the idea that eventually some flavor of windows could run on the thing (or other OSes down the road perhaps). You have to admit, the original specs were rather small, so having the ability to upgrade the ram and drive space makes some sense because it is optional now, as opposed to totally hardwired to the mobo/non upgradeable as per the original design.
So much for OLPC for having its potential buyers in getting to use software that the majority of the world uses.
I think this project is a waste of resources. Why build new and crippled systems (hardware-wise) and sell it to third world countries and call it a humanitarian service when there are thousands of old computers that are in working condition, capable of running XP and other modern software, but are not being used at all or are being thrown out. We could be saving a ton of resources if we just had a program that went around our nation and other first-world nations gathering old computers, making them work and send them off to schools in third-world countries for little to no money.
There are many organizations out there that already do this and they do it all for free. Now that is charity/humanitarian work. Charging the poor for a crippled and exclusive non-standard system is by no means charity - just a publicity stunt.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
The funny thing is, with more than half of the people that it's targeting... the OS won't even matter... it will PROBABLY end up being a pirated version of windows anyway! I think that is a great choice to continue advancements in technology. NOT because it will be linux, but because it will force others to catch up with new technology and quit putting out crap. :D
Well, this will probably push MS to work on a linux based OS... and mark my words, it will happen.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
Clearly you are a Microsoft disinformation agent! From Costa Rica!
+++ATH0
I mean, I believe Windows still has a place in various environments where it's hard to find competing well-tried products, but if there's some environment I can't understand why one would use it, it's in aids for development nations. They don't need the hottest nVidia drivers for gaming, they don't need advanced CAD applications for construction, they just need the standard stuff, that many Linux distros today offers perfectly fine. They can even get full office suites, and then I think they're starting to push their needs for these low cost computers already.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
...but that lack of Windows on the OLPC could be an issue.
Mainly because your average Joe Schmo is absolutely convinced that Windows is a program for writing letters on, or something equally stupid. The lack of interoperability with the rest of the world (however stupid the rest of the world is) puts people at a serious disadvantage.
For instance, we all know that ODT is the superior document format, but try giving one to someone (in the Joe Schmo category) who only uses Word. They look at you as if you had two heads. Same thing is actually quite common for the pdf format (I'm telling you, it happens).
The OLPCs are not going to people who are sitting on the side of a ditch oblivious of the wider IT world. They will have heard of Windows, and they will want to know why they are getting this 'second-rate' linux thingy. When they do business they will do it with some idiot who is blissfully unaware of anything outside of Office.
I wouldn't for one second suggest that Windows should be shipped with the OLPC. But there are perception issues that must be dealt with.
I'm reminded of the film 'The Shipping News' - when asked what kind of computer he wants, Quoyle says 'an IBM'. He didn't know whether it was any good or not, he just knew that it was the 'right' answer. And unfortunately, at the moment 'Microsoft' is the 'right' answer.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
But take a hard, realistic look at countries like Nigeria and THEIR experience with an impoverished population gaining access to the internet. When poor Nigerians got access to the internet, they didn't use it to primarily to better themselves--they used it to set up scams, relay points for identity theft, etc.
When you give a truly impoverished kid a computer, it's very nice to think "Well, he'll use that to go through years of education to get a job in a country where even IT professionals make a pittance." But, more likely, he'll see the MUCH more provocative possibility of using it to scam and steal from those with VASTLY greater resources than he has (i.e., us in the first world) with relative ease.
Even if he can just scam, spam, and ID theft his way into $40 a week, it's more than enough to bribe local authorities to look the other way, feed his whole family, and buy himself access to a world which was way beyond his reach before. To him that's a good thing. To the rest of the world, it's a huge pain in the ass. In a way, it's a warped way of leveling the playing field and "redistributing wealth," but definitely NOT in the way the OLPC expects.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
All of those used computers and the displays needed you mention require being plugged into the mains, which may or may not exist where these little laptops are going. The laptops are self powered with a pull string generator charger. That makes a rather big difference one might think. They are also LAPTOPS, which means the kids can haul them to and from school, etc. They also have integral MESH NETWORKING, which your used desktop systems don't have.
And so on. Every one of these points has been brainstormed, and the project as it stands was determined to be the best over-all compromise for the situation and project, which is primarily an educational project, and the primary use of the proposed machines is for them to have the ability to have hundreds of books cheaply, and to be able to custom tailor what the various nations and kids need and want.
As for it being crippled, on the contrary, there are some spiffy new hardware designs coming out of that project, just the self powered part and the display innovations have made it worthwhile, as this tech will expand into general planetary gadget-dom. As to the expense, do some basic math, run the cost of hundreds of hard copy books plus shipping, etc, to each individual kid, compared to a lightweight upgradeable e-book reader that has the ability to keep pulling down new books as they come out, plus let the kids write,draw, create, etc and you'll see this option is way, WAY cheaper than the traditional methods, short,medium or long term.
If you think of it more as a decent networkable e-book reader/multi functional decent screen sized PDA that is self powered, then it makes more sense than thinking of it as a standard laptop or desktop replacement. The same tool could conceivably be a kids entire set of books and learning tools throughout their entire primary school years. It is going to be an economic *deal* for these nations, not a burden, it is going to drastically reduce educational costs at the same time as it expands resources, a win/win thing.
Did Negroponte himself force his way into your home or office and hold a gun to your head forcing you to click on this story and post a comment? Some of us give a shit, and if you don't that is fine, but why do you have to post whiny bitching about it?
No MS tax.
but with MS Windows - UBSOD = Unlimited Blue Screens of Death for all!
Navy Tim www.navytim.com
Imagine if The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated OLPC to even just each village in Africa. They could help humanity so much.
The hardware upgrades weren't done because of MS. The CPU upgrade was done because the newer Geode offers a bigger cash, that helps speeding up the Python interpreter. AMD provided the new chip for the same price of the old. The Memory upgrade was a specific request of the involved countries. They were requesting it because with a bigger flash the machine would be have remained usable for an extended number of years. The SD card was an addition that MS appreciated, but was unrelated. The chip controller had built in SD capabilities, so the cost of implementation of the SD slot consisted only in the actual case. For the same reason the camera is there because the controller has the capabilities built in and the CCD sensor is cheap enough to be part of the XO. So no, no conspiracy theories. MS may benefit from all this, but it is nowhere to be related to these changes.
The people behind OLPC have always stated that Linux was not chosen just for being free in the sense of free beer but mostly because it is free in the sense of free speech. Even if a Microsoft operating system was given to OLPC for free, it still would not have any chance unless it completely changed its license. (Which would definitely not happen!)
It's called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs. Good luck scoring a copy, though.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
But there is! It's called distribution. So, (kernel + userspace + toolchain)*(made by Ubuntu) = The Ubuntu Linux Distribution.
Hatredman
$150-200 or so laptop without Windows. This is going to make a lot of students and home users jump ship. I see no loss at it not having Windows.
I've spent some time traveling in Fiji, which is certainly a developing nation, though I'm not aware of them being part of the OLPC program yet. Since Fiji only has 2 cities, it is nice to know that in the larger towns, internet cafe's can still be found. What I noticed in these cafe's though is that the cafe employees really did not know much more about computers than many of the customers (locals). I even ran into a cafe owner who was shocked at how much bandwidth he would actually need to run his business when he found out how quickly he had gone over his limit in the first month of business.
The situation ends up being one where everyone is still learning. No one has gotten used to the windows (or any other OS) environment and trying something like Linux that is geared for beginner users should be easy to adapt to. I doubt most of the people using computers in these nations care if they use MS Word or OpenOffice or some other word processor- a lot of them just want to type a resume. As long as it works, they're happy.
The other thing to note is that during my 18 weeks of traveling in Fiji, I've stayed in many homes and villages. Aside from computers at high end hotels, or internet cafes, I saw 2 computers in homes. In the first instance, the computer was covered in a nice lace table cover thing so that it wasn't a distraction. In the 3 weeks I spent in the home, it didn't get turned on once. I also doubt that it was connected to the phone line, which would have been the only source of internet in this village. I think the unit may have been broken, but it would have to travel to another island to find the nearest computer repair guy.
The other house had a laptop computer. Installed was a Vodaphone Wireless card which provided 56kbps internet connection over the cell towers. The main purpose of this laptop was actually for business, in that the owner also owned a local craft shop/mini mart, and his laptop was the only internet access on the island. His shop was next door to the post office and received electricity all day. The village in which he lived though, only received electricity during evening hours.
The laptop was far more portable and useful between these computers. In other developing nations, where electricity may be rationed during the day or simply not available, it's nice to see someone providing a laptop that can be powered by batteries charged by mechanical energy. Also, having low power components to extend the life of the power seems a good idea too. I'm all for recycling old computers and giving them to people who can use them, but this will be a computer that even students in the most remote regions of developing nations will be able to use. The problem then becomes getting people to be able to teach how to use them, though I think once given the basics, kids will pick up on it right away.
'We are a free and open-source shop. We have no one from OLPC working with Microsoft on developing a Windows platform for the XO.'
Let's put our ideology in front of the welfare of poor people.
that actually Negroponte had accepted the possibility of loading a Windows OS on the OLPC, alternatively. What would this mean?
It would make the OLPC acceptable to many more schools and governments (first and second worlds?). In fact, we hear that 19 U.S. states are now interested to buy OLPCs for their schoolchildren; would that happen if the OLPC were restricted to the modified Fedora Core software package? So, it makes sense to accept the idea that Negroponte really doubled (at least) the memory space to accommodate some version of Windows with educational applications.
Now, what kind of Windows would that be?
If it were Windows XP, it would have to be very much stripped down of all bells and whistles and leave only essential functions to be able to fit in the limited memory of the OLPC, and still load applications. The applications cannot be large, which precludes any mainstream application such as MS Office. All educational applications will have to be limited in size.
If it were Windows CE, it would lack many of the regular Windows features to handle fully developed educational or network applications and book reading/writing functions. No matter what MS does, the resulting installed software cannot be rich and beautiful, so that the MS repertoire cannot be much better than the critized Sugar GUI running under a squeezed Fedora Core.
On the other hand, having additional memory, the GNU/Linux repertoire of applications can be richer and more applications can run simultaneously, thus removing limitations from the original OLPC software setup.
If MS chooses Windows 95 or 98 to drive the OLPC, then the virus filters cannot be run together because they are heavy on resources, in which case malware will easily take over when the children communicate over the internet. Even Windows XP, which on large virtual memories slows down over time due to memory leaks (a difficult to neutralize bug), will slow down in a few hours of operation, because the limited memory would be allocated and not freed, and a memory full crash would occur.
The more I think of it, the more it looks that the OLPC is not a good hardware for Windows to shine on in any form; on the contrary. On limited hardware, poor OS quality will immediately and visibly affect performance. In a short time, the children will NEED to switch to the original Fedora Core system.
Running Windows on the OLPC would be self-defeating.
Which leaves the $3 Windows package to be the last resort for MS to gain market share in the third-world. It appears to me that it won't work well.
Studies are now showing that students with laptops perofmr the same as students without.
t op.html
I can understand putting these in places where students do not have access to textbooks and simple writing implements but most of the early signatory countries are places like Japan, Korea and Australia. Places where textbooks are writing implmenents are in abundant supply.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04lap
Throwing technology blindly at children in the hopes they will somehow magically get better at Math and Science is a foolish and wasteful endeavor. especially since we most likely won't have the energy resources required to power the infrastructure necessary to keep the internet going within our own lifetimes unless people get up off their asses and start demanding more nuclear power facilities and renewable energy sources start supplying the grid now.
This short sightedness will be our undoing.
Cassandra out.
It is bound to influence engineering of a special kind of work tool for writers, journalists, college students, scientists, scriptwriters, digital painters, philosophers, etc. It is becoming one of the greatest inventions of our time.
People should not underestimate the value of the OLPC concept for mankind.
The OLPC has a flash memory of one megabyte, I believe, so TinyXP would fit with the applications. But is it much better than Windows CE? What functions have been removed to attain this small size? I wonder if the bugs that cause memory leakage have been removed...
Adults who believe in Windows want it to be pretty and musical, and would not like their children to bypass such "PC user experience."
Big surprise. I mean, the rumored suggested price for windows running on those things would have been $3 a pop? Right. It would have been a scaled down version of CE. linux would run better on blender than any windows on a $100 laptop.
yep