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News On Laptops For Education

Posted by kdawson on from the battle-of-the-cheap-and-rugged dept.

AdamWill notes a Mandriva press release with the news that the government of Nigeria has selected Intel-powered classmate PCs running Mandriva Linux for educational use in a nationwide pilot. About 17,000 machines will be involved at first. We can only wonder at the maneuvering and negotiations that went on with the OLPC project. The latter had its first announced order for 100,000 XO machines, from Uruguay, with a potential for 400,000 over time. The bigger news out of OLPC is that Microsoft is porting XP to the platform, and chairman Nicholas Negroponte says that's fine with him: "It would be hard for OLPC to say it was 'open' and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open."

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Open by ls+-la · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    chairman Nicholas Negroponte says that's fine with hin: "It would be hard for OLPC to say it was 'open' and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open." But 'open' DOESN'T mean that the XO project should have doubled the specs and cost of the OLPC so Microsoft would have an easier time porting to it.
  2. Re:I ask for your advice by arth1 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It takes one to know one?
    I'm not the least bit surprised that someone high up in Nigeria raised a finger and said "wait a minute" when there were plans to buy tens of thousands of portable devices from the brother of the US national intelligence czar, and who also coincidentally just happened to be on the ethics committee for the newspapers who have praised and hyped the XO, and similarly coincidentally just happens to be a board member or consultant for several of the parts suppliers for the OLPC project...

    "Charity" and "at cost", my ass.

  3. Funny definition of "open" by trolltalk.com · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "It would be hard for OLPC to say it was 'open' and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open."

    So when is Microsoft going to release the source? Or does "open" mean "closed"?

    --
    Kevin Smith on Prince
  4. MODERATORS: Please correct - not Flamebait by bADlOGIN · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Somebody must be astroturfing hard to not rate the parrent comment Insightfull.
    Now this comment I'm making, that you should mark as Flamebait;)

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    *** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.