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Microsoft Wants OLPC System to Run Windows XP
Stony Stevenson passed us a link to an IT News story about Microsoft's recent request that the folks behind the XO laptop redesign it to suit their needs. The company now wants to be able to run Windows XP on the highly-publicized and inexpensive portable. "Microsoft general manager ... Utzschneider says a shrunken version of Windows XP could potentially run on 2 Gbytes of flash memory. The XO, however, can only hold 1 Gbyte. As a result, Microsoft wants the XO's designers to add a slot through which more memory can be added via a secure digital (SD) card, Utzschneider said. Microsoft's renewed interest in participating in OLPC might be viewed by skeptics as an admission that a rival offering for developing markets called Classmate — which uses an Intel processor on Microsoft software — has failed to catch on."
Redesign the machine to fit our OS.
Classic.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You want a low cost computer to give to the children of the world that runs XP? You're sitting on billions of capital. Your ex-CEO runs a worldwide charity. You have manufacturing experience with the XBox360. You have industry alliances with all the major chip manufacturers.
Why don't you BUILD one? I'm sure you could make it "better" and you'd have a whole new customer base. You could even lock out competitors.
Or better yet, why dontcha give away copies of Windows CE? That runs under a gig... doesn't it?
Microsoft's only argument seems to be that there's lots of educational software written for Windows that becomes available this way. But if the OLPC becomes very widespread, surely those programs will be adapted for the OLPC. If the OLPC doesn't have Windows, the software will be adapted to the Windows-less OLPC.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
From what I've read, Negroponte would in no way be interested in Windows, even if it were donated for free. Every part of the XO is designed to aid collaboration, and understanding of what's going on under the hood. There's a hard-wired button next to the volume that pops up the source code for the current application, for chrissake. The idea is that the kids can use the computer, AND jump in and make changes, and learn in the process. It's not just a cheap laptop, it's a new computing environment. A lot of the value is in the custom software. Installing Windows would be as damaging to that effort as installing a straight Ubuntu distribution.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
So true. A friend of mine had never used a computer before and bought an eMachines with XP loaded. Well, his nephew and nephew's wife browsed a bunch of porn sites and got it so riddled with viruses and spyware it was unuseable, so I reinstalled from the GHOST CD and put in a better firewall, Firefox, etc.
Two weeks later it was hosed again so I reinstalled XP yet again, and installed Mandriva as dual boot. I disabled networking in Windows, problems solved.
He found Mandriva/KDE easier to use than XP. But then again, he'd never used a computer before and didn't have to unlearn anything.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
It seems MS is trying hard to get XP to work on the OLPC, but since the SD connection is not a standard one, they need to make the drivers to all the hardware themselves AND they so definitely can not touch any olpc GPL code they need to be very careful! Things are not going as smooth as MS would like it to be.
Some interesting stories:
concerns for this all
general info about the things MS is doing
Dependency hell? =>
Who wouldn't want a WinXP version with source code attached? :)
If i was Negroponte, i wouldn't say a flat 'NO'. I would ask for the source code
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
OLPC can not, but MS could. Since MS had no desire to be on this from the ground floor, perhaps, they could pay for ALL of the systems to have improved set-up. In fact, they could perhaps pay the extra 50 dollars/system to get it down to a 100, in exchange for OLPC meeting MS's conditions. When you think about it, MS spends FAR more money on trying to kill off linux/google, so this would be chump change, and could help a number of children.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It amazes me how arrogant MS is in this matter. These are laptops designed to be perfect for kids and to educate them and facilitate their access to communications. How does MS think Windows compares? These laptops all mesh seamlessly with one another, using zeroconf to auto-discover other OLPCs and share pictures and music, chat, collaborate on compositions, writings, programs, drawings, and educational games, and share network access. MS hasn't even managed to implement zeroconf in Vista, despite it being a well established standard in use on every other OS, by printers and hardware, and even implemented by specific applications running in Windows (Adobe CS3, Trillian, iTunes). There is even a free reference implementation for .Net, but they haven't bothered to incorporate it. Hey geniuses, why don't you catch up in your core market for a change, instead of trying to destroy competition and innovation in a different one, especially one as important as educating kids.
Yes you are. Giving food destroys the local economy. Giving medicine helps in the short term but what about the future? It takes real world skills to move from a 3rd world to a 2nd world economy.
Anyway, OLPC works best in areas with a little infrastructure and working poor. It's a tool that could open much of the world to the world economy vs. aid without end. The 3rd world is not going to grow up in the same way we did. They are happy to skip land lines and go strait to cell phones and they are happy to skip over DOS. All they need is something to trade and like India and China the economy will start go grow rapidly.
Really? I suppose he wouldn't be too interested in the Natalie Portman jokes or iPhone banter, but neither most poor people nor most slashdotters are so insular and parochial. The OLPC and the Internet facilitate people talking to people, and is thus an absolute good.
More likely the kid is going to do a Google search on improved irrigation techniques. Or learn something about what crops might be better adapted to the soil. Maybe he will join a forum where he can talk to farmers in the first world about farming techniques. Maybe he can go ahead and find a dealer who will give him more for his crops than he is currently getting. I never ceased to be amazed what real, non-geek people find on the Internet. They find things that actually pertain to what they deal with in real life. I on the other hand have been "online" since 2400 baud, so oddly enough all I find are warez, pr0n and security utilities.