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OLPC CTO Quits to Commercialize OLPC Technology
theodp writes "The One Laptop Per Child project suffered a blow Monday, with CTO Mary Lou Jepsen quitting the nonprofit to start a for-profit company to commercialize technology she invented with OLPC (the first of Jepsen's pending OLPC patents was published by the USPTO on Dec. 13). The OLPC project halted consumer sales of the cheap laptop at the end of December."
Much as I hate to say it, it sounds like that OLPC group didn't consult an attorney to have a proper contract drawn up between all parties. Not that I RTFA or anything.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
So in other words, she did an 'ebay' on them.
Norris Normal - Who am I?
Who said that free movements had no innovations? :)
Also it had invented a bitch.
Be like shadow in the light or darkness.KMZ
This sounds like this could be great for everyone. Hopefully Jepsen's new career path leads to more and more products having the sorts of technology we're seeing used by the OLPC folks. She can continue innovating as the XO is designed and the OLPC project focuses on manufacturing, distribution, and such and then cooperate with the OLPC people in the future as their product will be updated.
I don't know what this means for OLPC, but I hope it doesn't fragment it or hurt the movement. I just bought mine yesterday through the "Give one, get one" (or however that goes). I figure I'll either hack a little on mine or give it to a local family I know who could use it (and not be able to afford it). I think it's a great idea. I know some criticize and go one about providing basic needs--but why can't we do both? These computers represent a quantum leap in education--which will hopefully translate into a significant improvement in living conditions for many. If we all step up and try to support programs that provide food, water, and health care, imagine the possibilities!
;-)
Not to criticize OLPC, but I think they should just keep the "Give One, Get One" program going. They could even drop the price a little and use the success of the project overall to purchase free ones for third world populations. Maybe it wouldn't be as direct or immediate as the 1/1 ratio now, but it would keep things moving. But I get why they are doing what they are doing--I just hope it succeeds and that people are as giving as they give them credit for
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
My initial reaction was "What the hell, you theiving bastard stealing technology from a non-profit organization" But when you look at it, what difference does it make going out and selling these cheap laptops for profit, firstly the main selling point is gone, and the market is gone, so its just another cheap laptop- all be it with a littl einteresting technology, but nonetheless, atleast here in the UK that market has already been entered (asus eepc) so, betrayal- probably morally rather than contractually (Sp?), good move- probably not actually.
A person claiming responsibility for some of the XO's innovations has left the OLPC in order to be compensated for her inventions. I don't see the problem with this. The power consumption technologies are amazing; hard drives, processors, and displays all consume a lot of power.
My laptop only runs about 40 minutes at full bore (i.e., if I disable all of the power saving features). There is much work to be done in this area. I'd like to see a huge transition from HDD to solid state disks (i.e., 2.5" and 3.5" flash-like drives), as well as from CISC to RISC processors, especially for servers running on the x86 architecture. The former is probably more likely. HDD pales in comparison to SSD for reliability, performance, and power consumption. We already have small devices that run on flash memory; why can't we use similar technology for laptops in the future?
"You could almost look at defense of Microsoft as a form of the Stockholm syndrome." -neapolitan
Or is there just something really distasteful about the way the OLPC was hyped, sucked obscene amounts of funding and ultimately delivered? Media Lab's always had a degree of self-congratulatory hype machine about it, but the OLPC at $200 is way overpriced, way too specialized as far as maintainability, and this little patent trove they've accumulated and will now "sell" to others is just the icing on the cake. This ordinarily wouldn't bother me but its all being done under the guise of helping 'the poor 3rd worlders' which frankly I think is nonsense. The 3rd worlders will build their own machines from asian/chinese parts and replace them w/ similarly cheap parts when bits break at basically the same price point the OLPC is selling at. That will cover 99% of the 3rd world just fine, OLPC is over engineered for a very specific subset of rural, dirty and apparently earthquake prone 3rd world. What they really built was a fantastic low power rugged laptop for engineers/field technicians in an outdoor rough environment (oil derricks, large machinery etc) (and I bet this is what the spin off is going to cater too) but funded it by having us think of those "poor 3rd worlders"
I wonder if there is some way to bootstrap this to get the price of high function cell phones down? After all the high end HTC phones are little more than palmtop computers that have a phone instead of a modem and NIC.
She'll continue to consult with OLPC and provide product to OLPC at cost. I think, I may be overlooking something, I'd love to see all of the OLPC tech released into the commercial market this way. It could help drive the manufacturing costs down and get the XO back down to the original $100US per unit goal. I participated in the Buy One, Get One program because I thought the hardware sounded damn handy, despite being configured for children.
I am all for anything that brings us closer to a similar commercial unit at a reasonable price as long as it isn't directly detrimental to the OLPC project. This does seem like this could go in a similar direction to the Classmate PC, but that would be the decision of the final manufacturer/distributor and would presumably require price breaks to be competitive. Honestly I haven't looked into the Classmate much, but I may have to spend a little time looking into it. I disliked having Windows on such a project, but I really don't know enough about the hardware to feel strongly about it.
The "consumer demand" for OLPC is based on its price and novelty, not on its performance or utility. She has jumped ship quite prematurely and her character flaws will soon result in a bitter future for the OLPC project and her own independent ventures.
If she thinks she can start collecting royalties on the OLPC and get rich, which is what I suspect is her intent, she'll find that it won't pay off nearly as well as she imagines and ultimately, she'll end up selling her patent rights to some company that somehow sees the OLPC operation as a competitor.
The OLPC project has proven to be a very interesting story to follow in that various new technologies were developed or improved while creating the devices. But it seems that there is very strong potential for OLPC to fail due to greed and short-sightedness. It's shameful, but it's neither rare nor unexpected.
The program wasn't "Halted" - the end date was extended to 12/31 - the headline is written to make it sound like this chick left and the program was "halted".
I don't know the details of the new technology and who deserves to be compensated for it. Frankly, I couldn't care less. What really, really makes me sad is that all of us...the "First World" countries...use so much and have so much, yet we're so goddamned cheap about spreading it around.
I'll freely admit that I'm pulling a number right out of my ass here, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the total cost of the Iraq invasion (including care for wounded veterans) outstripped the total expenditure on aid and charity over the period.
It might be time to have a look at our priorities.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
In being nice.
You might make a living giving yourself away, but you wont make a real profit.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The OLPC was a marketing ploy and nothing else. You fall for it every time. Altruism doesn't exist, because people use altruism to promote themselves as better than the rest of us.
The Third World doesn't need laptops. It needs rice and medicine. Or ideally, it needs none of these things, since the reason it's having problems is that it's disorganized and cannot support its own population. Let them die out and the third world stabilizes itself.
Western aid to the third world has done nothing but breed more people who cannot take care of themselves, the same way our welfare programs breed useless idiots.
You complain about our elections going to the wrong guys, and that people always buy the wrong technology. Why, then, would you ever support any initiative to make more idiots?
The OLPC is an initiative to make more idiots, most notably by convincing all of you it's altruistic, and then every person involved using it as a profit center. But you fell for it again, because you, humanity, are suckers for nice-sounding things that have no reality in them.
Anti-Globalism
What, do you think people work for free? Jeez, fancy that.. a benevolent effort to build a $100 notebook made a key person who worked on it realize that they could get quite rich if they could still make $40 a piece off of them.
This only reinforces my general thrust - all of these "save the people types" have some angle in it for them. Now we find out that OLPC was in fact, just another one of those slick tricks. Everyone on board digs the "we're not the corporation" mine to get attention, then they deliver something, and then, establish a price point. Now, they'll leave the OLPC one by one, and filter out into cushy jobs with normal companies, getting 6 figure holiday bonuses and 7 figure stocks, giving the likes of Lenovo and Dell their lessons learned on how to make $100 notebooks. OLPC will gradually die, staffed on by a few talentless fools and ideologues that had no idea that the plan was never to have OLPC succeed at all, and the people left behind will engage in all sorts of double think to try and cover that they have been betrayed.
Everyone has an angle.
This is my sig.
A lot of people creamed their pants over the linux part, but why would they use geode x86 over ARM? Why would they get pissed when MS started doing the same thing?
OK, they need to get the price down to $100. Instead of selling them in the US at $400 at a 100% profit margin to raise money for charity, they need to just sell the things for $199 commercially and take over the low end market. In a year or two, they'll be down to $99 through sheer volume.
Those things ought to be in bubble-packs at the local drugstore, alongside the cheap calculators, electronic dictionaries, and other low end electronics. This wouldn't stroke Negroponte's ego, but it would get the things out there in volume. Soon enough, they'd be available all over the world, purely on price.
Jepsen probably sees this. Negroponte wants to meet with heads of state and be in the press.
how this as blow to the OLPC project, she is still offering her technology at cost to OLPC and still consulting with them. Also, because of the G1G1 program Haiti, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Afghanistan now have seed programs, which means that her technology is now on display in at least eight different countries[counting Mexico and Peru].
While your statement is closer to reality, ask yourself this:
;)
If all they need is the means of production, why didn't they develop it?
Your average third world country is a former empire of greatness that has completed failed. Its people have IQs in the 80s and 90s on average. This is ten to fifteen points behind the industrialized world. Coincidence?
What afflicts the third world seems to be disorganization, corruption, dishonesty, and low intelligence. That's why they're in the fix they're in, just like some communities in the USA (trailer parks, urban ghettoes, "artist communes") are third world status because they're filled with dishonest, disorganized, foolish people.
I mean, this is basic reality 101... but you can't say it in public. Why is that?
Anti-Globalism
What does it mean when she says she will continue to provide OLPC "at cost?" Does she (or her new company) do the actual manufacturing? If that's the case, it's very honourable. Or does she mean "a reasonable break even patent licensing cost," in which case it's a little "evil."
Was she hired by OLPC? Yet she retains all the patents for her work?
The incremental cost for any patent licensing is effectively "0". (Note, I said "incremental" cost. Yes, there's development effort put into it, which may or may not have been on OLPC's dime, not her's. But whether they make 100,000 or one billion OLPC's, any incremental cost for patent usage should be zero.)
I'm all for a profitable commercial version; I'd love to have a lower powered (and physically powered) laptop, for so many different purposes (web browsing, thin client, and so on). I love the idea, but I wouldn't want it to be at the expense of the original purpose of the project.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
The linked patent may have Jepsen listed as an inventor, but it is assigned to "ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD ASSOCIATION, INC.", so I'm not sure why it's mentioned in the summary. She's can't use that without OLPC's permission.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
IANAL but WWFSMD? TMI! TMI!
Here are some links:
http://olpc.osuosl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1414
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-open/2007-December/thread.html#459
The general reason given for ending G1G1 was that it was a strain on the OLPC volunteers. See especially Nicole Lee's post http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-open/2007-December/000474.html
There's a dearth of rugged laptops on the market, just a few and pretty expensive. On the other hand, you can get any number of delicate laptops that commonly turn to junkage within a short time. I think this project has really pushed the envelope and embarrassed other manufacturers into considering similar better/cheaper/tougher machines. It hasn't hurt, put it that way. There are different market segments based on needs and price, we need them all, there is no one sits fits everyone machine. You want expensive and delicate, you can get that right now, they'll gladly sell you one. You want real tough and cheap,until this thing came around, not so much doable. And one of the main points with laptops are they are portable, even *gasp*, the theoretical ability to use one out in the big room with the yellow light and blue wall paint. Regular laptops are pretty sucky there, the screens disappear, you have to worry about the weather, the battery life sucks with all of them, this one however claims it is actually usable out in the light and also has a few different self powered options, meaning long range "battery life" away from a wall plug..
I know I have been holding out getting another laptop, after having three of them, because I just can't use them outside. If I am inside, well duh I have a desktop with a big screen. and I don't hang out in starbucks and so on, but I am an outside worker and could actually use one now and then. But it has to be dust and moisture proof/resistant and be able to take some knocks beyond the normal lightweight commuter train ride and sitting at a cafe or conference table. Hopefully this better screen tech and "ruggedness" will induce other builders into making adult sized versions without them costing more than semi-decent used cars.
Well I sent her an email, cover letter and a pretty good resume when the project was kicking off, I never heard back. Always a bit of a red flag on a personality by my set of rules. But maybe she was busy!
I mean, is the best way to get even cheapest products selling more and more, producing more and more, this is the only way to get cheaper products and if they get cheapest products then they can compete against Intel and Asus! This is NOT bad.
ghostbar page.
So, patents are "goog" as long as "good" people own them? Or are they still "bad"?
The only way to understand the true reasons for perpetual poverty is to experience it for yourself. I always find it amusing when people who have quite obviously never been in that situation decide that they know exactly why people continue to be stuck in poverty. Why yes, of course it is because they are all simply unintelligent and happy to ride the dole for the rest of their lives.
Thank you for taking the time to attempt to insert some sense into the discussion. If I hadn't spent my mod points a few hours back, your post would be at the top of the heap, where it should be.
Shouldn't the patents belong to the olpc project since it was done on their tab. Nice to see ethics in the well educated.(not) I doubt she didn't get paid and compensated for her developments.
To find out that OLPC has funded a patent troll truly disgusts me.
This calls into question the integrity of everyone associated with the project.
"If anything it's an education scheme to improve a countries citizen's knowledge. It's going to take 10 maybe 15 years before we actually know if it worked of course."
I think it may be sooner than that.
The XO seems to include a generous dose of hands-on, tinkering, write-your-own-programs tools. In many ways it reminds me of the start of the PC revolution. One of the really sad things to me is that during the 1980s there were really large numbers of "laypersons" who bought Commodores and Ataris and Apples and IBM PCs for no good reason, just to see what they were like, and wrote trivial programs in BASIC and HyperCard and so forth. People bought magazines that had programs slightly more complicated than they could write for themselves and typed the darn things in.
For reasons that aren't completely clear to me, this has all gone by the wayside.
I don't say that everyone who writes a thirty-line BASIC program goes on to become a programmer, but I'll bet that a darned large percentage of the professional software engineers of today were shaped by junior-high-school experiences tinkering with software.
The guys who invented the airplane probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the years they spent tinkering with bicycles.
We'll know that it worked when there is a sudden wave of software innovation coming out of those Third World countries, and my bet is that we'll start to see it in less than "10-15 years."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
OLPC: Over hyped PR company that says a lot and does little.
They could have shipped the software and standardized hardware using a conventional 7 inch screen and a power brick, and it would have been GOOD ENOUGH for 99% of the children who would use it. Its always been run like an MIT media lab project where the main beneficiaries are Negroponte and his team, and not the children. Its not just you.
She wants more than her salary, which I am sure like Negroponte, was inflated at OLPC. The whole project was a non-profit in name only and this is yet another way for the founders of OLPC to profit while others give them "donations", i.e. G1G1.
Rats - Burning Ship = OLPC
Likely the first of many departures. At what point will Slashdot declare the OLPC to have been nothing more than a huge flop? Are they going to wait more than six years, like with Munich's "migration from Windows"?
If the OLPC is ever to reach the US$ 100 target price (even if we give it the adjustment for a shrinking dollar) it is via production volume of its key parts. Making them available to other companies via a for-profit seems to be the best way to do it.
;-)
It was always pretty obvious to me that, even if the XO itself does not bring a huge change, its technologies and its "less is enough" approach are bound to make a massive change to a very monotonous market.
Let's hope it's the next Apple II
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
OLPC -- "the movement" -- "a quantum leap in education" -- "imagine the possibilities"
Drink the Koolaid much?
"If we all step up and try to support programs that provide food, water, and health care..."
People who find themselves at lack for food and water have problems beyond advanced concepts over health care for they fight with natures ability to sustain their numbers. The solution is to let nature run its course and reduce their numbers. Indeed, if we believe in the notion that Man has had a serious negative impact on Earth Climate, we should look not simply at our consumptions but at the number of consumers. The global human population has approximately doubled every hundred years through 1950. By 2050 those numbers are expected to quadruple as the rate of increase goes exponential! What you are advocating serves to sustain the rate of this growth when really, if we wish to reduce Mans carbon footprint, is to reduce the footprint of Man. We can do this ourselves or Nature will do it for us.
Secondly, by advocating improvements within the human condition you tacitly suggest if not approve of incorporation via participation within the greater global economy thus creating dependencies well beyond any singular peoples ability to self sustain. As poor as the human condition may be found in parts of the world today, they have and will continue to self sustain if left to their own devices. Something that simply is no longer true of modernized societies and is an achilles heel with deadly consequences on a mass scale should mere portions of this highly interdependent global economy falter.
For all the disease, famine and death, their lives are in balance with nature and their environment such that it is. They do not need laptop computers anymore than they need manufactured petrochemical fertilizers or genetically modified seed from Monsanto yet we have a group of people joined together in some piously ideological "movement" to provide upon others all the trappings of ill conceived conjecture and idle speculation. To fall in league however unwittingly with those of far more predatory and rapacious designs over expansion of exploitable third world economics.
To think that the suffering peoples of Ethiopia for example would not naturally migrate to more fitting locations if not for such areas already maximally inhabited and therefore found lethally unwelcome in their numbers. The problems do not revolve around inadequate supplies of cheap computers in Mans fight over shrinking resources per capita or overall spiraling rates of consumption found likewise. Is it not foolish to believe that by uplifting the indigenous peoples of the world into a high class of consumerism by way of cheap Chinese electronics, that they will be found better able to manage the consumptions of their expanding population densities?
And to who's greater good does this serve?
It is nervously amusing to watch essentially the same OLPC group evangelize in similar process over global warming as though Man in his technological capability of the day can foster a rapid sea change in Earth atmospheric conditions. The most likely outcome in attempt is the destruction of National economies with global consequence but aside from that, what if Man could accomplish the feat? Could Man then control to positive outcome his new found ability to swing planetary climatology short term? Such ability has yet to be demonstrated successfully in other areas far less speculative or adventurous.
Secondly, who will take responsibility? Those who bequest terraforming the planet or segments of its human population? How can you take responsibility for the actions and outcomes of your "group think" when you cannot take responsibility for yourselves in any meaningful way. I doubt you seriously understand the magnitude of the problems at issue let alone potential ramifications of actions, yet assume somehow that all will result in the greater human condition found ascended to nirvana. A thought process not
Thanks for all the interest in my new company!
some comments:
1) My new company *is* trying to explore the concepts of open hardware - and trying to figure out the right way to do it. I've been asking many people for advice on this: Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, Larry Lessig, John Gilmore, Brewster Kahle, etc. We are struggling through it. Hardware is different from software - but how can we open it up?
2) Doesn't anyone want a 50 Euro laptop? I do. I'm not talking about designing last years product for next year. Other people can do that..I plan to continue to innovate and invent.
3) Finally: I'm not taking my inventions from OLPC - I'm licensing them from OLPC. Why: An inventor has a good chance of improving the price/performance of her inventions. Why restrict her access to them if our goal is lower cost computing for the developing world?
Posted by: Mary Lou Jepsen on January 01, 2008
Nature has shown over and over that whenever a population grows to overtaking an area, she will take care of things. In particular, disease. We have AIDs, Drug resistance disease (esp TB), and are close to having loads of fun with Avian Flu. Combine that with the pressures from lack of water and other resources, and we are looking at a much lower population.
The third world needs an inexpensive $100 laptop that poor kids can play Doom on.
From what I heard, you're on the right track. Jepsen contributed her display patents to OLPC. She did a lot of important work for them. Criticizing her for going into business seems completely unfair. OLPC is a charitable organization, and is not permitted to compete in the market. For these technologies to take advantage of the market, they need to be developed by a business. This could be very good for them.
Some people don't believe you have to be greedy to enjoy life.
joudanzuki
Should we let you die out and then our world will stabilize itself? Pink Floyd isn't anyone to quote, really, but they've also said it: Us and Them.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Hmm.
Is that possibly one of the reasons for the animosity from Microsoft and certain others?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I must say that I wish my successes were as "imaginary" as Negroponte's.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
My first program was in Fortran two and was a few lines, basically a Hello World!! I went on from there to a lifetime of software engineering. At the beginning, all there were was mainframes. The smallest machine around was the IBM 1620, and I could only dream of actually owning a computer. Today I own an 8-core Mac Pro. A machine thousands of times more powerful than those original mainframes. My dreams have come true :-)
I would have done anything legal and moral to have an XO at that age.
What about shop rights?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
It does belong to OLPC.
You don't understand the causal chain.
They're there because they're what's left when everything else is gone. Fallen empires produce third world nations, or they arise from what never could form an empire. The raw material wasn't there. The people there lack the traits to rise above it, except in a few rare cases (like, 5) every generation who promptly get called witch doctors and publically stoned.
What are the great innovations of the third world? How many people, despite 100 years of aid, have risen out of these situations to do anything but fulfil jobs that don't require much intelligence at all?
This topic seems to have really upset some people. Good. You're pretenders who like to think human definitions, and social status, compensate for what nature did not give. You say this because you are afraid of your own weakness.
Look at the average IQ of a nation and you can tell how impoverished it will be. Northern Asia and Japan are high-IQ; Viet Nam is low IQ. Russia is low IQ, Mexico is low IQ, and Africa is low IQ. Even in the US states we can see that states with a lower balance of smart people are more impoverished.
That's science. If you can't face it, mod down -1 and claim I'm a "Troll" to formalize your impotence.
Anti-Globalism
Comprehensive review of IQ tests, intelligence, race, class/caste, income level, and so forth:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php
You can apologize later for your unwillingness to discuss real science. (The above focuses too much on race for my taste, and I would again like to mention Eastern Europe as a white third world series of nations, lest this turn into African-bashing.)
Anti-Globalism
I think people need to have abilities first. You can't teach everyone to be a computer programmer. They have to have certain intelligence abilities first!
Anti-Globalism
Maybe Fake Steve is just tossing bananas for fun, as usual, but he's right, then she's waaaaaaaay wrong and needs to expect extraordinary start up costs. IANAL, YMMV, etc.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
it's a win for everyone
You insensitive clod! You've forgotten Microsoft.