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Negroponte Says Windows 'Runs Well' On XO Laptop
Stony Stevenson alerts us to comments from OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte indicating his approval of Windows' performance on the XO laptop. Negroponte said in an email, "Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux platforms and to run under Windows." The full email is available at OLPC News. He was also quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Sugar "didn't have a software architect who did it in a crisp way," and cited the lack of Flash as an example. Negroponte continued, "There are several examples like that, that we have to address without worrying about the fundamentalism in some of the open-source community. One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source fundamentalist."
Sorry, he's citing lack of Flash as an example of open source failing?!??!
The reason they went with Gnash in the first place was because the Adobe Flash player needs more CPU power than the entire damn machine had available.
How is hell is MS's bloatware supposed to fix that?
Negroponte decrying fundamentalism. That's rich.
and screw windows. Seriously, Sugar sucks hard. They should have just put Puppy linux or something like that on it. And is it that hard to get Adobe to donate some licenses for flash so they can be pre-installed? It's not like they're charging money for it anyhow.
"One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source fundamentalist."
Nuh-uh!
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
The OLPC project has officially lost its way. I can buy Windows performance as being tangentially relevant, although I don't agree with it. But Flash?
Perhaps Nick Neg is more interested in delivering advertising to his customers than he is learning opportunities?
you can't get a little bit pregnant
I don't doubt that Windows 3.1 runs fine under VirtualBox running in Linux... Of course that might have been mentioned in the article, but who reads that anyway?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Is he trying to make us believe that they couldn't get a decent software architect at MIT??? I really have to wonder how many zeros were in the check that Ballmer wrote him.
Actually, what he said was "Windows, well... runs..."
If XP can't run well on the ASUS EePC, then I doubt it runs well on the XO. This letter is all hype.
Frankly, I think the OLPC project did a great job with their first release, but realize it is only a first release. I think they should diverge and release two models next time.
Model A is closer to the $100 price tag, and will sell better in certain countries. Features should be comparable to the current XO model, but flash memory, processors, etc. keep getting cheaper.
Model B is slightly closer to the ASUS in processing power and storage. Shape, chassis, etc. can all stay the same. It won't match the ASUS model, since power usage is a major concern. But if it were slightly more powerful, you might see a KDE build optimized for it, or maybe even a toned-down version of Windows.
Being able to support a more robust Linux distro, AND the possibility of Windows will be a huge selling point. If they can get a Model B at $250 a pop, they'd sell a ton of these as well.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Apple was willing to provide the OS for free, but were denied because it wouldn't be open source. Now Windows is OK?
That's great. Now all Microsoft have to do is fix for every other computer in the world.
Now we turn to RMS for his response...
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
negro-ponte please...
Fundamentalist = Fanboy?
/me sings "Its springtime for fanboys, and openscource...."
Well, we always did call the Windows/mac/*nix/os2warp battle a "holy war" so I suppose he has a point. What is he gonna do now? Protestant Linux User Groups (Or PLUG for short)?
Oh, and just one more thing...
HERESY!! release him to the penguins, wildebeest and cute little devils wearing green shoes
Don't tell that to Richard Stallman. I wonder how many 'fundamentalists' he alienated by saying that.
According to Walter: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2008-April/013067.html First of all, just to make this clear. "Flash does run on the laptop: there is a choice of both the Adobe Flash player and the FOSS Flash player, Gnash. We opted to install the Gnash player by default. We don't load proprietary codecs onto the machine by default, but they are available for download and some of our deployments in fact do opt to load some proprietary codecs--after of course obtaining the proper licenses. I see this approach as a reasonable compromise given the goals of the project. Apparently others see this as fundamentalism?
If they had called it "One E-book Per Child" and then all people would have is praise. "Wow, they were just trying to give an e-book to every child in the world, but look at all this other cool stuff it does!"
But no.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Windows on XO Laptops would run like Windows XP on my 10 year old Dell XPS D333... it's a mirical I even got Windows XP on that hunk of junk!
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I have been shouted down several times here for objecting to the groupthink that Intel/Microsoft had some sort conspiracy going because the Classmate could run both Linux and Windows, but customers generally only wanted windows. I was informed repeatedly that "WinTel" was out to destroy OLPC.
So, here I am again to get beaten up by all the zealots... Ready for it?
THERE IS NO WINTEL CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY OLPC.
Intel just wants to sell semiconductors, no matter what software is running on it.
Microsoft just wants to sell software, no matter what semiconductor it is running on.
Flame away, but I think this development just proves my point.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
You know, it's easy to read into this and turn this into a flame war against the current OLPC Execs, but the reality is that this was probably a better solution in the long term of getting the machines into the hands of the needy children.
After all, the former head of Microsoft is a well known advocate of African public health and education. It's possible that aligning the OLPC Foundation with Microsoft also would align them with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which would be a perfect avenue to get the machines out to the people that actually need it.
If the former exec left because he didn't want to "be associated with the devil", that's pretty bad. And certainly goes against the aim of the machine to begin with.
I think people need to be less about "THIS MACHINE NEEDS TO BE OPEN SOURCE!" and more about providing help to the kids in Africa, clearly something that isn't doable with the direction they were taking.
I've fallen out with some friends because even though I'm an open source developer, and have been for the last five years, I'm still in favour of closed source for some applications.
I am both amazed and dismayed by the extent to which such issues effect people.
Not only that, but almost everyone I know who has been what I would call a rabid opponent of proprietary code haven't themselves released any open source code. They just download the free stuff and get angry about the non free code without a single opinion that wasn't borrowed from someone else.
It seems to me that the fashion is that open source == hates proprietary. This is a nieve viewpoint in my opinion.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
You nailed it. The key insight of the OLPC was that it needed to be ultra-low power and not rely on a lot of infrastructure. e.g. it's not so easy to run out and buy a USB cable on Nahru.
Thus I always chuckle when I see comparisons to this or that better performing laptop. Of course it's possible to get cheap and faster by going to high power. And you can add more features again by adding power. They were going for cheap and low power.
I think what may have happened here is that windows is now learning to play nice with flash memory and windows CE is presumably learning to play nice with batteries.
The other thing is that the world is moving towards cloud computing. Now while their may not be a cloud available to bushmen in Nairobi. it's not unthinkable that schools might be able to serve apps locally. And MS is building that infrastructure.
So maybe Microsoft is up to the task.
The problem MS will face I suspect is that they lack an agile resizable code base like Linux and Apple have. Windows CE and Windows XP only are simmilar in their look. So this may be a complete blank sheet. Sure XP will run but will it meet the original driver of low power? I suspect not out of the box otherwise it would be Window CE instead.
But MS does have the dowry and an incentive. And the OLPC does need the cash. So it might be a successful arranged marriage. Or maybe it will be one of those Weddings where the groom tosses the bride on the funeral pyre.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This wouldn't be a problem if the hardware was open, the company would just be forked and OpenXO would be available to those that want it.
As it stands this project seems doomed, maybe not from the point of view of getting a laptop to a lot of children, but the original goal was to get an enabling device to a lot of children and was a far better idea.
I assume he's talking about Windows 98?
There's no way that Vista or XP "Runs Well" on that device. No way.
So he says Sugar should be ported to windows, may I ask who exactly wins with this? The result will be a xo with the same interface but that will run windows instead of Linux. I guess the intent is to make Microsoft happy, to ensure that the third world countries stay dependent to windows and obviously to raise the cost of the OLPC. So, Mr. Negroponte, why would you or anybody want those things to happen?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Since it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to ship a Windows XO to a developing country--none--nada--zero--I have to think that Negroponte is simply pulling an MS. You know, act like your all Mr. Cooperative and let the other guy expend resources to his heart's content, and then whammo! you pull the rug out from under them.
This way he can placate whatever board members MS has paid off, but when the time comes he can pull out a laundry list of requirements that MS has not met--like source code, for example. And then it's, "oh man I'm so sorry I reeeeally wanted this to work for you".
expandfairuse.org
If Windows runs well on an XO laptop, then that makes the XO laptop the best PC in the world. Because I've never seen Windows run well on any other machine.
Maybe it "runs well" because it doesn't run at all. Probably the only way to get it to run in a "secure mode", anyway.
--
make install -not war
If there is indeed anything positive to say about this at all, please by all means, say it. Other wise, all you are doing is trolling.
How true, how true. I couldn't agree more. Open source is like so many things (human rights and the lead free nonsense come to mind) where some people go overboard and just take it way too far. I mean, sure, having your kid chew on a hunk of lead isn't going to be good for them. For one thing, it's not very nutritions. But some people take this way too far, and say that something that is 98% corn syrup with only a trace of lead is just as bad.
Humbug.
I think it is perfectly possible to be an open source advocate without getting all fundamentalist about it, just like you can support human rights but not get too worked up about the occasional state sponsored rape, torture, genocide, or whatever. The important thing is that you advocate the right side on the broader issue, not that you pay any attention to any specific exceptions.
And besides, what's the big deal about open source anyway? Big deal.. It's not like it was free software, or anything.
--MarkusQ
When this constructionism project started and they were testing laptops in Cambodia I'll bet they were running Windows. Everyone needs to keep in mind that its not about the laptop or the software but the educational project. Arguably Open Source Software and the ideology of the project go hand in hand, but one is not absolutely necessary for the other.
I read the letter on the OLPC site and the article about Windows running well on the XO, but I couldn't get to the article that mentioned flash. Flash in my opinion is the scourge of the internet these days, and don't go off on a youtube rant, internet video and streaming codecs were available before flash.
From what I've read nothing has really changed, Windows on OLPC was in the works and it doesn't mean that linux will be dumped. So much for the sensationalist headlines. You have media outlets and scumbag corporate leaders who will juice this for all its worth but really it means nothing.
I will say that it appears from Negroponte's message that there may be some friction between the Sugar developers and Negroponte probably concerning the porting of Sugar to Windows. He is welcome to his view but really it has absolutely nothing to do with Open Source Fundamentalism.
If the open source developers of Sugar are balking at porting their work to Windows it should be no surprise, unless you've been living in a vacuum for the past 10 years. The Microsoft Corporation has not only been found guilty of using illegal business tactics to destroy competition in the market to maintain their ludicrous profit margins but they have also been on a non-stop PR harassment campaign specifically targeted against the same developers who wrote Sugar.
In the end it matters not, if Negroponte wants Sugar on Windows all he has to do is ask that wealthy corporation to invest some of their ill gotten gains in porting the open source code themselves. After all, its not like Microsoft's developers aren't used to leeching off the open source community to support their proprietary products. What would be interesting is seeing the response he gets to using open source code in a high profile project considering Microsoft has labeled it a cancer.
Yes he did. Negroponte is very insightful.
Where would we be if Wheel had hid her round rock in a cave instead of showing everyone how it rolls?
I spent all that money on a core 2 duo and all I really needed was an OLPC. I could have saved a ton.
I gave up trying to get it to connect to a hidden ssid. Amazing hardware, but pathetic software.
Btw, my Everun also has a Geode processor, and it runs XP better than the XO-1 runs Sugar, even in power-saving mode - in which the Everun's LX 900 processor runs only at 400mhz, slower than the 433mhz of the LX 700 in the XO-1. Unfortunately, the Everun lacks drivers for Linux, but there's no reason to believe that the XO-1 wouldn't be fast and responsive with a lean Linux distro. Make a kid-friendly menu (the XO-1's is tiny and confusing even for me), install open-source educational software (the XO-1 has a bit of junk, but lacks the few decent Linux programs), and throw on a bunch of copyright-free ebooks, and it would've been great.
Its not-like there was a fundamental tenant to not cause any long term dependence on the west other than the hardware, oh wait.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Flash Player: OLPC FAQ:
Quote: "Adobe makes the official Flash plugin, but OLPC cannot ship it on the XOs because it is legally restricted and doesn't meet the OLPC's standards for open software. Instead, the XO ships with Gnash, an open source Flash plugin that can play some (but not all) Flash content. As shipped on the XO, it cannot play YouTube videos. Skilled users can rebuild it to include that functionality."
The Sugar distribution's exclusion of Flash, and only shipping a crippled version of Gnash, is all about open source politics, not technical performance limitations.
Test your net with Netalyzr
I don't think the point was meant as trolling, and is quite valid. Apple was indeed rejected because MacOS X was not open source. Now, Windows is allowed. What has changed? Why the double standard?
I think it's a very relevant point.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
hahah
gotcha!
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Mod this guy up - great word - fartknocker! We just need an appropriate use case for it now.
Does assuming anyone who disagrees with you watches Fox News. They're not even allowed to broadcast in my country, even if I did own a television.
One can even quote the quote you pasted in as (I assume) some sort of reverse-psychology statement:
People like you have become so blind that you can't see the forest for the trees most of the time.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
The slashdot article you link to is, to put it lightly, factually incorrect, and if you click through to OLPCNews.com you'll find two things -- an active anti-Windows-on-OLPC argument and a forum which has become one of the best resources outside of the wiki for olpc tips and tricks.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
That is great because most 3rd world kids will want to upgrade to a new gaming card.. oh wait.
Ya because they will need to be able to print on the newest color laser printer... oh wait.
Ok, what does the slight lead window has in driver availability have ANYTHING to do with this discussion????
Hidden essids still don't work from the GUI (lack of GUI handles, not lack of ability) check the OLPCNews.com/forum for detailed instructions (also I think wiki.laptop.org has some), but essentially:
/sbin/iwconfig etc0 mode managed essid ESSIDNAME /sbin/dhclient eth0
open a terminal
su (sudo doesn't exist)
(wait a few seconds usually)
it'll then try for a DHCP IP and either work or not.
Yeah, it sucks, but hey -- it's probably not a common use case for their actual target market.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Doesn't anyone remember reading Negroponte's "last word" column in the first few years of _Wired_ magazine? He was always wrong, every month. He even published a book as monument to his wrongness, _Being Digital_ (which could have been called "0" for its return value).
He also helped start the OLPC project, which couldn't get anywhere while he was "helping".
Why does anyone listen to him anymore, just because MIT was fool enough to give him money for a Media Lab once upon a time (a long long time ago)?
--
make install -not war
I'd like to see Nicholas come to my house and install XP Home on my XO with the 1GB hard drive plus all the right educational applications. Sorry, as a OLPC donator who gave one and got one to support a good cause, the recent development taken with the history of the foundation showed the management to be completely and totally inept. Negroponte had a good vision, and was influential in the trend for the ultra-low-end mini laptops, but he's no manager, businessman, salesman, technologist, and ultimately no real visionary, lost in his ever growing big head. Regrettably the hardware is solid, the overall design innovative, but the argument about OS is simply CHILDISH.
It's time for FOSS community to take over the project to help educate the children in developing countries without the fundamentalist control of its founder. It's time to scrap OLPC.
True; and Walter Bender (whose recent departure and the hubub around it caused this Negroponte email in the first place) said that most of the failings of the Gnash implementation were due media codec licenses, not failings of gnash itself.
That being said, if you really need flash, install it! It works! It's even listed in the laptop.org wiki, as well as multiple threads and howtos at OLPCNews' forums; including a good tip on improving flash video performance: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=845.0
(sidenote: I just got back from a trip and used a custom mplayer build to watch movies for the whole flight - woot)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
One Negroponte runs death squads for the CIA, the other installs XP on OLPC's. Can they sink any lower?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Open-source advocates can be as magnanimous as they wish. As long as the other side denies their right to exist, there will be conflict.
OLPC, eee and Classmate can warm up to Microsoft all they want. As long as they keep showing off open source platforms as the launching point for hot new tech, the kids will get the picture: Open Source is where the action is.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I used to have to use iwpriv and iwconfig in Ubuntu myself, may still have to if I get my linux laptop running again.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
If they'd want to use WinCE, then they should have used ARM too. Most WinCE devices are ARM.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Putting Windows on the OLPC is the worst possible outcome I can imagine. It's like - colonialism all over again. It's like donating baby milk formula to the third world instead of promoting far healthier breast feeding. It's like Monsato donating seeds, but not allowing the next generation of seeds to be used. It's like giving a man a fish instead of teaching a man to fish. It's like selling marijuana on the school grounds. It's like force feeding indigenous peoples our culture instead of respecting their culture. Words fail me, I am so incensed. It's like selling arms to 3rd world dictators. It's like selling booze to the indians.
People - what are you talking about? It is not a question about running Flash, or about hey Windows might actually run OK, or about "education" or "not being a fundamentalist". Remember not too long ago we were debating the very concept of giving computers to people who have no food? Then Peru demonstrated the the OLPC could really make a difference - that first version - with all its flaws and sticking keys included. And now Negroponte has sold out. Reading the FA was like reading for the first time that Patrick Duruseau was supporting MSOOXML - he was "gotten to", and now Negroponte has been "gotten to".
We had a chance to do something wonderful for the poor people of 3rd world nations - beyond the convenience of mesh networking and the ability of downloading eBooks. Something far more precious than that - giving Linux to people who had never even seen Windows, and setting them free!!! Free from lock in. Free from industrial colonialism. ...and with Windows on the OLPC, what will we have? Mediocrity. People who will be forever running behind the first world nations, always playing catch up for the rest of their lives. Linux could have given them the ability to leap frog ahead! A real opportunity to develop their own technology, to find their own way forward. Children are incredibly adaptable. Give those children Linux, and a few software tools, and there is no telling what could come from it. Give them Windows, and you condemn them to slavery, to worst that our "advanced" culture suffers from. Putting Windows on the OLPC is simply promoting Windows. We have been so far unable to free ourselves from the Monopoly, and now we are going to invite 3rd worlders to share our failings. I am no fundamentalist. I don't even use use Linux. I develop software on WinXP Pro. Hooked like everybody else, a large part of my skills is knowledge of the Windows API, but I dream someday of being free. I still work in C/C++ anyhow, and so far have been able to resist .Net. I am still "portable". I still have a bit of integrity left, even after 20 years developing software for Windows. ..and I know instinctively, that putting Windows on the OLPC is the worst possible thing we can do. I am posting anonymously tonight because I have had a few beers, so I am not sure that I want what I just said to be an indelible record on the internet forever. Generally I very careful about anything I post. I have recently discovered that it can be a very liberating experience to post anonymously. Perhaps when we moderate, we should have more consideration for ACs if they have something worthwhile to say. There may be others like me that are afraid to fully speak their mind without anonymity.
"runs well", he specifically said "It (Windows) works well and now needs Sugar on top of it." Why do people always try to force irony where it does not exist? he was NOT being ironic, he was explicitly stating that Windows runs well on the XO laptop. i find it truly astounding how utterly stupid many in the Slashdot community are.
I've seen company after company get burned trying to deal with M$ over the last 15 years, from IBM to DrDOS to
The Bayless "Freeplay" radio began with many of the same ideals as OLPC. But it is tough to hold your ground when the OEM giants see opportunities in the same market.
It would be easy for OLPC to go the same way as the Simputer.
You can't hold the line on costs. Your sales projections are unrealistic.
You have a solid platform for development but not much else. The mass-market alternative is leaping ahead of your own technology and is compatible with an enormous library of existing software.
I would have no problem if they could somehow make the XO do everything it does now and more but put Windows as the underlying OS. But that is just not even an option and Negroponte wants Sugar taken apart so the apps run on Windows. That means the whole software design goes out the window and last decades version of a user interface is what kids will get.
That is just wrong. Kids don't need all that crap the Windows desktop brings with it. But I also find it difficult to believe that Windows can be a better OS under any GUI when self support is a design goal of the project. Microsoft can't pawn off support to OLPC or it will drown them. Hey, maybe that is the plan?
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
BINGO! Give this person a cigar.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I generally share your annoyance at the misuse of words.
You can be an open source fanatic, but you cannot be an open-source fundamentalist.However, you can be an open source fundamentalist, and it might be exactly what he meant. A fundamentalist is someone who stresses strict and literal adherence to a set of basic (fundamental) principles (see Merriam-Webster's second definition - the one that doesn't specifically refer to modern American Evangelical Christianity). So, an open-source fundamentalist would be a person who stresses strict adherence to the basic principles of "open source." I suppose what principles those are is somewhat debatable, but if they include the idea that all software should be open source (or at least a preference that it should be if not a mandate), then his use of "fundamentalist" could be appropriate, if what he means is that they advocate strict adherence to these principles.
A "fanatic," on the other hand, is a person "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion." An "open-source fanatic" would be someone who is very enthusiastic about open source, and is uncritically devoted to it, not necessarily someone who advocates strict adherence to its basic principles.
Stop. Think about the meaning of the words you are using. Select correct words. Continue.Exactly.
However, since you're pointing out flaws in others' vocabulary, I hope it will not be rude of me to point out a flaw in your own: an open source fundamentalist without the hyphen between open and source would be a "source fundamentalist" who is open. With the hyphen, "open-source" modifies fundamentalist. Without it, "open" modifies "source fundamentalist."
You're not supposed to hide SSIDs. If you break the implementation of the AP, don't blame a client for not connecting.
If this was done deliberately, see this for why it's "worse than no wireless security at all".
They can still have Linux, any motivated kid can get it, adapt it, and create. But not everybody wants to deal with software, they want it as a tool to create something else. There is so much software out there for Windows, it just makes sense people will want to use programs that have been used and refined over the years. Sometimes it's better to buy a hammer, than make one yourself.
The key to getting out from under the Windows umbrella is developing standards, continuing to increase availability of Linux software, and being first into new technologies. The fact that most low cost laptops are launching with Linux is a major step forward. Things won't change overnight, but there is significant progress being made.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
>> I'm very tired of hearing people use the world fundamentalist
>> in any and every context.
>> You can be an open source fanatic, but you cannot be an open
>> source fundamentalist.
>> Stop. Think about the meaning of the words you are using.
>> Select correct words. Continue.
I agree wholeheartedly!!!
I detest it when people use the words "towards" and "anyways"... they don't exist.
Stop. Think about the meaning of the words you are using. Select correct words. Continue.
I agree.. There's some many things wrong here..
The UI was designed for kids that can't read! Windows is designed for Western adults. That's it.
Ripping apart sugar to run on Windows would be a complete waste of time when they could iron out the problems they DO have..
How many times have we heard this from DailyWTF where management gets to decide on going in a completely different direction to where the system design spec is going. This is going to end in death for the project as they walk backwards and forwards changing their minds all the time.
I thought that was kinda the point from the start... so they could go home and read more books on it.
Mission complete?
For the grandparent, nieve is spelled naive.
I'm sorry, but interesting as Sugar is, it's not what has created all this interest in the OLPC. What has greated the interest is that the OLPC is cheap, has cute hardware, has some really interesting technologies on it, and that its software is fully open and can be modified.
...), and it doesn't even let the thing be a decent Windows machine. And the only reason to run Windows over Linux is to run Windows applications, and they won't run well and they sure as hell won't integrate with Sugar.
Putting Windows on the OLPC and Sugar on Windows negatively affects many of those issues: it makes the thing more expensive, it eliminates many of the interesting technologies (power management, mesh networking,
The only thing that might make a tiny amount of sense is to offer Windows Mobile, because you'd actually have a chance of running Windows Mobile apps on the OLPC. But what Windows Mobile apps would be of any interest to an OLPC user? What relevant Windows Mobile apps don't already have superior Linux equivalents available?
I think Negroponte is losing it. Get the passionate, good people back that left and put the OLPC back on track. Forget about Windows.
Yeah, couldn't get that to work. And then there were the "issues" with WPA protected networks. Ugh.
I was going to write "I wish I could install a Linux distro like Xubuntu on it", but apparently you can. I might give it a shot.
I think you missed the sarcasm of his entire post.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
OLPC now seems to want to mean 'One License Per Child' in my head. The reasons Prof. Negroponte gives are the same ones you see from astroturfers. Has he been bought, or what?
The x86 platform they're running on is an excellent low-power system. Meanwhile, being x86, developers can work on and run Sugar, and developer applications, all on their regular ol' laptop, and then deploy them on an OLPC, all very easily.
So, tell me again, if they've already got a nice, low-power x86 platform, how does ARM do anything but make life *more* complicated for them, rather than less?
The $100 target for the XO seems to be moved back a little farther each day.
In third world educational markets, Windows SE and Office Home & Student 2007 is $3 not $200. Microsoft Student Innovation Suite
The reality is most open source advocates run M$ windows OS, after all it gives you a choice of a wide range of computer games, fair enough that (P)OS ain't fit for work or school but as a toy OS it is just, almost, somewhat, nearly, fine
That PC game is blasting out 3D graphics, animation and multichannel sound. It is simultaneously manipulating dozens - perhaps hundreds - of elements within the game world. It does not run on a toy OS.
The home is a much more challenging environment for an OS than the geek is willing to admit. The geek needs to be asking why the proprietary OS and the proprietary app do so well in this space.
M$ will feel totally threatened by any GUI that threatens its monopoly windows GUI
The Windows metaphor has been extraordinarily successful across a broad range of users and markets. It is the Geek's alternative that usually dies aborning.
And we already know that Microsoft was willing to assign something like 12 employees to one reporter so that he got "their" message and produced the article "they" wanted. I wonder how many psychologists, business PhDs, and marketeers they assigned to Mr Negroponte to get him to believe that what he is doing is going to be good for OLPC?
There appears to be no limit to the number of fools who keep listening to the Snakeoil Salesmen of Redmond.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
One botnet node per child.
There is an argument to be made that Global Capitalism and Administration runs on Windows, and that therefore using Windows is the best way to close the digital divide because and, at the same time, prepare kids for their future jobs.
I, for one, find this argument hopelessly short-sighted and depressing.
Windows was created as a desktop computing platform for first-generation computer users in office environments, not digital-age kids using solar-powered multimedia-capable laptops in a wide-area mesh network.
I don't think Sugar is SO hot, but at least it was designed for the purpose to which it is being applied by OLPC. The kids can learn to use Windows in a day or two when, and if, they ever go to work in an office.
Add up all the Linux desktops and servers out there. Compare that to the number of Linux phones.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
No, but I remember decisively proving you wrong and, as your response to being wrong, you threw out the claim that I was a liar, then completely failed to support your baseless accusation.
Here you are calling names AGAIN, and I guess you think that because you pander to base instinct and get modded up that you're not a troll.
For the same reason people mod you up.