Negroponte vs. Open-Source Fundamentalists

fyoder writes "Within the world of One Laptop per Child, both the Negropontistas and the Benderites envision a future for Sugar where it runs on multiple platforms, but the latter don't want Windows (or closed source anything) as part of that future. OLPC's emphasis has always seemed to me to be on Sugar, with Linux simply being a smart technical choice for the underlying OS. Yet what is becoming more explicit with the resignation of Walter Bender is that for many involved in the project there was a strong element of Linux advocacy, such that Negroponte's flirtation with Microsoft is felt to be pure sacrilege."

Comments

Why MS and textbook publishers must control OLPC

[Bruce Perens]

I predicted this a while ago when they were just talking about "dual boot".

OLPC can go two ways: one of the two is enough of a threat to book publishers and Microsoft that there will be a lot of force waged against it. The other way is just good for world freedom and doesn't have nearly as much power on its side.

The purpose of OLPC is not to give third world kids a laptop. It's to give them books. You see, those third world countries don't have an annual budget of $100/student to buy kids textbooks. So, OLPC is an efficient means to deliver e-texts to those kids.

The Microsoft way to do this is to have pervasive DRM as part of the OLPC framework. Microsoft will partner with textbook publishers to make free or low-cost but time-locked and otherwise DRM-encumbered electronic versions of their textbooks available on OLPC. Thus, there will be less reason for the development of fully free e-Texts under licensing that permits redistribution and derivative works. This way, the markets of those textbook publishers in more developed countries won't be threatened by the presence of those free texts, and Microsoft won't be threatened by a large force of youth trained on Linux.

The Open Source way is to direct the efforts of academic communities toward the creation of fully free e-texts under licensing that permits redistribution and derivative works. This is already well under way. OLPC would run Sugar on top of Linux, and would not in general be a DRM platform. Open texts would become a main stream in education, as would Open Source software. This is obviously a threat to textbook publishers and Microsoft.

The good news is that OLPC is not the only possible platform, and we can keep working on this without them. The bad news is that OLPC has the mind-share, and that's going to be hard to fight, especially with Microsoft behind them.

Microsoft has just essentially killed OpenDocument. They have made it redundant as a standard and showed that people who lobby for its use lose their jobs for their efforts. They did whatever was necesssary to win, with much dirty fighting and no shame about it. The folks at ISO and national organizations didn't show any shame about the perversion of their process, either. Expect to see similar in this case.

Bruce

Negroponte used to be one of the "fundamentalists"

[DragonWriter]

Yet what is becoming more explicit with the resignation of Walter Bender is that for many involved in the project there was a strong element of Linux advocacy, such that Negroponte's flirtation with Microsoft is felt to be pure sacrilege.

Negroponte himself, until recently, viewed openness of every component as a key principle of the project, which is why offers from both Apple and Microsoft to provide a free-as-in-beer customized version of their respective flagship OS's as the primary OS for the project were rejected out of hand.

It should be unsurprising that a project that, from the top, embraced openness as a central precept has attracted lots of people for whom such openness is an important ideal, and who are quite disappointed when the leader of the project suddenly embraces a proprietary technology and suggests shifting effort to supporting that technology.

OLPC Has Lost Its Way

[mlwmohawk]

No good can come from the OLPC that run Windows or any other proprietary system.

There are many "pragmatists" who say that it doesn't matter what runs on the device. To those people I submit, you are mistaken.

Linux, or FreeBSD, or NetBSD, I don't really care, is free. Windows is not. If you give them a laptop for education with free software, you have given them a "gift."

If you give them an OLPC with Windows, you've waisted everybody's time and energy and simply acted as a Microsoft marketing shill. Trapping even more of the world in Microsoft's monopoly.

It is reprehensible.

Why laptops and books aren't enough

[Bruce Perens]

Why should it matter to some poor kid, just needing a way to afford schoolbooks, what OS his laptop is running?

800 years ago, Moses Maimonides enumerated the forms of charity, from best to least:

1. 1. Giving a pauper independence so that he will not have to depend on charity. Maimonides enumerates four forms of this, from the greatest to the weakest:
2. 1. a. Giving a poor person work.
   2. b. Making a partnership with him or her (this is lower than work, as the recipient might feel he doesn't put enough into the partnership).
   3. c. Giving a loan.
   4. d. Giving a gift.
3. 2. Giving charity anonymously to an unknown recipient.
4. 3. Giving charity anonymously to a known recipient.
5. 4. Giving charity publicly to an unknown recipient.
6. 5. Giving charity before being asked.
7. 6. Giving adequately after being asked.
8. 7. Giving willingly, but inadequately.
9. 8. Giving unwillingly.

[Text from Wikipedia]

OLPC with Linux and other Open Source is #1 on Maimonides list. It not only gives them textbooks, it gives them a structure that they can use to control their nation's own destiny - the free software on the system that they can use to communicate, plan, write, etc., and it gives them control over that structure so that they have independence.

In contrast, giving them a Microsoft framework is giving them an addictive dependence. Not charity at all.

Bruce