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New President for OLPC Organization
haroldag writes "After Walter Bender's resignation as president of OLPC, Charles Kane enters to take his place as the new boss. Kane says 'The OLPC mission is a great endeavor, but the mission is to get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible. Whether that technology is from one operating system or another, one piece of hardware or another, or supplied or supported by one consulting company or another doesn't matter. It's about getting it into kids' hands. Anything that is contrary to that objective, and limits that objective, is against what the program stands for.'"
Rosebud...
I sure wish OLPC will finally deliver my XO that I ordered on 11/12.
And "empowering" the next generation through educating them about the technology.
Turns out it's just about getting toys to kids.
"Whether that technology is from one operating system or another.."
That sound you hear is a million One Linuxlaptop Per Child zealots so besides themselves they can barely type.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
More importantly, OLPC should be putting software into the hands of these kids, not just a license to use a copy of some software owned by someone else.
--
Note: I am not a sock puppet, comments to that effect are not needed.
http://www.mhall119.com
Bender Resigned? I guess that means Flexo's in charge?
Fry: Wait, hold on. I don't like the sound of that. Let's just go alphabetically.
Leela: OK. First Bender, then Flexo, then Fry.
Fry: Wait, let's go by rank.
Leela: OK. First Bender, then Flexo, then Fry.
Fry: Flexo outranks me?
Flexo: That's "Flexo outranks me, sir"!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The OLPC is never only about getting technology to children, at least that's not what I heard when it started. It was about building up the poorer nations with education and technology, not just "get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible."
It was a mission to improve these nations and communities by making them competitive and independent.
I guess Microsoft's billions can corrupt anything they want. It's now just about building markets for Windows.
FUCK YOU OLPC!
Negroponte's selling out in poor style. The leaders he mentions are not high-tech. Most people in those positions refer to the GUI on a computer as "Windows" whether it's Gnome, KDE or FVWM. Kane seems positioned to do further harm or mitigate the harm.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
RMS has blogged about the harm non free software will do to OLPC (summarized and linked to here). He's urging developers to come to Sugar's rescue and for OLPC to keep acting as an advocate of freedom. I'm afraid that OLPC will be soundly thrashed in the market if they fall for the obvious trap that a Windows port is.
The last time Slashdot talked about this, Bruce Perens presented an excellent technical explanation of how non free software would harm the core mission of the OLPC project.
Given all of these good reasons for avoiding non free software, how can anyone take Microsoft seriously?
Read: We'll be using a Microsoft OS.
Whatever Nicholas Negroponte's price was, Microsoft seems to have found it.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Wow, this attitude really sucks. Giving "technology" to kids means nothing unless you also teach them how to use and give them a reason to do so.
Anyone can give a kid a laptop. In 5 years will the child be using that laptop to enrich her life, or will it be a nice heavy doorstop? Software and teaching will make the difference. OLPC used to be about that, but apparently it's just going to be a numbers game now.
Why don't they use OS X? I seem to remember seeing an article here on /. that Steve Jobs had offered OLPC a version of OS X for free, would definitely be closer to Linux than Windows XP.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
So Kane is now in charge... does that mean the new motto will be "Peace through power"? heh, although OLPC isn't as catchy as NOD
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
It's an education project, not a technology project. The point is not to get technology into kids hands. The point is to create a system for better education of the entire world's children. If it could be done with books, then so be it.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Remember that when there is a famine, and some big hillbilly beats you so he can get his bread before it runs out.
Remember that when you are in a bar that catches fire and everyone tramples on you to make sure they aren't the ones burned alive.
Remember that when a colleague pushes the blame on you to keep from getting themselves fired.
It is every man for themselves. Life isn't fair, so why should you be? Right?
This is about bettering mankind as a whole. Not "What the hell do I get out of it?"
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Charles Kane, you have single handedly assured the world that the OLPC project is irrelevant. Anybody can buy a PC from anywhere, and there's really nothing special anymore about the OLPC, now that you've made it manifestly clear that your objectives are no different than any other OEM. You are making 'Sugar' the digital analog of crack, for kids. Shame shame shame.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Bite my shiny metal ass...
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Sure, Sugar probably has lots of rough edges, but Negroponte was talking about porting Sugar to run on top of XP, so he apparently still thinks it's a good front-end to give to his target audience.
The main complaint I heard Negroponte voice was that certain Flash apps didn't work. And that was because they were using an incomplete clone of Flash. If they're talking about putting Windows on the OLPC, why on earth are they getting hard-line about using an open source Flash plugin? Why not put the latest closed-source Adobe Flash plugin on it? The OLPC is still X86, isn't it? Even if it weren't, don't you think they could lobby Adobe to recompile Flash to run there if only for the public relations value?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Open source was not only a way to get cheap software for the laptop, it was also a means to enable constructionism. A key idea of OLPC, from the very beginning, was that children would have complete visibility into the software. At higher levels, Sugar and all of the OLPC applications are interpreted, so the "View Source" key on the keyboard allows for dynamic modification. At lower levels, of course, you need compiled code for performance (especially on the OLPC's low-power CPU), but with Linux kids who were interested in digging down to that level could.
Abandoning open source means abandoning constructionism to some extent as well, since whatever closed-source binaries you use are opaque and unavailable for exploration. If industry buy-in is necessary to get the machines deployed, and if using Windows is the way to achieve that, then fine, but it should be done with a clear understanding of what educational goals are being damaged by the decision.
I had to laugh a little bit at that part. I mean, there's no way the OLPC is going to be able to run the common Windows software packages that I'm sure the leaders think are desirable. It just doesn't have the storage, RAM and cycles required by those heavyweights. But if you run Sugar and the OLPC apps on top of a Windows kernel you've gained nothing at all, functionally or educationally, and you've lost some educational value.
Honestly, if Egypt is worried about teaching its kids to use Windows, then the OLPC is the wrong choice for them, regardless of what kernel it's running. They should focus on the Intel ClassMate. It's not as flexible or as cheap as the OLPC, but it is more powerful, powerful enough to run modern Windows applications, albeit slowly.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
When I say that I hope this new president fosters growth within the OLPC organization.
Microsoft today announced a takeover bid for OLPC Inc. Management at OLPC is receptive to the idea and is negotiating a stock price that will ensure that its investors receive a fair value. "This is really the best outcome, because now we are all RICH! FILTHY STINKING RICH!" a company spokesman was quoted as saying.
What Windows will add to OLPC:
The OLPC project needs to keep telling foreign governments that the XO is cheaper and better than other laptops because it has avoided Windows. When confronted with the question of, "Does it run Windows" the answer should be a firm, "No and neither should you." This is what they believe, ultimately. Had they thought differently the XO would already run Windows.
I think it might be time to rename the project to better reflect the "mission".
Nick threw in the towel because he's learned from his brother that it's better to torture and oppress people than to try to help them.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
"get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible" is "technology" when you are given a black box and told how much you have to pay to stay on the upgrade path? Told you are breaking the law when you develop a competing product? Told...
I thought OLPC was about using technology to help kids to learn technology so that they can do any number of things that technology can potentially offer them. I though that that was why Free software seemed to make so much sense.
rosebud?
Would his middle name be Foster? And does he want to give them technology-based sleds?
I'm really a low 5-digit Slashdotter, but this ID is where I am now.
OOXML's standard status, OLPC, what will Microsoft's money buy next?
Microsoft doesn't care if they ever become prosperous enough to afford Microsoft software.
It's the "barrier to entry" that concerns Microsoft. If the kids are given a laptop, then it is just up to them to learn to program with the FOSS tools for the FOSS environment that they've been given. The "barrier to entry" has been, effectively, removed. And NOT in Microsoft's favour.
Microsoft wants to keep the "barrier to entry" just high enough so that Microsoft platforms look most appealing to anyone who manages to cross that barrier.
The source code button on the laptops. Those won't be very useful once Windows and it's "free" selection of closed-source apps jump onboard. "My button is broken" "No, that's just Windows"
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Oh, come on. You know you chuckled when you read that. If we didn't have that kind of brutal honesty,
The kind of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and Dave Chapelle, then the world would be a much sadder place than it already is.
In TFA, Negroponte seems to be saying that countries like Egypt are holding back from potentially massive deployment because the XO doesn't run Windows. For whatever reasons, the customers are demanding Windows. I believe that orders for the XO have been less than hoped, and they're doing this to stay alive.
If that means running Sugar on Windows, so be it. My personal hatred for Microsoft was *violently* re-affirmed recently when I had to click the EULA for Vista's SP1 update. But the truth is, XOs running educational software on top of Windows will still provide a huge benefit. Hold your nose and click through.
That said, I hope FOSS hackers will rally around the Sugar/Linux stack and make it solid. Right now it has a lot of problems that are fixable with enough eyeballs.
Actually, when things are down to the wire-- people rarely act in heroic fashion.
:)
When food runs out, yes. It's time to get what you can get by any means to keep your immediate family going. In any event, someone's going hungry.
Name one instance of a large fire in a crowded building with restricted exits where people were, in fact, not trampled. Fires without lots of burn injuries don't count.
There's people at just about every company who do this. Most often it's a manager who just couldn't understand why his employees stopped performing their best after his patented "We've got to give 110% to up the sales this 1/4" stopped working two quarters ago.
Hell, go talk to anyone who has done Coast Guard rescue and they'll tell you how quickly anyone will go crazy and lose their mind when they think their number may be up.
Keep feeding us the socialist dream while I keep get modded down by our friends from the east.
... stop bitching and contribute to the project. The release schedule gets met, or the competition comes in.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
99% of the world's desktop's are running Windows. Let's alienate them more from the rest of the world.
... the mission is to get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible.
I was under the impression that "the technology" included the source code. And "in the hand" included the ability to make improvements to it and build new things based on it (thus including an appropriate build, execution, and interpretation environment).
If this is not included, it is not "the technology" that has gotten into the children's hands. Instead they hold a product of the technology, while the technology itself remains in the hands of a rich foreign elite.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
OOXML's standard status, OLPC, what will Microsoft's money buy next?
Their motives do seem quite clear. Last thing that Microsoft wants is a new generation of open-source hackers that actually dare to have control over their own computers. Logical move in their part, guess money buys it all.
P.S. I might have accidentally already posted this as AC but the post didn't seem to come through. Excuse me if that was not the case.
For one, with each software platform comes a culture. Switching to Windows robs the OLPC of the much-needed innovation and freely-available talent attached to OSS. Most OSS developers just won't want to touch this thing, and with that dies much of the unrealized potential behind the OLPC -- without this, the OLPC is just another cheap, underpowered sub-notebook. It will almost certainly never move past its basic function, and as such can never become the disruptive technology it could have been.
Think of where this could have gone... software designed to take advantage of the OLPC's mesh networking could have formed the basis for a new communication network in developing countries. Can you imagine the potential in terms of free speech, and free-market growth this alone could have had? (Free-market, in the sense that for example it could have allowed new ways to communicate about pricing and availability of local goods between villages and settlements)....
I intended to pick one up at Christmas, did not get around to it in time, was waiting for the inevitable re-introduction of the give-one-get-one program. Thankfully I can forget about that now and be $400 richer. Hmm, I think I will spend it on a Nokia n810
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Stick a fork in OLPC. It's done.
They were hoping for 100M units this year. They've reached 0.5% of that. Turning over the entire leadership team to corporate pawns and stripping out everything that makes the platform special is not going to help.
With its social mission dead, I don't see any positive outcome for the product. I'll agree with the other poster who said it's an overpriced under performing subnotebook without the parts (including open systems) that made it special. With the market about to be awash in Atom mini-notebooks we won't remember this one two years from now. "A cute experiment. Too bad it didn't work out."
It's sad to see progress thrown so often under the wagon wheels of commerce.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The Party bullies you!
Welcome to Xanadu 2.0 :-)
SZERVÃC Attila -
I did chuckle, I hope you did too. :)
Product for third-world countries is a huge selling success in first-world countries. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" at work.
Turns out it's just about getting toys to kids.
OLPC is about getting laptops in the hands of grade school kids. Learning about the tech is secondary to learning how to read.
I got my XO laptop.
I have ported Ubuntu Hardy on it. It easily runs Firefox and OpenOffice.org.
I am working on an easy to install version, and missing controls for screen/power/...
I went as far as making a Ubuntu-ish green gtk and icons theme to match UI colors with laptop controls.
I am going to add a way to easily switch between screens running Sugar and "mainstream" window manager.
This is pretty much the most "mainstream" laptop configuration imaginable. For any practical use on this laptop, educational or otherwise, it is already superior to anything that would involve Windows. Heck, I am POSTING FROM IT!
If the goal is anything other than spreading the disease that is Windows, they can just take this configuration -- and I am willing to help in improving it.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Given that the G1G1 program was basically a charitable gift, I kinda feel like I should ask for my contribution back. I mean, I gave my gift to an educational organization, not a laptop manufacturing firm.
Name one instance of a large fire in a crowded building with restricted exits where people were, in fact, not trampled. Fires without lots of burn injuries don't count.
:)
You may of may not be correct, but there still is a fallacy there. What if the fires where someone acted altruistically lead to fewer burn injuries? I would say, then, to be fair, all fires in situations matching the "crowded building with restricted exits" criteria would have to be counted, since your criteria is artificially made to support your point.
Keep feeding us the socialist dream while I keep get modded down by our friends from the east.
How the hell has "socialist" become a slander? Especially when it is used against ideas that have nothing to do with "socialism" whatsoever.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Do you think it really matters to the underprivileged kids in Africa whether their software is free as in speech or free as in beer or just a license to use?
Its sad that people like you are using those kids as an opportunity to push you political/religious beliefs.
What percentage of people switch operating-systems, once they've been established in one?
5%?
Whatever it is, it isn't high, and everyone knows it.
( the basic principle is deeper: any business that can't afford to do things right,
"they'll fix it later",
never does fix it later:
they just continue pretending, & bleeding everyone-else, until they are put-down.
ANY culture established, opposes change. )
The problem with this is, that it puts money from poor populations into Microsoft's pocket, due to our "help", when we could have given them Help that arranged their resources into THEIR pockets/world/development.
We are using their "education" to enforce the transfer of their future funds into Microsoft profit & dependency.
We are using their "education" to block them from having all their own autonomy
& swinging a pervasively-available opensource system into something truly theirs,
instead arranging that if they want to participate in the program, then they
EITHER participate in the education-program,
OR they mess with FOSS, getting competent in that, eventually creating their-own software/education/help.
Shameless, Sleazy, Greedy, & held in highest esteem by Lord Capitalism.
The very sort of thing that caused "jesus" to assault the money-exchange in the temple.
( putting cash before souls/real-worth )
The difference between Leadership & Management?
a Manager will push us up the ladder more efficiently, but
a Leader will make certain we're climbing the right ladder.
Humanity DESERVES a Darwin Award, for the way we "manage" human worth, world, & our potential.
( & pretending there aren't any consequences for the choices we make,
re kind of software,
is beyond belief,
just as is the claim that we don't modify our ecology "it's all a H.O.A.X."
bloody drunk-drivers of our world-direction,
such are... & should be dealt-with as-such! )
I contributed to the G1G1 program on the premise that this was an open source project, that kids would have complete "freedom to tinker," and that the XO had a "view source" button that would allow the source for all of the code in it to be inspected. That's what I thought I was "buying" with my donation.
If OLPC never thought this was important to their project, they shouldn't have made such a big point of mentioning it in all of their public descriptions of the project.
To have this happen within months of my contribution feels to me like "bait-and-switch."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It used to be that Negroponte was always saying that the focus of the project was education, that the laptop itself, the software, the content were all means to that end, and getting laptops, or "technology" more generally, to people wasn't the goal, but a means to the goal.
Now, the OLPC mission is, apparently, exactly what Negroponte used to deny it was: its a technology project, not an education project. When it was an education project, openness mattered. As a technology project, it loses all of its value (except to technology vendors), but using closed-sourced commercial software pushed by vendors whose interest is creating lock-in for the national governments that buy in to the project no longer conflicts with the mission that remains.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
My point is that every time you hear about a fire in a hall or event, you also hear about people getting trampled. If you think back a short while, people were getting trampled during the holiday season over the past few years for mere items such as DVD players. Sure, that's just a small minority of people, but the activity is present and every person has a low threshold before panic and craze sets in when flesh starts to melt or smoke starts to burn respiratory systems.
Socialism is fine, just be sure to go to a country where people are happy with that. I'm certainly not happy with it in the US. Every 'social' program we have has been a disaster, never goes away after it's proven to cause overall harm, and will ultimately be what stalls our system. Sure, keep spending $40k a year per druggie detained! medicare works? OMFG NO WAY!? How about social security? REALLY? How about the goddamned wellfare system? Do you really like watching methed out crack mamas keep squeezing out babies our tax dollars end up supporting?
I believe we do better in small groups working together, not giant socialized governments that are designed to keep the lowest common denominators sucking at my wallet like it's a big, buttery titty.. If a family member falls down, we are there for them. If a stranger falls down, well, he should have thought twice before pissing off his family, eh?
So keep investing in ventures to push towards a tomorrow where every child has the same laptop.
Hell, I heard we could save money by dressing up the poor in grey canvas clothing much cheaper than premium cottons. Let's start a company to 'deliver clothing to every child' so they can have a snappy lil Stalin uniforms to match their laptops. All the while, the media would be like "WOW, WHAT GREAT GUYS! CLOTHING FOR THE POOR!".
It'll mater to them later.
Great, equivocation. You win obviously.
I think the biggest unfortunate change will be the loss of developers who are inclined to develop software for free.
Many participants in the Give One Get One program were developers at some level, linux developers. Eventually many of those developers would have contributed code. A switch to Windows will alienate those developers.
I agree that movement has been slow. It is hard to believe that Update 1 is still not released; this creates a large disconnect between development and released software, which also pushes away developers. These delays are not a result of the base OS; they are a result of choices made at OLPC. These same choices could have been made with Windows as the underlying OS.
I assume this means OLPC will stop it's persecution of Intel for selling a competitor to the XO since the new president's goal is to get laptops into the hands of children, one way or another. Maybe Intel will rejoin the OLPC (just in time to help spec an Atom processor for the XO v2.0) and make the Intel Classmate superfluous.
Yea, he does think it matters, I think it matters, and maybe you should ask someone closer to the kids than you are whether it matters before you start begging the question. Broad generalizations are rarely a good thing. It is important to handle issues on an instance to instance basis. It is only common sense that the best choice for one decision may not apply to another. Putting technology in their hands thats riddled with restrictions, tie-ins, drm, and remote controlled self destructs may or may not negate the financial or other benefits provided by choosing certain vendors.
Well said. Things improved for a short while when white men brought in civilisation, but when they cleared off and took it back with them it all went tits up before the last frigate was out of sight of the shore. At the end of the day, kaffirs is as niggers does.
For fucks sake, the monkey brained cunts eat each other.
Fake .sigs aren't needed, either. Please use the proper field for signatures.
>If it could be done with books, then so be it.
Installing Windows on the OLPC is like teaching kids to read. And just read. Nothing else. No pens, and definitely no eduction on how to write. And no pencils, either (I heard you at the back!). Yes, that includes chisels and rocks for chrissakes.
I've played with a few of these units, from the beta software to the production versions.
The overwhelming impression is that the system is slow, and the applications are clunky and unfinished. Conceptually, i think its pretty neat.
When does it actually sink in that X11 and the fragmented architecture of the modern Linux desktop makes it very difficult to deliver a 'from scratch' user experience that isn't mediocre at best.
The failure of the OLPC is *our fault*, speaking as a member of the broader OSS community. With the best intentions, we have managed to make it next to impossible to realise a useful limited-resources platform like OLPC without immense customisation effort at every level of the stack. We force people to engage in debates over relative freedom while sweeping the lack of quality or applicability of the free software in question under the carpet.
The sad fact is that Linux+GNU+X11+GTK etc. makes an awful platform on a PC with minimal resources, and everything running on top of it suffers as well.
Why can't we collectively face the fact that it is we who have failed OLPC, and the users of the world who aren't running on modern hardware, forcing them to go elsewhere?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I.e. the OLPC changed its President from Bender to Bendee.
RMS has blogged about the harm non free software will do to OLPC
RMS is a socialist and like all socialists he's absolutely convinced that the only way there can be freedom is if there is no ownership.
Well, he should be happy then, with the third world, because, they don't own any food, they don't own any water, they don't own any housing and they have no property at all, so therefor, they are dirt poor.
Maybe all of these people that bitch about property, should live where there is none, and see what its all about.
This is my sig.
That giving them a closed underpinning is detriment to the educational quality of the OLPC is just a flyby excuse for the OneLinuxLaptopPerChild folks to blame microsoft.
So was this for getting technology to the third world, or to promote the progress of allmighty GNU?
http://www.mhall119.com
So let's just ship them Gameboys! If it doesn't really matter what technology we give them, we may as well provide them with Vtech kid computers.
But sure, it must make a lot more sense to train them on an operating system and development tools that they'll have no chance of affording until they own their own business.
How did such a great project lose focus so quickly? It ju$t doe$n't Make Sen$e!
Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
I didn't know Jason Bourne knew that much about computers...
Socialism is fine, just be sure to go to a country where people are happy with that. I'm certainly not happy with it in the US.
Last I checked we were the least socialized country in the developed world, so I wouldn't worry to much. Even our "liberals" are at best moderates in other countries. See Hillary for example, if she's a liberal I'm a moose.
Every 'social' program we have has been a disaster, never goes away after it's proven to cause overall harm, and will ultimately be what stalls our system.
I happen to think that my Pell grants worked just fine. In the long run you paid some of my school costs, but I figure it works out fine. Damn communist education! Social security would be working fine if the Government didn't use it as a place to find missing money from their other progr^Wwars, and to pay of their voter bribes... I mean tax cuts.
But then again I am a person who thinks that we have a responsibility to everyone else, and don't value my meaningless consumption above anyone's welfare or well being. Money is just money, human life is more important, always.
That said, our current programs could use some work. The problem isn't the programs, but the systems implementing them.
If a family member falls down, we are there for them. If a stranger falls down, well, he should have thought twice before pissing off his family, eh?
If only life was that simple. Damn those people who don't have families from circumstances out of their control! And Damn those families that didn't have the good fortune to be as well of as yours. The average household is two paychecks from the streets, there isn't much room for helping others, much less kin, there.
Hell, I heard we could save money by dressing up the poor in grey canvas clothing much cheaper than premium cottons. Let's start a company to 'deliver clothing to every child' so they can have a snappy lil Stalin uniforms to match their laptops. All the while, the media would be like "WOW, WHAT GREAT GUYS! CLOTHING FOR THE POOR!
Huh? A voluntary NPO is now like Stalinism? When did OLPC start forcing us to give them money? If this is their view of an altruistic thing, good for them. Sadly some people want EVERYONE to act like a souless ass in an Ayn Rand novel.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Every 'social' program we have has been a disaster
Really? Every one of them? Would you like to return to the USA before the days of Social Security, unemployment insurance, OSHA, the FDA, the SEC, public schools, public libraries, public parks, state universities, Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, and the GI Bill? It seems to me that without those programs the American Dream would be entirely out of reach for the bottom 95% of the population.
Hey I've got an idea: maybe YOU should head to a country with a really low income tax rate and no social services.
Do you think it really matters to the underprivileged kids in Africa whether their software is free as in speech or free as in beer or just a license to use?
Its sad that people like you are using those kids as an opportunity to push you political/religious beliefs.
If I didn't, I wouldn't have those beliefs about software in the first place.Read before you got modded in to the ground my racist AC friend. Though unlike most ACs you had a valid point, or you made one through your stupidity. Things did improve for the blacks in Africa and then got bad again when whites left.
That is at least, if you define good and bad by English culture (I know I do), though I'm sure those in Africa (generalisation but some what accurate) didn't which can be seen in the ways they reverted to more tribal means when the outside influence left. And this seems to be happening again as part of the OLPC project is an under current to change their way of live to some thing better (subjective standards we impose) through education - at least as a by product of good intentions.
So the question is, do we think we can change them fundamentally to some thing we consider better this time or do we expect the 'monkey brained cunts' to start eating each other again when the first world (capitalism) kills this project or the concept of others like it?
I ate your fish.
Oh, and completely offtopic, but why does my firewall detect an HTTP request followed by a portscan attack whenever I submit a post to /.?
The idealists hate Microsoft.
The potential customers want Microsoft.
What does that mean?
I think it means all the hate for Microsoft is counter-productive. Accepting that people have a use for their products enables one to realize that demanding people abandon microsoft outright may not be as feasible as slowly replacing them.
When the OLPC was first announced, there was tremendous support for it..but you couldn't get one. The OLPC project basically said eat manure, you won't get one no matter what. Then, as time went on and about zero "sales", they reluctantly had the 100% markup limited run G1G1 and even then they couldn't fill their orders, people are still waiting for product. They are approaching governments asking them to commit to a million units, before they had anything to show them. Does not compute.
Economies of scale and getting the dang things on the market would have worked.
Devs don't want to develop when they can't even buy one! In the meantime, asus took the same basic idea, just built one and put it on the market, and selling like proverbial hotcakes. OLPC might have had a few smart people involved, but had no idea of how to actually sell anything, and now they are stuck and have to go hat in hand groveling to microsoft for some peanuts handouts. How freaking embarrassing for them.
All those dipsquat developing world poohbahs would have been falling over themselves lining up with big orders and checkbooks if the thing had hit the generic international market and taken off like the asus, and they wouldn't have cared if it was "windows" or not then. Envy is a powerful force in this world. Look at Iphone mania, black market and gray market is just as strong as white market there. Why? Word of mouth, buzz, envy, "gottahaveit"-itis. The XO folks simply messed up trying to sell a lot of units *because they refused to sell any units* unless you bought like a buhzillion of them. Crazy! Nuts! They could have sold millions by now and any developer problems would have been self correcting then.
I couldn't agree more. After all this effort put into the OLPC project, it's really dissapointing to see them marching towards closedness.
I find it weird, though, that the OLPC website still seems to agree with the original vision. I can't understand that... They still say it right there on their website!
Bzzt, wrong. It WAS an educational project. It's now whatever the company calls it.
Many of us supported their efforts when it was an educational project. And I think they made many good advances...probably too many, such that it scared the heck out of Intel and Microsoft.
Now it's turning into a "first one's free" effort for one software company. Keeping poor countries using MS software is a commitment to keeping them underpaid, while safeguarding the company's dominance.
I recently got myself an Eee PC. I had a choice of Linux or Windows, same price. I had a gut reaction of, "gee, it's a better deal with Windows, as it costs more." But then I thought, well, for the limited solid state drive space and RAM, Linux would be better, providing such little things like better speed and probably better battery life, so I went with that. As a side benefit for something I'll be carrying around most everywhere, I'm pleased it won't be getting loaded with malware and viruses.
The academic world certainly agrees, and given the widespread (nearly universal) proliferation of technology, I'd daresay that he's more or less got the right idea.
If the academic world agreed so much, they would not be filing nearly as many patents as they do, professor's books would not be copyrighted, and you wouldn't have to pay to read extracts online in scientific journals. In fact, really, when it comes right down to it, you shouldn't even have to pay for an online degree at all, because that's just information, and it wants to be free.
If computer programmers should be required to give up their "intellectual property" for free, then so too should too every professor in any every university or college.
RMS believes that software is one such area in which we can greatly benefit from having it as a free/public resource
Nothing is free, but, in fairness to RMS, and I can defend him on this, the world where hardware manufacturers sold hardware and let the software be moved around freely had its advantages. Even MS played more or less that way in the good old days. I don't remember DOS even being copy protected, and DOS itself was $10 at some point.
This is my sig.
Because myopic decision makers in developing countries who are going to be paying their very hard earned taxpayer's money for these things think that Microsoft makes the good software that the developed world uses.
They should have made it look like the decision makers vision of a normal desktop. Completely aping XP would not have been inappropriate. Ends, Means, Default themes & a big fat icon on the DESKTOP that says TAKE OWNERSHIP OF ME in their language.
Make it normal enough that the decision makers are using one.
Making it special & unique, while intellectually stimulating, can easily be mis-interpreted as something that might become stigmatised.
thx e
Learning materials that are locked with DRM and require a proprietary operating system to use would be a good example of what *not* to put in the hands of children.
If those materials were DRM free, then I'd agree, do whatever it takes to get the units where they can do some good.
While there is no DRM on the XP units as of now, it is not at all unreasonable to suggest that those units will soon use DRM given Microsoft's history.
The arguments against DRM go way beyond idealistic concerns, they venture very far into the realm of realistic, practical concerns.
If someone from Microsoft or OLPC would just come out and say "There will be no DRM on the OLPC, ever.", I'd shut up
Maybe they did and I just didn't see it?
Windows has about 92% of the desktop MARKET to linux's 0.6%. I don't know how they allow for the windows tax on new computers & downloaded linux installs though. Linux owns server space. Linux owns super computers. Linux owns them because their decision makers are edumacatered. There are perfectly usable Linux desktops ready to go off the shelf.
...and the muffins went stale & hard on the counter even though there weren't enough people to make them. The patisserie is still next door though. It's still offering cake for free. There's a bakery down the road too, in case you're worried about kids in developing countries getting fat heads, but they charge more, & use second rate materials.
If you CAN feed them cake for free, why pay the price for bread. The point of the quote that you're using is that cake was completely unobtainable at the time.
The problem with OLPC is that some fool decided to make muffins from scratch, while standing next to a patisserie with a sign up saying FREE CAKE, TAKE IT ALL, PLEASE. Then the muffin king said that the recipe is free, but people who want to help me bake them can't have access to my oven. Only child customers that I need to train from scratch can use the oven...
thx e
mr. Bill Gates ??
That was the first person my brain imaged after reading about the OLPC WXP marriage a couple of days ago.
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post intended to be fun, your result may vary.
"Whether that technology is from one operating system or another.."
Aka "Our benefactors from microsoft say that the OS doesnt matter"
aka
"fuck linux"
When I hear terms like "get the technology out to as many kids as possible" then hear that line, then it becomes apparent that this man is nothing more than a corporate shill, as that's business speak right there.
The whole thing translates to this:
"We will end up using proprietary, locked down software such as microsoft windows, we will get the cheapest, flimsiest parts for manufacture to cut corners but still sell the damn thing at normal cost. All to make a buck. not from the laptops, but from our benefactors who want to make sure their branding gets out there. We don't even care about the laptops at this point."
Of course it would make a major and very unwelcome difference if a program distributing life-long supplies of antibiotics and antimalaria agents (or more accurately, the knowledge and tools to make and further improve them everywhere!) with a mission statement like this switched to spreading acid and dope instead.
IMHO what this signals is the slow death march of the OLPC. MSFT will string them along for awhile getting some publicity out of it then say the specs are too low for a "Quality Windows experience" and bail,after all the FLOSS guys have abandoned them of course. Do they really think they are going to support them long term against Intel who is pushing the Classmate? Hell,they were willing to completely bone themselves with the whole "Vista Capable" debacle just to keep the Wintel alliance going. But that is my take on it,your opinion may vary.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Good job. You'd think if you can do it, then why cant ubuntu just provide a stripped-down WM that's sugar-ish, engineer a deal w/adobe for an XO flash EULA, and bring the XO back into the linux fold?
Then the kids (or any age) could choose between WM's as they see fit!
resist propaganda
Say anything you want about the Wintel world, but they have provided Linux with the hardware platform it needs to thrive by allowing hardware to be re-formatted.
It seems to me that if Wintel can be reformatted with Linux, that Linux manufacturers like OLPC and Asus/Eee should return the favor.
The proprietary bastards are Apple, who in addition to suing bloggers, prevent people from running their software on hardware platforms that are perfectly capable of supporting it. It's just a matter of time before they block windows from running on their boxen.
Seriously, Linux has to compete on its own merits as a hardware and platform solution. I've been running Linux servers for 10 years, and half my computers run Linux (ubuntu) as a desktop. From the perspective of hardware peripheral support, Linux is weak (trying to get a wireless card or a scanner to work is a crapshoot). Its support of common productivity support (photoshop, flash, etc.) is close to zero. It can't support fun stuff like my windows version of The Price Is Right, or my TVUNetworks client to watch Fox News over the net.
I spend 80% of my day with Firefox, OpenOffice, and ssh. So Linux is fine for those tasks. But don't be surprised when people find it wanting as a desktop platform.
If you want OLPC to be so pure, why not format it with HURD?
Hmmm... Let's say you're trying to feed a starving nation with fruits, vegetables, and meat, and then Frito Lay shows up saying "Let's feed them all Funyuns and Doritos instead!" It doesn't matter as long as it's food, right?
That's right. I see Windows as the junk food of OSes.
Program Intellivision!
Yes, it does matter. Part of the original aim of the project is to provide them with the tools to make their own computer tech, to be able to Africanize it instead of just getting what a corporation decides they can use.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Is the OLPC managing a marketing strategy or developing a humanitarian effort? Not an original strategy; "OLPC was founded in 2005, with the aim of improving education in poor countries by putting cheap, rugged, low-power laptops in the hands of schoolchildren." Apple tried to do the same in US schools.
Kane seems a lackey for Industry. But the true aim would be best served by Open Source, if afford ability let along long term supportability, is a concern.
And don't forget the Interstate road system, which was a huge socialist program that snuck through congress as a "defense" project because it could be used to truck around missiles.
Not many Capitalists would want to drive around a country where the means of transportation were maintained and tolled by private enterprise at market costs rather than shared as a socialized national expense.
Now if only California's High Speed Rail could figure out how to link itself up with war hysteria or terrorism ("trains are hard to shoot out of the sky or drive into a building!"), maybe it will get built in our lifetime too.
Somebody should investigate why Charles Kane uttered "Rosebud!" when he was chosen.
Isn't this Kane guy related to Ted Nelson's Xanadu?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
as I write this on my 4yr old son's g1g1 olpc I'm deeply saddened that the life expectancy of this awesome little green machine is looking increasingly bleak. Looks like it will be cut down in it's prime when it was so full of promise.
But m$ has divided and conquered. Separate the cutting edge screen, networking, extreme low power and resource (processor/mem/storage) reqs, etc...oh, and almost forgot sugar, much of that (including sugar!) only possible through open source, and the individual pieces are still interesting, but not even a shadow of what they are all together!
sugar is insufficient on its own. Don't get me wrong, it is cool, but if it runs windows so you can do windows stuff, that's what kids will do; where's the constructionism then? Whereas if they bail out of sugar into the os to do linux stuff! they're ready for some powerful constructing.
Glad I got one while I could. Stoked my son's first box is a *nix system. He loves to start and play with the Terminal Activity! (where computer education should start!) So he can "do work like papa". He accidentally fired up alsamixer once in a flurry of pressing tab and cutting and pasting with the mouse; played like it was rocket ship controls for a couple hours; frequently has me start it up for him so he can redline the engines.
He knows 'ls' and 'cal' and still squeals in excitement at the output they produce instead of the usual "command not found" he gets from his play typing, but he hasn't quite mastered 'alsam[tab]' yet.
So long olpc and thanks for all the fish. errh thanks for benefitting my son before selling out all the 3rd world children.
Microsoft didn't need to actually DO ANYTHING... their offer of help and governments that didn't understand its implications ruined a competitor.
For profit companies never really stood a chance in the operating system space did they...