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Microsoft and OLPC Agree To Put XP On the XO Laptop
Apro+im points out a NYTimes report which states that Microsoft and the OLPC project have officially agreed to put Windows XP on the XO laptop. While Microsoft has been working toward this for some time, analysts began to think a deal was more likely after Walter Bender resigned from the project and was replaced by Charles Kane. Former OLPC security developer Ivan Krstic had a lot to say about Windows on the XO as well. From the Times:
"Windows will add a bit to the price of the machines, about $3, the licensing fee Microsoft charges to some developing nations under a program called Unlimited Potential. For those nations that want dual-boot models, running both Windows and Linux, the extra hardware required will add another $7 or so to the cost of the machines, Mr. Negroponte said. The project's agreement with Microsoft involves no payment by the software giant, and Microsoft will not join One Laptop Per Child's board. 'We've stayed very pure,' Mr. Negroponte said.
If Microsoft really cared about education so much, why wouldn't they just give Windows to the OLPC project for free? $3 may be a lot when you multiply it by the numbers of copies that will be sold, but that's still less than 1/30 the price of a retail copy of Windows, and their brand image would probably improve as a result.
That was a close call. For a while there was a threat that emerging countries could grow into the computer world with a fast, reliable and stable platform to develop on.
Now we drag them down to our level!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I used to be a Negroponte fan, but since he allowed the MS move in this project he designed, I am no longer. No, it's not because I'm anti-MS, it's because I thought that this project wasn't a place for competition with commercial software. If MS wants to help out, the should do what Steve Jobs did with OS X: Offer it for Free. No deals, no licensing BS.
What? That's totally ridiculous. It means that the XO becomes nothing more than a vehicle for transfer of money from 3rd world children to Microsoft.
Whoever thought that idea up at OLPC has shit for brains.
Microsoft should be *PAYING* for the privilege of getting its O/S installed on a machine to which it contributed absolutely nothing during development, and which will become an instrument of propaganda for Microsoft among the children of the world.
OLPC guys, you've really dropped the ball on this one, and forgotten that the XO was not intended as a normal western product for exploitation of consumers.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
To make sure the one with Linux costs more...
That is all.
I Can't believe people, even inside Microsoft, can see this as a good thing. This is like McDonalds bullying and lobbying to make the BigMac the preferred choice for UN's world food programme, and succeeding. And having people like Negroponte not mad about it just makes me think there's little to no hope.
congratulations, it's dead. Can OLPC be saved from Negroponte?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I believe MS has finally set an appropriate value on their OS. $3.00 is a fair price.
Now governments of the world should mandate a price cap for all versions of XP, based on that value. Otherwise Microsoft is using price dumping to drive out competitors, an illegal tactic for a monopoly.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Folks, this guy is +42 Extra Super Insightful.
Dual-boot will be developed to pacify some OLPC supporters. It will never ship.
Likewise, Sugar will be ported to Windows. It too will never ship. Nobody wants it: not the we-want-Windows government officials, not the free software fans, and certainly not Microsoft. Look at Java and JavaScript if you want to know how Microsoft feels about somebody slapping a portable API or ABI over top of the Microsoft-controlled ones.
A lot of people have just wasted a vast amount of time contributing software to this device. They could have said this was the plan from the start and maybe those people could have concentrated on hardware drivers or interesting Windows software for it. Instead an awful lot of man years of contributed effort is wasted by this moronic decision (no, not the decision to switch to XP. The decision to, for years, lie about what direction they were going, apparently to garner publicity).
I really am sickened by this.
You know that feeling you got when Walter Bender left the project over a disagreement with Nicholas? That "Wozniak has left the building" feeling? Turns out we were right.
I think we can safely say that this has nothing to education of the third world or software idealism or even free market economics but is simply a nasty little case of cronyism and under the table deals. Nicholas is a board member and OLPC is a nonprofit. Last time I checked board members of nonprofits don't draw a salary.
This is the thing I hate about our current system. See, it would be one thing if they just flat out stated what they were doing, "It's in our corporate best interests to make sure that everyone learns to use our software, so we're going to make this cheap laptop and put Windows on it and sell it to third world kids." I would actually have a little grudging respect for that.
But no, once again the system has eaten up idealism and spat out lies and manipulation. Most people involved in this project were idealists who thought they were bringing something good and pure into the world. Many of them were devoted to open source. And they just got fucked, and the motherfuckers who did it to them are laughing all the way to the bank.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton