$100 Laptop Platform Moves On

The BBC is reporting that Sugar Labs is planning on taking "Sugar," the XO laptop's innovative interface, to the next level and distribute to a broader audience. "Sugar is a user interface that allows children to collaborate even when working on different machines. For example, they can write documents or make music together. The open source software also contains a journal and automatically saves and backs up all data. [...] Sugar Labs will work closely with developers from the open source community to develop the user interface for other computers and operating systems. It has already been bundled with the most recent releases of the Ubuntu and Fedora Linux operating systems."

Comments

don't you mean the $190 latptop.

[timmarhy]

why the fuck do some people insist on calling it the $100 laptop? did they not pass grade school maths?

Re:Loose translation:

[pembo13]

No, this is... OLPC + Microsoft sucks, but Sugar is still a good idea.

Re:Asus got it right

[kernowyon]

As the proud owner of two Asus EeePCs and someone who has experimented with the Sugar interface in virtual machines (I live in the UK, so no G1G1 option was offered here or I would have bought the XO machine as well), I think that is a little unfair.
If nothing else, the OLPC project was responsible for the low priced UMPCs which we can now buy - remember the price of a UMPC a year or two ago? It was cheaper to buy a pretty high spec (but full size) machine.
The OLPC project has lost its way - perhaps because of Negroponte, perhaps because of Intel or maybe pressure from other (Redmond?) forces. Whatever, the OLPC original idea was great - create a functional, robust laptop and include a user friendly interface, a simple peer to peer networking system to allow sharing of files between these machines, an OS which allowed you to learn how things worked etc.
Because of the political infighting which has taken place, the project seems to have lost the support of those who would be of most use to it - i.e Open Source enthusiasts who could have worked on the XO machines and the Sugar interface to create new programs. So the folks behind that Sugar interface have taken it to the community in the form of this new effort called Sugar Labs - intending to develop, with the assistance of the community, the interface and make it available for other small UMPC machines - including the EeePC.
IMHO, this is to be applauded and I for one will certainly have a look at it again. The only small snag at the moment is that it doesn't seem to like running in my VM install of Kubuntu. But I am sure I can find a spare drive here somewhere to install (K)Ubuntu 8.04 or another supported system and fire up the Sugar interface.

Re:I don't like Sugar

[story645]

I think they missed the mark and made it somewhat difficult to use. Oh and be sure to watch the kids struggle to open it the first time they get their hands on it. I agree completely-it looks like it could be sparkly and fun for kids if it's cleaned up, tested, and streamlined. That's where I think breaking off from OLPC and really trying to stand on it's own is a good thing. It allows for a change in structure and resources that could lead to more development of a friendly UI 'cause the focus is shifted back towards education in the like. Plus, I'm hoping that reaching for a larger audience will also give sugar strong nudge towards better UI, 'cause the average user just won't put up with sugar as it is now-they'll stay with jumpstart and all the other education suites.

Re:Loose translation:

[FrankieBaby1986]

I dislike MS as much as anybody else here, but they did put forth time and money developing drivers and the like specifically to make XP run on the XO. (hmm, would be easy to make that a typo)

Additionally, there are costs associated with maintaining XP with security updates and bugfixes, running product activation servers, knowledge base servers (all of which need to be maintained) and all kinds of other expenses such as licensing of media technologies.

Don't get me wrong, I greatly dislike MS, but to say there are no costs associated with it is dead wrong. These cost do, however, often apply to open source companies as well, and most certainly some of them apply to OLPC. It may well be that going with MS's deal is just cheaper than doing it all in-house.