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Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop
Da Massive writes "The government of Peru will run the first ever trial of the One Laptop Per Child association's XO laptop running Windows XP. This puts the nation at the heart of a software controversy that has been raging for years between those who advocate making software and its source code free, such as Linux OS developers, and those who charge for software and keep the development recipes secret, such as Microsoft."
To be a bit more specific; OLPC took donations from people who believed they were helping to increase educational freedom in basic computing in the third world and used that money to further the aims of a company specifically trying to reduce that freedom. I'm not totally sure that Sugar is a good idea; I really don't know if OLPC with Linux could be perfect. However, I do know that the organisation was built up on money from people donating their second laptops and that those donations are being channeled into things many of those people don't belive in or wish to support.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Ed McNierney, Vice President of Software Development of OLPC sent a message to the OLPC-devel mailing list today, stating that "Microsoft has previously ordered a number of XO laptops for XP testing and pilot deployment. The usage and distribution of these machines for that effort is up to Microsoft, and that's what they're doing in Peru."
So Microsoft does a tiny-weeny implementation with one pilot school in Peru all by itself, while the main deployment in Peru with about 260.000 laptops will run Sugar on Linux. But no reporter seems to take the time to fud-check Microsoft's press statements. Surprise!
Whilst I don't know if Microsoft paid the "donate one get one" price that everyone else had to pay; I note that I seem to have been taken in by MS FUD and at least MS has had to pay something towards the cost of these laptops. Apologies to anyone at OLPC who I offended. I'll be more careful about trusting MS in future :-) :-(
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Open Source On The Air has an interview with Pia Waugh which talks about this. The vast majority of the laptops will be Linux, there is a small trial of Windows (and as you'd expect, it doesn't run so well).
Only if they are made aware of the possibilities. Windows actively discourages learning about the underlying system, and is designed to convince users that doing so is dangerous and should be avoided...
The purpose is to encourage learning, not to create a dependency on proprietary software.
One will result in increased costs of entry into the market for these countries, as all their potential workers will only know proprietary software and insist on it, making it more expensive to get going and flowing money out of the country.
The other will result in a local industry where software is produced and supported locally, with money remaining in the local economy and jobs being created.
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