Colombia Signs Up For OLPC Laptops With Windows

Reader Cowards Anonymous writes with this excerpt from Good Gear Guide: "Colombia will become the second country to use the One Laptop Per Child Project's (OLPC) XO laptops running Microsoft Windows XP in schools after signing an agreement for pilot programs in two towns. Schools in the towns of Quetame and Chia will be outfitted with the small green XO laptops developed by the OLPC. The pilot programs are expected to expand over time."

Comments

Tragedy

[Divebus]

Isn't there enough pain and suffering down there?

Re:Tragedy

[Smelly Jeffrey]

According to the spec, the XOs have a 433 MHz CPU and 256 MB of RAM.
Windows XP requires, a 233 MHz CPU and 64 MB of RAM.

I can just picture Microsoft suggesting that the XO is overpowered for the job, and that they should run Vista instead!

Too bad it's WIndows

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it's Windows; they might have actually had a chance to learn something about computers. Now all they'll learn is that things mysteriously going wrong can be fixed by a reboot for equally mysterious reasons and that applications are this highly polished black box that you're not allowed to examine to determine how they work since that might violate someone's intellectual property. They'll also learn that application crashes are fairly normal, that they don't happen for good reasons that can be permanently fixed but are more like a throwing of the dice so you better save your work frequently. If they're sharp they'll also learn that open standards are bad and should be subverted whenever possible.

failure for Sugar, not for Linux?

[Mr. Slippery]

I have to wonder what role Sugar plays in the decision to go with XP.

You get one choice that looks like a computer, windows and menus and the like; and you get one choice that looks like nothing you've ever seen, that doesn't give kids experience with a typical computer internface and is based on unproven ideas about how children learn.

OLPC w/ XFCE FTW.

Re:failure for Sugar, not for Linux?

[serviscope_minor]

and you get one choice that looks like nothing you've ever seen

Oh, this old, tired line again. When I was at school, sure there was MS and Word, but it was DOS 3.2 and Word 2.something which ran in text mode only. If I remember correctly. So frankly what I had at school was NOTHING like what I have now. The point is, it doesn't matter what you teach kids today, since it will be nothing like what is in the office when they turn 21, even if you teach them MS products, they won't be the MS products of 2020.

hmmm.

[apodyopsis]

FTFA

Installing Microsoft software in OLPC's laptops has been controversial. OLPC started out offering Linux on the devices because the OS costs nothing and organizers believed it made the device run more efficiently. Some open-source software advocates hoped the XO would spread the use of Linux and the open source philosophy to the 5 billion people living without computers in the developing world.

Microsoft hopes to capture these 5 billion people for its future market potential.

..at least they are honest about it. and none of this "offering a better, competative.." rubbish. its plain old "get them when they are young" philosophy....

Re:hmmm.

[Atlantis-Rising]

As opposed to the equally blatantly stated "Spread the use of Linux and the open source philosophy"?

They're both attempting to do the same thing... but apparently, Microsoft has more money to throw at the problem.

Re:hmmm.

[DerekLyons]

The funny part is, it's the OSS advocates referenced in the article who have been pushing "get 'em while they're young" under the guise of "offering a better etc..." as a feature while insisting the same behavior by Microsoft is a bug.

Re:hmmm.

[EvilRyry]

Spreading free and open access to information is a bit nicer goal than getting the kids young so we can rape them with licensing fees when they get older.

Re:hmmm.

[Atlantis-Rising]

Possibly. I'm not necessarily convinced that free and open access to information is necessary... or even useful.

However, IMNSHO, that's not what Open Source is about anyway. Open Source has really never been terribly important for your average person; all of its important freedoms relate to developers. The freedom to sprout wings and fly away is irrelevant to people who have no ability to sprout wings and fly away, and in the same manner, the vast majority of computer users (and this percentage is growing, not shrinking) are not developers. Open Source, arguably, does not strive to protect them or provide open and free access to them.

Microsoft's tactics are primarily profit-driven, of course. But Microsoft is no longer a booming growth organization like it once was; it must shift its goals toward long-term sustainability and medium growth, and this it has tried to do. You'll notice this in the fact that Microsoft's licensing fees are not terribly high. The vast majority of users, in fact, do not pay these fees on anything but an irregular basis, and the fees they do pay, which are rolled into OEM machines, are so low when spread across the time involved that Microsoft's 'raping license fees' work out for your average user somewhere between $20-$30 per year, I would imagine.

Is free cheaper? Certainly! But it's patently obvious that Microsoft hardly rapes their customer base with license fees. This is especially true in developing countries where copyright infringement runs entirely rampant. Huge numbers of people would rather pirate Windows in the developing world than run Linux, and I think that says something about Microsoft's sustainability strategy.

Ultimately, I think Microsoft's attempts here, and in various other places across the globe is merely an attempt by the organization to replace its pirated software with licensed software, by making it clear what benefit partnership with Microsoft brings, including huge rebates and funding sponsorships. The problem is that Linux doesn't bring huge wads of cash with it. The value of open source software is intangible and arguably non-existent to a lot of these people.

Cool

[Rik Sweeney]

Now they won't need drugs mules anymore because they can simply email us the cocaine!

Re:The real question:

[Eternauta3k]

Whenever I see a moderation like (Score:0, Funny) I feel "I'm about to laugh at something I should be offended by"

Re:...and the slavery begins.

[icepick72]

Nevermind that it's second-rate and vastly inferior to Linux in more aspects than I care to count.
Unless you look at the aspects where Linux is inferior to Windows.

They'll all be dependent on us!
How did Microsoft becomes "us"? ... assuming you mean the Windows OS on the XO laptops. Microsoft is based in the US but the company exists around the world so finding support shouldn't be hard from any country. You're too Microsoft focused. Your perceived entrapment case is larger than you think if you broaden your scope beyond only the OS: OLPC is funded by member organizations, including AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat.[2][3] Each company has donated two million dollars. While OLPC is 'not for profit', the XO-1 manufacturers including many members are expected to receive 5-10% profit from sales of the unit. Companies are profiting fiscally and Microsoft isn't mentioned...

crippling developing nations with Windows, future generations are gonna hate us more than you can ever imagine...
Nothing is being forced on them. It's the developing country's choice what to deploy. There's no reason for "them" to hate "us" over their decision about these laptops.

Dammit the incessant arguing gets tiring. Ultimately these countries are getting set up with hardware and software. Learning can be achieved on any of these platforms. Many techies are putting their OS arguments as priority over real people in developing nations. This is why things slow down. But this is tech news, and maybe we shouldn't expect to find many altruistic nerds.

Even in Colombia, Microsoft is trying to catch up

[js_sebastian]

From TFA:

The groups did not say how many laptops would be handed out as part of the trial nor when it would start.

So it's an unspecified number of laptops at an unspecified point in the future. In the mean time, the linux version of the OLPC is a step or two ahead, and will be deploying 110,000 laptops running sugar:

Last month, OLPC announced that several towns in Colombia were in the process of buying or deploying its XO laptops, most of which use a Red Hat Fedora Linux OS core customized by OLPC and a graphical user interface aimed at kids called Sugar.

An initial 20,000 laptops will be handed out at schools in the capital, Bogota, thanks to several Colombian foundations and private donors. Another 90,000 laptops will be deployed in Cartagena.

Why will this pilot use windows laptops? easy, because Microsoft is paying for a big chunk of it:

Microsoft and OLPC will donate the XO laptops

This is quite interesting, after Bill Gates said the OLPC project was the wrong thing to spend charity money on, which should be spent on more fundamental things like food and healthcare. Clearly, this is not charity, it is fighting for the marketshare of the future.

The official excuse:

The decision to put Windows on the laptops came about because officials in some countries feared a non-Windows laptop would ill prepare students for the real world, in which Microsoft software dominates.

..is totally retarded. Anyone who has had a decent education can learn to use basic office programs in a day if needed. And anyhow, by the time these kids will enter the workforce, windows will be on version 15 (we're talking primary school kids!) and anything specific they learn about the system would be totally useless.

This is a blip.

[RustinHWright]

A.) This is TWO TOWNS. I'm finding all the teeth gnashing here a bit sad. The real deployments are already underway and most are using Linux.

If you RTFA you'll find that:
. . .several towns in Colombia were in the process of buying or deploying its XO laptops, most of which use a Red Hat Fedora Linux OS... An initial 20,000 laptops will be handed out . . . in . . . Bogota. Another 90,000 laptops will be deployed in Cartagena.

Around 1,000 XO laptops have been earmarked for schools in regions where the Revolutionary Army of Colombia rebel group remains active. The XO is already used in Marina Orth, former home to drug lord Pablo Escobar.

B.) And what makes you so sure that in a few years they won't eventually switch the OS on the M$ boxes when the press and suits go away? Quite a few Latin American countries are framing the switch to Linux as a nationalistic thing, as a chance to use Spanish-language optimized versions from Mexico instead of the Norteamericano corporate beast.

In short, dudes, relax.