Slashdot Mirror
OLPC Downsizes Half of Its Staff, Cuts Sugar
One Laptop Per Chewbacca writes "Nicholas Negroponte, the leader of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, has announced that the organization will be laying off half of its staff, cutting salaries of the remaining employees, and ending its involvement in Sugar development. The organization has had serious problems with production and deployment and has been fragmented by ideological debates as Negroponte shifts the agenda away from software freedom and towards Windows. Ars Technica concludes: 'The OLPC project's extreme dependence on economy of scale has proven to be a fatal error. The organization was not able to secure the large bulk orders that it had originally anticipated and fell short of meeting its target $100 per unit price. The worldwide economic slowdown has made it even more difficult for OLPC to find developing countries that have cash to spare on education technology.'"
Spare me the (often incompetent) enthusiasm of youth.
You shouldn't 'believe' in an OS or license like a God. Nobody should.
I believe Windows based computers make up a large market of potential customers.
I believe knowing and using multiple operating systems is a valuable thing. I believe you can't be master of all things. Find a balance.
In the end computers are just tools.
Do you 'believe' in SnapOn, Mac or Matco?
I believe in Haas! Death to Jet tools.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Those are all desirable qualities in any laptop computer - why would anyone not want them?
What part of this is hard for you to understand? Cause it seems to be pretty obvious to everyone else.
Sunlight readable screen. Westerners don't use laptops in sunlight. For the few that do, they expect to pay a premium.
Rugged. Panasonic sells the "Toughbook" which has as much uptake as Volvo does outside Europe. Why? Cause to make something tough you, pretty much, have to make it ugly. And, again, you don't really need it in the western work, so you expect to pay a premium.
Low power. Saving power and being green is a luxury that westerners are paying lip service to at the moment. The requirements to fill that need are a long long long way away from the requirements of a child living in a third world country that has no power infrastructure.
I'd also like to add that one of the greatest features of the OLPC was the ad-hoc mesh network. There is exactly zero desire for this in the US as 1. infrastructure already exists 2. people don't like working together because it inevitably means that freeloaders get on, and Americans have an irrational hatred of freeloaders 3. there are entrenched interests who will actively try to prevent it for their own benefit.
How we know is more important than what we know.
you're just full of shit and won't admit that linux fails on its own.
it fails like a fucking aids faggot dying in a thrid rate motel from his faggot disease. the days of linsux is numbered! steve jobs has shoved a knife in it's faggot ass. you linfux bitches are done! linux will never go anywhere and you've wasted your time. bitch.
Having a bad time of your own eh.....
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';