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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 $100 per unit price. The worldwide economic slowdown has made it even more difficult for OLPC to find developing countries that have cash to spare on education technology.'"
XP was an extra cost forced on them when they had already be sabotaged. The demand for OLPC was there before they started the project. A few well placed bribes was all it took to cancel orders for Intel Classmates and other crap not up to the task. Sticking to the mission is always the best answer. It's astounding that OLPC leadership did not realize that they could not agree their way out of being destroyed. The more resources they allocated to dealing with XP and Intel, the fewer resources they had for OLPC and Sugar.
Some helpful corruption links:
As for cover ups, it's surprising to see a Slashdot article about OLPC that does not mention Intel or M$ malice, something that's been documented here in the past.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Rather then working with Intel and Microsoft, "you" give them the finger. Way to go, champs. Don't piss off big companies who are willing to help you and promote your stuff.
In the end though, Intel and Microsoft got the last laugh, didn't they?
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'
what would any normal person do with that piece of shit? throw it in the trash. that's what.
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.
please. outside of a bunch of goosestepping bitches around here linux has no real following. even the little schizo open source fag at work asked me about what software that he was considering running with xp. so much for the linux legions. if anything it's a short stay over that most people quickly come to their senses about and move on.
as for the rest of you? yeah, it's the dogmatic faith that keeps you hanging on. you're like a bunch of miserable catholics.
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';
How do you know what people's intentions are when they do this? Apple makes interesting hardware. I was very interested in Mac Mini when I visited the place last year. I know that they have used free software and hoped they would be able to help me do the same with their supposedly superior hardware. Now that they only have Intel hardware, I'm less interested.
Apple and GNU/Linux are natural allies and Apple should get more into free software before M$ crushes them like they did the OLPC. Here's how the world really works right now. When M$ turns those guns on Apple again, they won't last long. They are currently placated by Apple's non free stance and more threatening competition from Google and GNU/Linux, just ask the "Linux Task Force".
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.