Sun 29 Apr 2007
I am quite startled by those who predict gloom and doom because Windows (embedded) will be able to run on a general purpose OPEN computer like the XO. Is our goal a protectionist society where an elite group tells you what you can or can not use on your computer? Or, is our goal an open society where we win on merit and innovation? For our part, the Red Hat Sugar team believes it is building a best of breed OS for the target audience. How many systems will allow you to download activities just because you want to collaborate with a friend? A proprietary system won’t allow that. How many systems will allow you to hit the view source key and see exactly how the current activity works? Again you lose out if you run a proprietary system. Whether or not educators wants to allow for exploration and teaching children how to adapt to the ever changing world or just want to teach static skills is really up to them. I personally am not in the business of forcing people to use my products but rather developing the product for specific needs and letting the customer choose. I’m in the business of building better systems, period.
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April 29th, 2007 at 3:57 am
You kind of missed the point … people are upset because the XO engineers worked with Microsoft on increasing the specs of the laptop, just so that it can run Windows on it.
My first computer had 16 MB of RAM, with a 486DX 66 Mhz processor, and a 200 MB hard disk … and I could do all kinds of usefull stuff with it.
The initial XO design is much better than and people don’t get why does it have to be Windows-capable.
Being capable of running Windows would be a good news, if the new and improved XO would not cost $175, which is way too high for third-world countries.
The project is thus compromised because I don’t think the countries that signed up for initial adoption are too happy about it, even though the cost of technology will eventually decrease significantly in a year or 2.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:19 am
First it was an SD card slot, ‘just for Bill Gates’ (pp). Next it’s increased hardware specs so that the Intel Classmate and OLPC are interchangeable in price.
I think MS’s strategy is working out well. It doesn’t mean that the OLPC project is evil but let’s not pretend that MS’s intentions are pure and are happy that Linux was going unchallenged in the developing world.
Whatever result, I hope the best outcome for the kids works out. I just don’t think 3 dollar taxes (after they’re hooked) to MS is it..
April 29th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Alex: then you kinda missed a point. No XO stuff has worked with Microsoft to increase hardware specs, please read laptop.org FAQ for this, nor there have been such order from higher management to do so. All articles floating around this issue have risen from one journalist speculation that Microsoft definitely cooks up something or will work against OLPC, just because they have several demo boxes given. Please, grown up and research the facts before accuse anyone. It is not said that they will release it, at least for general use, because Windows in no way have tickless kernel, support for 1s suspend with monitor left on, etc.
PollyJ: SD slot just for Bill Gates? Give me a break. Again, Bill is given several boxes to design Windows specially for OLPC. RedHat and rest of the team works on DEFAULT os for box.
Please both of you read more about story - it was said that NOW those boxes costs 175$ to produce. It is believed by OLPC team that when real manifacturing will go on - end of this year - then price will be already in 100$ zone.
Gosh, how I hate speculations - both intended and unintended.
April 29th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Peteris … from the article on zdnet.com … “Negroponte disclosed that XO’s developers have been working with Microsoft Corp. so a version of Windows can run on the machines as well”.
Although I don’t know if that quote is authentic, the facts confirm it … the XO’s specs definitely increased, and so is the price.
Also … the price will go down, I said it myself, but you are naive to think that it will decrease by the end of this year.
That’s impossible
Not too mention, if the price is said to decrease so fast … who will be stupid enough to buy the first units ?
April 29th, 2007 at 7:00 am
BTW … I have high hopes for this project, and to put my money where my mouth is I have an idea for an application that I want to implement, and probably help on fixing Sugar bugs in the process.
I do live in a poor (ex-communist) country, and I would like nothing else but the best access to education for all the children here … because that’s our only hope for the future.
I only hope that I will have sufficient time, because I also have to work and feed my family, but just for the record … this project reminded me of why I became a software developer … to change people’s lives.
I just hope that this process will not be screwed before it takes off.
April 29th, 2007 at 7:47 am
I think you’re right that Microsoft’s OS won’t compete with Sugar. However, I think that there will be a significant demand for a non-Sugar UI from some users, and there should be an open source alternative. So, what about offering Ubuntu or Xubuntu as a third choice?
April 29th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Alex: “can run” doesn’t mean it will run. And “working with XO developers” could mean a lot - and could mean almost nothing. I guess they just provide technical specs.
Sorry about ranting, but I read all this stuff like “we are afraid from Microsoft, so better let’s be safe to jump to worst conclusions instead of investigating issue”. I am all about be careful with Microsoft, but ranting and calling everyone who deals or even talks with Microsoft betrayers is too much. It is “it is a trap” mentality what drives me nuts, because then let’s better not deal with any company, right?
Have heard those arguments thousand times before (Sun/Microsoft deal => OpenOffice.org is dead, poisonous, Novell/Microsoft deal => Mono is dead poisonous, etc. etc. at nauseum) about lot of issues so it is even not funny anymore, it is tiring to see wasted community resources to these “issues”. Maybe let’s work on code, specs, docs, art, design of open source products instead.
April 29th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I think you’re being a little naive. Merit only has value in a meritocracy. How often are Microsoft products chosen purely on their merits, really? Not all that often..
Microsoft could easily afford to lobby for government adoption of Windows on OLPC in developing countries on the basis of offering them free educational programmes and even career centers, taking the angle that the innovative OLPC interface and OS is obscurist and only marginalises the futures of children learning with it.
OLPC’s original hard-ball approach was the working strategy in order to be competitive in light of the inevitable appearance of competing hardware shipping Windows in the near future. There were always going to be 10 different ‘OLPC-like’ solutions.. Linux was always going to be a minority OS in this space, but previously it _had a real running chance_.
Of course MS will do what it takes to have this market sewn-up; the company needs outsourcing recruitments in the developing world to expand and the last thing it can afford is to lose South America and Africa like it is arguably losing China and India to free software. This is an ideal opportunity for MS to compete in the long term with Linux adoption in these regions: it simply can’t afford _not_ to play nasty to these ends.
I wish OLPC Linux luck.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:39 am
@ Tom: There will likely be an “Linux Classic” activity which will allow users to run non-Sugarized applications, as long as their system requirements are modern; thus, it’ll run any software that you could run on an old 466-MHz 1GB-disk laptop that you installed Linux on.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Is there still the secret combo to drop into a bash shell or was that on developer builds only? Because if it’s there, it’s not too hard to get the regular Fedora XFCE packages on there. It’s not Xubuntu, but it’s better.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:09 am
Billy will eat children brains.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:00 am
Kevin, yes there are two not-very-secret ways to drop into a bash shell:
* Switch to virtual terminal 1 or 2–X runs on VT 3.
* Open up the developer’s console: alt-= (alt-gear).
May 1st, 2007 at 11:31 pm
I think that part of the money to fund XO comes from governments from the developing countries. Is it fair to use public money to support a commercial endeavor from Microsoft?