Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child project have announced an agreement to work together on getting Windows XP available on the XO laptop, with trials starting in June 2008, and the RTM date set for August or September. Microsoft also demonstrated Windows XP Professional and Office 2003 running on the XO laptop – fully featured.
The press release sent out by Microsoft announcing the agreement reads:
Recognizing that the challenge of providing high-quality education for children in the developing world is too large to be solved by any single organization, Microsoft and OLPC are committed to working with governments and nongovernmental organizations to ensure the success of these pilot programs.
The implementation of Windows XP Professional on the XO laptop is not, in any way, limited or crippled, as the company explains. It’s feature-complete, has a battery life of 20 hours, boots in 50 seconds (which is 4 times faster than the original XO Linux implementation), and required a whole load of custom drivers in order for it to work on the XO, which has a 433Mhz AMD Geode processor, 256MB of RAM, and 1GB of Flash storage. Microsoft needed to write drivers for the various pieces of hardware in the XO laptop, and also a new BIOS that would allow Windows XP to be booted off a 2GB Flash card; the 1GB of internal storage of the XO was not enough to house Windows XP Professional and Office 2003.
Windows XP supports all the special features of the XO laptop, including the power-saving monochrome e-book display, networking, speakers, microphone, and its webcam. In the below .wmv video Bohdan Raciborski, of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential, demonstrates all the features of the XO laptop running Windows XP Professional and Office 2003.
It’s not a popular thing to say in the intertubes, but I’m impressed with this implementation of Windows on the XO laptop. For such a limited device, its performce outstanding – just another shred of proof that contrary to popular belief, Windows NT is a very good system. Who knows, maybe Windows is the best platform to run Sugar.
One of the motivations for the child-oriented Sugar interface was to avoid that parents take the machines that were handed out to kids for their education. Since Microsoft seems to provide an ordinary Windows interface, how will they prevent this from happening?
<irony>I for one welcome many children to the world of malware and DRM eBooks.</irony>
Another question: If GNU/Linux was not user-friendly enough, why is OS X (or one of its lighter derivates) not considered or offered as a serious option? Even more, because Apple seems to have offered to provide such version.
This all seems a bit of a strange change of mind, that throws away all the intentions of this project, primarily the emphasis on education rather than providing a laptop. In some way the OLPC project seems to have lost its innocence and is just another laptop project. As such, they are putting themselves in the same playing field as the classmate PC, etc. This all seems sour to people who have contributed to OLPC as an education project.
It’s because Microsoft sent lobbyists to all the 3rd world countries governments’ warning them how much accepting a Linux-based system would cost them in lost future deals, and so all the governemnts demanded XP.
Or, as an alternate theory, most of the 3rd world countries already pirate Windows, so they might as well all use compatible software.
Edited 2008-05-17 03:07 UTC
The point of the XO is not about interoperability with existing systems.
Here is why you don’t make sense more then usual :
They don’t have the computers to install pirated OS and software on , in the first place.
That’s why the OLPC are shipping the Hardware + software.
Microsoft will do a lot to keep their monopoly. It wouldn’t suprise me if MS did not only give away windows for free, but actually donated a large sum to the project in return for them using it. Is it a coincidence that both EEE and OLPC, two projects with potential of bringing Linux to the masses, are moving towards Windows at the same time?
Although I must say that the OLPC devs did a poor job on their Linux distribution. 4 minutes just to boot the machine? How many services are they starting?
A billion dollars donated to OLPC (in exchange for dropping Linux for XP) would (from MS point of view) be money well spent.
And I’ve no doubt they dropped a ton of cash on them – it would have been very foolish of them not to.
Bastards.
“A billion dollars donated to OLPC (in exchange for dropping Linux for XP) would (from MS point of view) be money well spent.”
The OLPC was one of the most dangerous projects for Microsoft’s monopoly ever, so they had to do something, from their point of view.
probably not as dangerous as Asus’ deal with Splashtop
You actually expected them not to respond?
Because as already said in a previous post Microsoft Xp , Vista and Mac OS X lite and Mac OS X don’t run on the original OLPC hardware.
In case you missed it the original 60$ OLPC computer turned into a 150$ device after the demand of Microsoft and other special interest requirements , but they finally made it working on a newer updated hardware wise and software wise model at 200$ per unit years after the original deadline , by investing outside the project in outside developers.
Quote “The availability of Windows, in addition to Linux, on the XO laptop will allow customers to have an expanded choice of operating environments that best fit their requirements…”
Great spin and PR. Especially when MS are usually putting negative spin on things when it comes to more choice of OS and try and lock people into windows.
Well it seems to be working, they have the hardware manufacturers in their pocket. Im locked to Nt 5.1 kernel though its customized nlited and a bit more stripped by me here , and will stay that way till reactos becomes more usable, which may take awhile in 2003 they thought it would be beta by now(still apha though).
This is exactly the education MicroSoft thinks these kids need.
First Class: EULA is your friend. Be kind to it and don’t break any promises.
Second Class: Programs not certified by Microsoft lead to the dark side. Once started down that path, you will become a drug addict and prostitute.
Third Class: DRM is good. It keeps poor children from seeing all those nasty Hollywood movies.
Fourth Class: choice is confusing. Buy only Micrsoft products.
Fith Class: Rat on anyone you know that pirates. If they pirate software they are hurting uncle Bill and are not really your friend.
Sixth Class: The wonders of using Internet Explorer.
Oh yes, these kids need education.
Exactly and it’s funny that by the time these kids are adults half the world maybe will be using something other than Microsoft products.
This and the Eee deal I think Microsoft have dropped to a all time low.
How could such a noble project sidestep this badly?
This is a good place to start when trying to figure out how such a project could become a complete clusterF.
http://www.osnews.com/story/19743/OLPC_Could_Be_the_IBM_Global_Serv…
Also here:
http://www.dilbert.com/
Edited 2008-05-16 13:06 UTC
I am feeling somewhat disappointed, I was hoping they’d ship those machines with Linux. Why? Because Linux offers a lot more possibilities to eventually tinker around and learn more about the OS internals and all that, atleast if the kid(s) feel so inclined..
boots in 50 seconds (which is 4 times faster than the original XO Linux implementation)
So original XO Linux booted in 4 minutes?! O_o That’s some really sucky boot-up time! It doesn’t really require that much effort to modify a distro to boot up in very short amount of time, even more so when the underlying hardware is known before-hand..
Anyway, even with XP I still sincerely wish those OLPCs will prove themselves valuable and useful to those kids, perhaps allowing them to improve the living conditions for themselves and everyone close to them some day.
One more thing though, I hope Microsoft and the people behind OLPC do make sure that the XP installation is really secure and won’t become a spam relay or a virus host. The truth is still that almost all viruses and malware are targeted at Windows platforms.
I’ve played with an OLPC XO for several hours a few days ago. It *really* does take it several minutes from coldboot to usable GUI. It’s insanely slow booting up. And general use on the thing is very sluggish. It would be a headache for even a kid to use a lot. You try running a program and it sits there for 15-20 seconds before launching it.
Poor design? Do they use sysv init?
When you make a distro for the hardware, you don’t need to detect stuff, you know it’s there. They should have used something like puppy where the system is running directly from initrd, with no run level mess. On that kind of hardware, that would be ideal for that kind of use. Boot in the time it takes to load the kernel (less than 10 seconds).
So what happened?
Probably Bureaucracy…
”
The truth is still that almost all viruses and malware are targeted at Windows platforms.
”
.. and, with win32/64 being such a nuturing environment, most attacks are highly successful without a shed full of third party applications too bounce off.
(If only it where just because Windows was ‘targeted’ though..)
Xubuntu in a slow 1gb flashcard boots in 50 seconds as well, and it is fully functional.
It’s blatantly false. My XO boots, just checked, in 90 seconds. Into Sugar. To compare fairly they should count the time to start Sugar on Windows too.
Moreover, I’m afraid the external SD card is faster than the internal flash.
Microsoft’s problem, as with devices like the eeepc, is that it just isn’t feasible for them to keep running around porting Windows to all these devices on an individual basis. I would imagine that they’re bankrolling this as well, as they seem to be doing with the eeepc Windows port and other ‘mobile’ devices.
Microsoft isn’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and for the education of the world’s children, but because they have a bee in their bonnet about these devices and the fact that they can see a potentially unstable future for their traditionally stable OEM channels. Don’t be fooled. Microsoft’s business model is still based on a standard PC on every desktop and in every home, with per user and per device licensing at every level. That’s why you have slightly odd restrictions on what Microsoft considers to be a ‘mobile’ device, because this is a defensive strategy to keep those partitions in place.
They’re right to be worried, but trying to jump on every mole hill in a field isn’t going to work. Yes, Sugar was a failure, and you could see that the moment it was demoed, but somebody somewhere will keep coming up with other interfaces on other platforms, and they can have as many bites of the cherry as they want to get it right.
I think it’s great that these kids will also have the oppertunity to use an OS used by most of the world.
Supprisingly, not everyone is an OS fan, and of those that are not everyone falls in love with Linux.
The majority of these kids probably just want to get their work done and not worry about what OS they’re running. What better way to do it than the way the rest of the world does it.
I for one would much rather have one of these running XP than linux. At least the choice is there now.
You are so wrong, it’s hard to describe.
Most of “the rest of the world” doesn’t even have a computer. That might be hard for you to imagine, but the great majority of the world’s computers are still in North America, Europa, Japan, Korea, etc.
Now obviously you think that the majority of the world’s population should be enslaved to the same proprietary OS that a minority of the world’s population is already enslaved to. But that might be just you.
While you’re at it, would you care give us one single app that runs only on Windows, and one single feature that only Windows offers, and one single thing that Microsoft can do that others can’t, that are in even the remotest sense beneficial to the supposed target user group of these XO laptops?
Given that anybody can install Linux on their box, if they’re so inclined, how is this slavery?
Is that an offer to take over from me the hassle to get the refund for the license I don’t use on my laptop?
I volunteer to point out ridiculous hyperbole when I see it.
Edited 2008-05-19 04:03 UTC
I volunteer to point out ridiculously artificial market share when I see it.
It was actually not meant as hyperbole but as fact. In a similar vein, many are enslaved to oil, coffee, monosodiumglutamate, irc, oxazepam, you name it (examples not necessarily inspired by personal experience
).
Not every form of enslavement is involuntary, and not every form of enslavement is experienced as a problem by the enslaved. But in the long run, it’s not good for you.
The reason that Office and Windows have high market share has nothing to do with “slavery” or other ridiculous notions. There are obvious benefits to having compatible software with your friends, neighbors, and colleagues: You don’t have to worry about not being to read documents from somebody else, nor not being able to run a game, nor have to be retrained to learn a new computer interface, etc, etc. Software products easily form a “natural monopoly” because of these network effects.
Nonsense. Wrong terminology. As long as the ability to choose is present, then you aren’t enslaved. People can use public transportation, drink water, go to rehab, or whatever. They don’t HAVE to make the choices that they make.
What you’re really struggling to figure out is why, why, why would anyone use a product that YOU think is inferior to your own chosen product. It’s simple: They don’t care. No, seriously, they really, really don’t care. It’s apathy that’s to blame.
Edited 2008-05-19 19:34 UTC
Nothing?
Did you include PC history of the past three decades to get to that statement?
Sure. But this is still an essentially anti-democratic perception. Since MSOffice does not produce or read open formats by default, what you say is to the exclusion of people that for whatever reason would like to have the option not to buy at the software firm that produces the software.
Given the fact that documents, unlike games, belong to not just entertainment, there is a strong reason to argue for “open standards” instead of “compatible software” which in this context is a euphemism for “vendor lock-in”.
This is quite obvious, I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but here you go.
The games market is not that monopolised, since there are very successful consoles. Frankly, except for chess and one ten minute session of PPRacer last year, I do not play games, so this is sort of beyond my knowledge, judgement and interest. I’d simply have no idea what’s out there and what runs on what.
So much for innovation. However, why have I heard people complaining they can’t even get used to the Vista UI when they’re used to the XP UI? People are sissies. With that mentality we’d still be in DOS. Life is one big “retraining”. Ever tried marriage?
That’s all great as long as all standards are open and free to implement for anyone with a clue. That’s a nice little detail that you accidentally left out.
Of course they don’t. But that doesn’t make the Schnaps overdose, the painkiller, tar and nicotine, or using up the world’s oil in little over a century a good thing, does it? :v)
Of course they don’t care. I wasn’t saying that they even should. There are far more severe forms of actual injustice that matter a billion times more than “How evil is your Microsoft today?”.
I’m not saying BTW that what “anyone use” is somehow inferior to my “own chosen product”.
I’m not a teenager anymore.
There’s a beer brand here in NL (Heineken) that half the planet seems to think is really cool, “imported”, a little bit more expensive than the local stuff so it must be great.
There are various smaller (Belgian, Dutch) brands here that are (I could claim that almost scientifically) infinitely better in both taste and the amount of headache they produce, but they have either not a clue about marketing, or not the budget, or distribution channels.
The past three decades weren’t devoid of alternative choices.
Since MSOffice can produce OOXML, the point is moot.
I don’t have a problem with arguing for open standards.
There is tremendous competition in the games market, and PC market share is dropping every year, in favor of consoles.
Some people are creatures of habit. It’s why we still have people using TVs with aerial antennas.
Yes, I have. It didn’t agree with me.
Like I said, I’m in favor of open standards, where practical, but there are cases in which rapidly developing technology needs to be produced, and time-to-market is more important than open standards.
No, but it certainly does provide a lot of jobs.
Agree.
Thank God for you.
Marketing is the bane of our existence because it drives practically all perceptions about things. [Aside: I don’t care for Heineken. I much prefer some Mexican brands such as Corona and Dos Equis.]
*Hm*. According to Microsoft, most of the world should use Vista by now. You’re talking about an already outdated OS (Vista, however, seems to be so borked, that not even MS is able to adopt it to OLPC hardware – good modulare OS design is abviously done elsewhere).
Funny. This is the marketing mantra for Macs, not for PCs running XP …
Takling about choice: If you can hardly afford a PC, how can you afford a Windows licence?
Weren’t you ever a kid?
A “non-profit” that lends itself to the potential further expansion of a global proprietary operating system monopoly isn’t trustworthy, isn’t consistent, is not reliable.
There is not a single reason why Windows, in stead of a free and open operating system, would have a single benefit for the purpose the XO was created.
For the purpose OLPC was claimed to have been created, not a single application that runs only on Windows is needed.
For the purpose OLPC was claimed to have been created, not a single feature that the Windows operating system offers that other OSes do not, is of any use, not to mention benefit, to its target users.
For the purpose OLPC was claimed to have been created, not a single service that Microsoft corporation can offer is of any benefit to its target users.
Independence from any single powerful corporation is a crucial thing in education. This OLPC move is a form of treason.
I guess it should be no surprise that one top-down bureaucracy which was built to hand out treats to other top-down bureaucracies has partnered with a top-down bureaucracy to get that job done.
I don’t mean to be too hard on these folks (who probably mean well), but anyone here who has read Whittaker Chambers might agree with me that the road of perfecting human nature through enlightened government runs uphill, and when you are half-way up, you make some weird decisions to get to the end (ends justifying the means and all).
+1.
It’s a very cynical thing, and maybe some of us have been a tad naive, but that doesn’t mean Negroponte is not a f**king swindler.
http://tinyurl.com/6nxtug
http://tinyurl.com/53bhbp
Edited 2008-05-16 18:53 UTC
I’m glad to hear thought that Microsoft is still fair and open about its objectives on our beloved planet.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-15MSOLPCPR.m…
emphasis h.
I was so moved when I read that, I almost cried.
Edited 2008-05-16 12:59 UTC
I think, maybe, you have yet to realize your “true potentional”. ;-p
So they had to increase the storage size to include Office 2003… oh yes, Office 2003 is *the* learning software for young children.
And even better, sugar is gone now (haha, yes, i *completely* believe them the XO is going to ship with an XP version of sugar), so children get bound to Windows usage early in life. I bet Microsoft is looking foreward to recieve an substantial percentage of the per-head-income of many emerging countries now.
That the teaching idea behind it is gone is clearly showing in the decision to include Office.
Hey, why not bundle it with a family pack of cigarettes and an NRA membership.
I wont take the Cigs, but I will take the NRA membership though
but your right, Why use Office when they could use OpenOffice.org?
The amount of work involved in securing and parring-down a Windows XP install is way beyond this target market.
These machines are going to be owned by malware within minutes of getting on the web.
I fully expect Norton to step in with an offer of $3 anti-virus too, just to incapacitate the machine even further.
Truly, this project has now been doomed.
All I heard in this thread is “wahhh wahhh wahhh linux wahhh”.
Funerals are like that. XO’s dead, Jim.
Edited 2008-05-16 14:20 UTC
It’s the usual ivory tower folks not owning up for their mistakes. MS didn’t take anything. These guys were so full of themselves that they didn’t think what they had put out was any good. Just because it’s Free and Open does not mean it is the best by default.
But whatever. What really bugs me is that this whole thing was not about helping kids but getting more people to use Free Software.
And this could have worked! Right idea, wrong people.
It was, apparently, all about making money. It is simply more obvious now. The ivory tower folks unwittingly helped Nicholas to get to the point where he can profit from their work and are now forced, by conscience, to move on to other positions.
Edited 2008-05-16 18:01 UTC
The problem here is that the academics focused solely on technology but not the means to deploy it; in other words, they wanted to create a program for getting laptops into the hands of Third World kids — but they didn’t anticipate the need for the kind of global operation that would be required to deploy all that technology. That isn’t cheap; in fact, maintaining a support organization a is very hefty cost, even for a non-profit. So, gasp, they were *shocked* to realize that they needed commercial partners to pull it off.
Hint to future FOSS hardware projects: Don’t let academics drive your deployment strategy; otherwise, you’re going down in flames.
No the problem was that the Academic have let Microsoft and other “special” interest in on the project and let them drive the decision making.
a 60$ computer device that turn into a 200$ one to accomodate Microsoft Windows XP and that the project management choose to accept it is rather more telling about the level of corruption that Microsoft is capable of doing then anything else.
The 100$ laptop is now 200$ to accomodate running Windows XP …
Moul,
I’m more inclined to blame Negroponte’s poor management skills for the failure of this project. They had only gotten the machine down to about $180 or so previously. The SD slot was just a small part of the problem. I’m as sad to see the project die as you likely are. But IMO the blame rests squarely with Negroponte.
Edited 2008-05-17 20:42 UTC
“Mouly”
Still no Y in my real life name …
“I’m more inclined to blame Negroponte’s poor management skills”
Negroponte is not the one who made the irrationnal “demand” for windows. He is only the one who try to accommmodate the “demand” for it.
The SD slot ? You need to look at the original design and compare it to the final shipping model to see , that the requirement , specs and demand grew out of control. The original model had a 60$ cost.
Also this is not even the original OLPC it’s a modded OLPC that cost 200$ , according to Microsoft. So it’s probably closer to 300$ in reality.
The price should be going down due to the price going down in value due to innovation.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8304655
It’s seriously wrong when a commercial entity can ship a full pledge desktop offer at that price with 3 time the capacity …
I edited that out immediately after posting, having remembered your earlier admonishment.
You really need to provide some evidence to support such claims. I think you will find me quite receptive to such evidence.
http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/Hardware_specification#Preproducti…
Look at the pre-production hardware.
everything doubled or changed …
… is all they can hold to these days
Modded you up, and think we definitely need a “Funny” tag for it
Rehdon
Well, let’s face it, they probably did not choose the best Linux distro to run on it, and they probably did not strip the Linux system down to “only needed” components.
they should have used Upstart (i think that is what it is called) and other various new Linux technologies, but they did not.
anyway, on to the Windows Sugar…
I am actually quite impressed, although i don’t know why. I ran XP on a 700Mhz machine with 196 MB Ram for about 5 YEARS, and that was with VB6 and Office 2000 also on it. I never really encountered a problem until i put iTunes on it, it was to much of a memory hog, so i used an older version of Winamp (2) and everything was fine again.
Anyway, It is really funny that people are all like “Oh WOW! this older hardware CAN run XP!!!”
Really, If you had to make due with older hardware, then it would not be such a surprise.
I wonder if MS actually wants these machines (OLPC, EEEPC) to fail with Windows on board rather than succeed on their own terms. Having Office software really requires far better hardware and display, I can’t imagine being happy with such weak hardware for too long, I can’t even imagine kids in Africa turning into little office workers either. They must surely know that sooner or later half the spam will be coming from these machines and that eventually they will be junked.
While I think that what MS has done with OLPC is techincally great, I am hardly surprised they could do it with such a warchest, it just takes control of education away from educationists and back to Redmond and who knows where.
I am reminded of the massive efforts undertaken by the auto and oil industry plus their governments to totally destroy, eradicate, exterminate, bury every form of transportation other than the car through every conceivable means. Primitive electric cars, trams, trains, busses all suffered in the rush to get every one into cars and the earth must pay for it. Mono culture is always bad.
I think OLPC should just quietly go die, at least EEEPC is closer to being useable although the prices doesn’t look like it will ever get to $200.
Interesting analogy. (One of the consequences is that the North American suburbia is completely unable to survive, once oil prices skyrocketing kill this lifestyle.)
As a British person used to fairly good public transport in Europe and never having owned a car there, but now long living in the US, I have a fairly sick desire to see oil prices reach the highest possible price, even $1000/barrel. That is going to hurt a great many people who are far too used to low oil prices living in suburbia. Ironically the oil companies and producers are probably craving the same thing but for the opposite reasons.
Cheap oil has been a drug we have been addicted to, and getting off the habit will be painful. Besides it would really help all the alternative earth friendly energy technologies finally take off, but thats another topic although at least google.org invests in some of those in solar and wind. Hey there’s a google story there for OSAlert:;
Getting off windows is hard enough now, getting the next generation off would be a lot easier if they never got on in the first place. Back on topic.
I have a desire to send sick thinkers back to whence they came.
Ah, good! You’re sounding much better now.
We all had to know that MS would not allow low end devices go totally Linux without getting their wares inserted into said devices.
This, even while selling at greatly reduced price, or no price, or even at a loss to MS.
They can’t afford to have mind share in any large number going to Linux. Their whole business model is based on familiarity, inertia, and fear of the unknown. This keeps the MS desktop dominence going. If millions of children in poor and developing countries, as well as general consumers buying low end products, get too accustomed to Linux, then Microsoft’s business model will start crumbling. And the rate of that crumbling will accelerate over time.
But at the very least, the XO, and other offerings like the Asus, have forced MS to continue XP, and drop their pants price-wise (or give kick-backs to the OEM).
But alas, for these types of low end devices, Linux is much more appropriate. Linux is much more customizable, and can be stripped down easily to bare essentials, and run great on these minimal spec devices. XP can only go so far. And the minimal XP will be a security nightmare, and require anti-virus software, and get totally bogged down. Inevitably, users of the XP devices will be much less satisfied with them than the users of the Linux versions.
So, hopefully, over time, real world use cases and practicality will win out over MS BS. But at the very least, MS is being forced drop their pants and compete.
I dunno. Given the disbelief and anger being expressed on this thread, it would seem that a lot of people were taken completely by surprise by what XO (and Microsoft) did.
That doesn’t mean that Linux “lost”. If anything, Linux is defining the new competition and forcing Microsoft to respond in ways that it never needed to do previously. That kind of competition is good for everyone.
Microsoft is doin’ anythin’ to keep its monopoly… ok, that is quite obvious and natural… but…
what about the Negroponte’s project? vision?
It seems like “con la plata baila el mono” (“any monkey dances with money”) and no matter vision, dreams, projects, etc… everything goes secundary when the money talks.
well there is some truth to the phrase “linux is free if your time has no value”
What we need is an OS that is truly free-one that lowers your costs of using it and not just the entry cost.
Actually, the time savings IS one of the reasons I like Linux. On Windows, after a fresh install, it takes FOREVER to get everything setup the way I want. Have you every installed Visual Studio and SQL Server? Not to mention all the other programs I have to hunt down. SQL Server, especially, can be a quite troublesome install – though it has gotten better each release. With Linux, I open up Synaptic, and select all of my program. I hit the apply button. I’m done. Wow! It still amazes me that the myth of the “uber hard” Linux still floats around. Even if there is a problem, the wealth of support on the net for Linux install problems is awesome. With similar Windows problems, you’re often left to troll around sites like Driverguide.com. Ouch!
That obviously isn’t true if your Linux is a dedicated distribution for your device. Its not the Linux smartphones that crash 20 times a day and suck your batteries empty in a matter of minutes, its the Windows smartphones.
I think the situation for XO really sucks.
I can understand the head of XO switching to Windows to reach his goal of distributing the laptop to as many people as possible. I do think he misled a *lot* of people who put in a *lot* of time to work on this, though. The people who helped develop the original XO/Sugar did a lot of work for free and most, if not all, had no direct benefit.
It’s hard to deny that making Windows available for XO will sell more, but it certainly makes OLPC a questionable product. For OLPC’s sake, they better hope MS is in it for the long haul, because they probably just lost most of the supporting base.
Also, anyone with a brain knows that Microsoft isn’t doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.
E-f**king-xactly.
So many of OLPC’s supporters were very enthusiastic about the idea of getting free/open source in the hands of ‘third world’ kids. Now they’ve been stabbed in the back by the mobsters.
Why can’t the kids who are interested in running Linux w/Sugar install it? There’s nothing stopping them.
OSS advocates love to talk about free-choice, so long as that choice is also OSS.
Yes, good that those children have choosen to use Windows without any kind of learning software but with office 2003 instead. Oh wait, they didn’t choose anything. Wierd isn’t it?
And it wasn’t my choice that Microsoft put pressure on Hardware vendors back in the days not to include BeOS or they would be facing much higher license costs from Microsoft in the future.
So what choice are you talking about? The choice that constantly is getting made for me by bribed or intimidated people?
It works both ways, mate. To mandate Linux would have forced a decision on them also. The Windows platform has a rich selection of education software and on top of this, they are learning how to use Office which is crucial in this day and age if we want these children to aspire to more than simply farming and manual labour.
But my original point was simply that whenever Windows is even offered as a choice (e.g. the EeePC), OSS advocates cry foul. One would think they were “anti-choice” in spite of all the posturing.
Wierd(sic) isn’t it?
That is because usually the choices don’t really look that fair. If the Linux alternative suddenly becomes more expensive despite not having license costs or even support, then i can’t fight the feeling that there was some foul play involved, don’t you?
But maybe you are the kind of guy that thinks criminal behaviour in the industry is just the extension of free market to the law.
BTW, i’m not an native english speaker, so spelling and/or grammar mistakes should be kinda understandable, don’t you think?
Edited 2008-05-17 09:28 UTC
Microsoft Office is crucial?
Perhaps you mean it is crucial that the monopoly be extended because there is a monopoly. There is more than a one office suite around and a number that are adequate. It would have been better to use this as a tool to show the value of the Open Document Format standard for exchanging documents.
Really? I’ve never seen a court ruling in which MS was found to have a monopoly on Office suites. Link?
duh
Obviously, you were full of crap.
You might read on the distribution problems the OLPC project is facing.
So yes, since these kids can’t go to radioshack, buy an CD drive or an big SD card, download it on their parents PC via DSL, it is virtually impossible to get the Original XO OS for them.
Why linux lovers are bashing MS. Anyhow MS is always an opportunistic organization. If you have to blame, spit your fire on Mr Negroponte and his schizophoronic direction of this project. Like ADHD kid he shifted goals every often at his whim. We should send him to third world country and observe kids, their system for full six months and then evaluate his behavior and THEN restart project from scratch again.
Edited 2008-05-16 18:20 UTC
What we need now is somebody who would be able to create an improved Linux distro, tailored specifically at OLPC. With all the Sugar interface, less resource usage (XFCE, anyone?), improved init system, etc.
Then compare it to the “superb” XP offer from Redmond. If it was well executed, this Linux distro would easily kick butt of this sized-down Windows.
[fun-part]
I even have a name for it: Linux On OLPC, in short LOLPC.
???
Then again, maybe LOLPC is not such a good name after all? Just kidding
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That would be quite pointless now. Since there isn’t a very easy way to install a new OS on the OLPC and it would be very difficult to distribute it in the places the XO is meant to go it likely wouldn’t be very accepted.
The only thing to do with the OLPC project now is to warn everyone about it and not waste your unpaid altruistic work towards it anymore.
Seriously, if it still was meant as a educational platform, it would not ship with office. Children do not have *work to get done*, except if they work in a sweat shop. I have a really bad feeling about this… i fear in a couple of years we will see office versions of swearshops if the project is a success.
Ok so I am not the biggest fan of both MS and OLPC but as a windows user for … i don’t even want to count the years, I have one question. How did the great team from MS deal with the virus/malware problem that seems to hunt Windows everywhere? Last I checked the network that the OLPC relies on will allow for malware and viruses to spread much like viruses do in the human population. And since there are no doctors, medicine, or antibodies you can imagine what would happen to most of the OLPCs. Or maybe I’m mistaken and MS has finally decided to create a decent AV solution. ( not likely ) It is one thing testing a computer behind a hundred thousand firewall inside the MS network and it is completely different thing testing it in the wild with no protection whatsoever.
Even if all the other problems were gone the fact that the design of the OLPC allow for whole networks to be crippled by a single virus should be scary enough. Yes with linux is almost a nonissue at the moment but this is hardly the case with windows xp. You don’t need to be looking for trouble because it finds you on it’s own. And you need only one kids system to be infected in order to start the equivalent of a pandemic.
Now how’s that for overlooking the details MS?
You do not understand one important thing.
Viruses is the most important windows feature.
a) If something is wrong with your computer then you have viruses and it is not operating system problem.
b) If your computer is functioning normally it is because you have the best operating system Microsoft Windows XP.
From a and b result is that Windows XP is the best OS no mater what. If something is wrong then it is “a” if something is still working then is is “b”.
As when I’ve seen promotions for this project I’ve seen African children ^aEUR“ I’m assuming this project is aimed at African children, in which case the project was probably always doomed and is now defiantly doomed.
Consider a well thought of private school in Kampala say St. Lawrence Citizens’ High School and London College http://www.enteruganda.com/st.Lawrence.htm class size for a year 9 (13yr olds) will be up to 80, and the teacher paid US$ 300 per month, which is less than US$5/month/child on teachers. Resources for the learner include a black board… any text books must be bought by the child (and this is considered a good school for the middle classes not the poor) Does anyone really think that a laptop for ever child is realistic or even whats needed?
I currently work in Lesotho and we’ve had ADSL for about a year the infrastructure in Lesotho is much better than most African countries as we are surrounded by South Africa, a 128Kbs uncapped connection is about what a low skilled worker is paid a month ^aEUR“ so these laptops are not going to be connected to the net. Even at the school which I work, where many of the students have PCs only a tiny minority have internet and most are running pirated copies of XP. Flash disks are affordable and everyone swaps mp3 etc as a result about 90% of the students PCs are infected with viruses. Obviously the OLPC PCs running Windows will simply add to the problem.
It is not difficult to imagine that these PCs will be the most valuable possession in many children’s houses and will be stolen almost immediately, or sold to by food / text books /school fees etc.
So what will happen, my guess they will end up in a few show peace schools where if the IT administrator is sensible he wont let them out of the IT lab – most will end up trashed or on the black market. As for using Windows XP most of these PCs will have a short virus ridden existence for a few years until MS stops supporting XP at which point they will become completely obsolete, obviously a few politicians will get some handsome backhanders .