Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop 292
Da Massive writes "The government of Peru will run the first ever trial of the One Laptop Per Child association's XO laptop running Windows XP. This puts the nation at the heart of a software controversy that has been raging for years between those who advocate making software and its source code free, such as Linux OS developers, and those who charge for software and keep the development recipes secret, such as Microsoft."
I wish (Score:3, Informative)
Otherwise they might have to do another trial on Vista; and by the time the trial ends, Vista's life cycle...
Re:Controversy? What controversy? (Score:5, Informative)
pilot project of Microsoft, not Peru (Score:5, Informative)
So Microsoft does a tiny-weeny implementation with one pilot school in Peru all by itself, while the main deployment in Peru with about 260.000 laptops will run Sugar on Linux. But no reporter seems to take the time to fud-check Microsoft's press statements. Surprise!
Re:Controversy? What controversy? (Score:3, Informative)
Whilst I don't know if Microsoft paid the "donate one get one" price that everyone else had to pay; I note that I seem to have been taken in by MS FUD [slashdot.org] and at least MS has had to pay something towards the cost of these laptops. Apologies to anyone at OLPC who I offended. I'll be more careful about trusting MS in future :-) :-(
Re:Peru & Microsoft?? (Score:2, Informative)
Never happened. OTOH, Peru has a HUGE piracy market, known locally as "Wilson Galleries" or "Wilson st." in the case of software, "Mesa Redonda" and "El Hueco" for music and video. And let's not forget "Polvos Azules" for bootlegging, "Tacora" and "La Victoria" (a whole district) for stolen car parts and "Malvinas Ave." for pretty much everything ele that's been stolen.
The availability of cheap (stolen/counterfeit/pirated) computers and software has pushed MS deep into the peruvian psyche as the one and only option.
Only a trial (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Goal? (Score:3, Informative)
Is this where I point out the DR-DOS thing? Yes, I think so.
Re:The Goal? (Score:5, Informative)
Only if they are made aware of the possibilities. Windows actively discourages learning about the underlying system, and is designed to convince users that doing so is dangerous and should be avoided...
The purpose is to encourage learning, not to create a dependency on proprietary software.
One will result in increased costs of entry into the market for these countries, as all their potential workers will only know proprietary software and insist on it, making it more expensive to get going and flowing money out of the country.
The other will result in a local industry where software is produced and supported locally, with money remaining in the local economy and jobs being created.
Re:Drivers (Score:3, Informative)
My wife got a HP laptop that came with Vista, which I promptly threw XP wasn't supported, and the onboard wifi and soundcard did not work in XP. And after quite a lot of searching I found out that it won't be supported, and no known similar drivers work for Windows XP - but Ubuntu seems to work fine..
Re:Peru & Microsoft?? (Score:3, Informative)
Never happened.
A quick google shows that the bill does indeed not prohibit MS software entirely, but it sounds like it does prohibit a pro-MS preference:
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2005/09/29/peru-rejects-microsoft-windows [theinquirer.net]
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/perus-green-light-to-opensource-software/2005/09/28/1127804508352.html [smh.com.au]
http://news.cnet.com/Perus-president-approves-open-source-bill/2110-7344_3-5907226.html [cnet.com]
And some older articles that sound a bit more extreme (like I remembered it):
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/07/54141 [wired.com]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/19/ms_in_peruvian_opensource_nightmare/ [theregister.co.uk]
Re:So... the OLPC... (Score:3, Informative)
The OLPC paved the way for cheap netbooks no question. But if you've ever had an OLPC in your hands, it has a great feel that you're not going to match with any of the netbooks out there. The form factor and construction are pretty great. I'd like to see more hardware platforms with that kind of durable feel designed into them - this is a laptop you could leave on the floorboard of your car, or hand to young children and let them use it in the yard unsupervised.
Re:I wish (Score:2, Informative)
XP is still being shipped on netbooks and they will provide fixes for it until 2014 [microsoft.com]. That means that XP will have been supported for 13 years, since it was released in 2001.
Good luck on getting fixes for a 13 year old Linux distribution.
Re:The Goal? (Score:3, Informative)
*sighs* If you're going to mod it troll then at least have the courage to come defend your statement. Of all the views I've expressed tonight on this subject this one has been the most basic and easy to comprehend. If you don't like it then at least come back as AC (I read ALL posts in reply) and defend it with some factual information as well as why you think it was trolling. "I don't like it." Is not justification to moderate something as troll.
I presented a clear, easy to comprehend, vision and understanding that took a great deal of thought as you'll with the other modifications of those posts. I don't come ready to "argue" my point of view, I come ready to explain it. I posted KNOWING that it would potentially be controversial to the /. moderators and crowds. I posted because it needed to be said. If you're constantly wasted it requires a friend to come to you and tell you that you are going too far.
They have hardware and software that works to enable them to accomplish the goals of moving themselves beyond their current environment. The idea that you would take that from them because of an ideology is disgusting to me. Think of the first time you touched a PC. Did you CARE what OS it ran or did you get excited because you saw the potential benefits?
Re:pilot project of Microsoft, not Peru (Score:2, Informative)
And I won't try to defend the direction OLPC has taken or anything. Actually not. The OLPC philosophy is 'throw them a computer, and they will learn by themselves'. This will work for some area's for some children, but not always is my humble opinion. But I think that that creating content is best left to [local | national] organisations that know the local requirements. The content has to tie into the local educational system because governments sets up certain educational goals to be met.
And believe it or not, the XO has actually helped spur such organizations. I'm sorry that I have to go a bit personal here but without OLPC, our organisation, OLE Nepal [olenepal.org] wouldn't have existed. We're a rapidly expanding non-profit organisation of about 20 people, 11 of which are working fulltime (compared to about four last year around this time) making content. We've now got over 100 activities ready, 90 of which (you can try them out for yourself) [laptop.org] are in use at our pilot schools. We alse developed the groundworks for a digital library called E-Pustakalaya [olenepal.org], we provide teacher training and we set up wireless infrastructure.
Those activities are a good thing. In Nepal about the only method of consolidating information atm is through rote-learning. This becomes very apparent in mathematics for example, where students can't calculate the opposite side of a triangle when in a test the indicators for the sides a, b and c are replaced with r, s and t.
If some organisation in Boston would just throw Nepal funky looking laptops with a random collection of software building blocks, teachers wouldn't have a use for them and well-willing people would have a hard time explaining what would justify the government or well-willing NGO's to fork out 200 a pop for these babies.
Re:It's a shame, really (Score:1, Informative)
Agreed on the first world part. There are 100s if not 1000s of US schools who would love this sort of thing. I should know as I have been setting up LTSP machines in school districts all over the US. XO for the kids that interfaced with LTSP would be an awsome combination.