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."
Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
He's always got my goat, I wish he'd give it back. I used to read his breathless commentary in Wired in the 90s, visionary - pah, up his own arse.
The Goal? (Score:4, Insightful)
At least there is technology getting into the hands of children who can use it to further their education. Before we whine about it running on proprietary software let's also keep in mind that it gives them access greater than what they had, interoperability they may never have had, and there are plenty of open source projects that they can use if they want to.
Be careful in your advocacy (Score:5, Insightful)
This trial will be a great success. Everything will work great. If need be there will be one MS support person per child. The problems will come two years down the line when it turns out that vista's successor is needed to do any work with windows and doesn't run on the existing hardware. Remember the London stock exchange. Everybody knew how "Windows" increased it's stability. Now, it's two years later and nobody remembers that Windows was involved at the point when the whole thing crashes and can't be recovered.
Don't say that this trial will be bad or won't succeed. MS will throw everything they have to make it work. Do remember that Peru is building up problems for the future. Do try to explain how that will happen. Do remind people that the first trial has nothing to do with the reality. Do remind them that it's what happens two years or more down the line which you have to look at. Do remind them that the London Stock Exchange will never be credible again.
Expensive (Score:1, Insightful)
TCO will be so much higher on winXP OLPC
OLPC interface may have been too far 'out there'
I would have gone down a more eeepc style desktop
Ofcourse MS$ help OLPC as a profit seeking company but let's not kid ourselves that this is not at the expense of poorer regions.
Re:The Goal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Interoperability greater than what they had? Interoperability to what? MS Office and other MS software which is notorious for not being interoperable?
This computer was supposed to be a learning tool for children. To teach critical thinking. Not to be a platform for Office.
How does turning it into an XP box help? XP is just essentially a vending machine.
Re:The Goal? (Score:4, Insightful)
That is about as close as you could get to a modern equivalent to the justifications for imperialism and colonialism of the 18th and 19th centuries. Unfortunately, it's the same poor suckers that are getting victimised again.
So... the OLPC... (Score:5, Insightful)
* Microsoft used every trick they could, including subsidies from the Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation, to destroy OLPC/Linux projects. ... in ten years time every schoolkid in Latin America, Asia, and Africa will be using netbook-style computers that cost $20 and they will be running Linux, and they will have everything the OLPC wanted to have, and more.
* The OLPC was never distributed en-masse to developers who could have turned it into a living ecosystem.
* Running Windows on the OLPC is just stupid.
* Cheap netbooks will make the OLPC redundant.
* While Microsoft was attacking the OLPC, it lost sight of the fact that Linux is the obvious choice for Chinese netbooks.
Free software will, eventually, set us free. ("us" = "everyone on the planet except the rich who can afford toys that lock them in and rob them blind").
Re:Drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you're wrong. The linux kernel comes with far more drivers than Windows comes with natively. The majority of drivers that people use in Windows are 3rd party and Microsoft does not have the source code for them. Microsoft cannot recompile 3rd party drivers for the OLPC.
Re:So... the OLPC... (Score:5, Insightful)
To some extent, every successful community needs a bad guy [ipocracy.com]. So pushing XP in Peru will probably promote interest in free software and stimulate FOSS activists to work on educating government about the importance of free software.
Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown FOSS industry because it creates the basis for future jobs. Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.
User experience (Score:1, Insightful)
Quit the FUD (Score:1, Insightful)
Remember the London stock exchange. Everybody knew how "Windows" increased it's stability. Now, it's two years later and nobody remembers that Windows was involved at the point when the whole thing crashes and can't be recovered.
So knowing the massive complexity of how a stock exchange system works you're certain it was Windows that caused the crash? Wow, you truly are worthy of those mod points.
Re:The Goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I will respond because I didn't make my initial statement without thinking. Greater than what they had - meaning more than. Before this they had nothing available probably. This is not less than nothing.
Interoperability - as much as it pains you to acknowledge it, most of the world still runs Windows. In some places it still requires Windows. Until that changes my statement remains true.
This computer can still be a learning tool for children. This tool can still teach critical thinking. One does NOT need to be using an open source platform to engage in critical thinking. Not to mention that Office most surely won't run on something of this nature but that only belies your unwillingness to accept anything other than a purist mentality or agreement of your opinions regardless of the reality.
How does it help? It helps in that the tools are being put into the hands of children. It helps in that these kids are able to do the important things like search for more information on a subject that interests them, to reach informed choices about the topics that matter to them, and to better enable them to prepare for a future that might actually get them out of the slums and into an acceptable level of living.
You do NOT need F/OSS for that. You don't NEED the best of breed to drive a car. You can do just fine in getting from Point A to Point B in a beat to shit old Honda.
What about CHOICE? These people OPTED to use Windows. We can argue that their children didn't opt to but do you really think that they care? No. I don't. The few that will care, later on down the road, will make those choices as well. Until then they have email, browsers that go to wikipedia, search engines to learn more about the world around them, and so much more. For that I am happy, for that I am grateful, and to be honest I don't give a shit if it runs Windows, Linux, RiscOS, or garbledygook! So long as the job is done and that job is getting this coming generation into the information age. The ends justify the means.
Re:The Goal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Excellent point. Any kid that is at all interested in hacking it is going to dual boot. Its not like every kid in Peru would otherwise suddenly going to pick up the code and start hacking it.
Re:Be careful in your advocacy (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, weren't the specs of the OLPC laptop already bumped up in order to theoretically support Windows as they're now doing? If so, that would mean that the goal of the laptop to be super-dirt cheap was already subverted by being able to put MS on the thing anyway. Don't get me wrong, the whole project isn't an abysmal failure, but I have to believe that attempting to get MS to function on the laptop has already derailed a lot of the original project's intent. You know, that whole learning thing. Instead, I feel that Windows will simply teach the user to become accustomed to the status quo.
Re:The Goal? (Score:3, Insightful)
We all probably started out on a closed source operating system... Why can't they? Why do we expect the results to be different? *sighs* People just flipped and modded my first post without actually thinking and maybe now I can post more often. ;)
Get the tools out there into the hands of the children via whatever means nessesary. Let them work on it and learn. If they want to hack the code, trust me (look at us for example), they will.
XP On School Computers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's true, to a certain extent. But OLPCs running Linux would achieve the same end for less money. And chances are that Windows won't run as well as the version of Linux that this machine was designed to run.
And can poor people really afford to be sucked into the expensive world of Microsoft?
Re:The Goal? (Score:2, Insightful)
What about CHOICE? These people OPTED to use Windows. We can argue that their children didn't opt to but do you really think that they care? No. I don't. The few that will care, later on down the road, will make those choices as well.
No their GOVERNMENT opted for Windows. Given the history of corruption in many S-American countries I don't think that the question of whether Linux, RiscOS or Garbledygook OS would have done as good a job as Windows OS ever was ever even asked and if it was the question was quickly forgotten as soon as MS got through greasing the 'right people'.
Re:So... the OLPC... (Score:4, Insightful)
>* Cheap netbooks will make the OLPC redundant.
I agree with your previous points, but not this one: netbooks have a fan (so are more fragile), consume as much power as regular laptops (which they are with a smaller screen), their screen cannot be read easily in daylight on a sunny day, they don't have mesh networking, etc: there are many reasons why the OLPC XO-1 is better suited for the third world schools than netbooks (even running Linux).
>* While Microsoft was attacking the OLPC, it lost sight of the fact that Linux is the obvious choice for Chinese netbooks.
Not really, hence their push for Windows-XP for netbooks. Chinese users have always pirated Windows, why wouldn't they pirate Windows XP for their netbooks. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft make a Vista-light or keep making an XP version for those netbooks to ensure that Linux's usage stay marginal.
>in ten years time every schoolkid in Latin America, Asia, and Africa will be using netbook-style computers that cost $20 and they will be running Linux, and they will have everything the OLPC wanted to have, and more.
Maybe, have you noticed that the price of netbooks since the first EEE 701 have only gone up?
Hardware makers don't like too cheap hardware because they're afraid of loosing sells of higher priced laptops..
Re:The Goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
When was the last time you touched Windows? I only ask because you seem to be labouring under a misapprehension. There is no mechanism in Windows that stops you running software that was not written by Microsoft. Just because I have Windows, does not mean I have to run MS Office. I could choose any one of a number of Office packages including Open Source ones.
Windows as a desktop platform is just as interoperable as any other desktop operating system, in fact more so because it will interoperate with Microsoft's proprietary stuff as well as all of the open standards.
You're keen on teaching children critical thinking, but you're happy to tell lies about an operating system you don't like. That's not setting them a good example is it?
Re:The Goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
The goal is to give these kids a chance.
Who's goal? Because it certainly isn't Microsoft's. They want as much lock-in as they can get and they don't care how they get it. All large corporations want the same thing because they are driven by the demands of their shareholders for profit - and rightly so.
But the OLPC project wasn't started to enhance the balance sheet of Microsoft - yet it affects its credibility and its effectiveness for Microsoft to use it as a marketing tool and at the same time harms the chances of other projects that will find it harder to garner non-profit support when it is clear that at the point of success some profit-junky will just rush in to exploit it. That is the main reason why open source should be used - because it shares the vision that created the OLPC in the first place.
Re:The Goal? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand the why people automatically assume that there is bribery involved especially in a matter that is as open as this one. Could that have happened? Sure. Did it? Not to the best of my knowledge and I'm guessing you don't have any evidence to support your views either other than a perception which is nothing more than a preconceived notion.
Re:The Goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're trolling but I'll feed you regardless.
They're not buying an OS only. They're getting a functional computer. Scaled down or not, it functions. It does what they need it to do. They'll be able to run all sorts of programs as I understand it. What makes you think that educational software only comes in the pay-for environment? Have you not seen the freeware (including open source) applications that run just fine in Windows? The price you mention is already paid for, the BSA is only involved if there's a reason to suspect piracy and, frankly, the BSA is pretty much full of evil fucktards regardless of the OS you're using. Your last statement shows your prejudice and without evidence to support it it is just silly. I can't think of a time when Microsoft has ever charged me for an add-on, update, or the likes.
If, by means of zealotry, you want to go take these laptops from the hands of children then you have all the permissions in the world so long as you accept the consequences. Me? I'm just glad they have something more than what they had. If you want to take away the freedom of choice because those choices don't meet your idealogical conceptions then by all means, I suggest you run to Peru and start taking them from the hands of the children. While you are there you might as well hunt for a homeless child who's about to dumpster dive and get themselves a hamburger and take that from them too because you feel that eating meat is morally wrong. Go on, go punch one in the face and explain that eating from McDonald's is unacceptable because you've seen the documentary and you have your opinions on the subject.
Lest you argue and say it isn't so basic as the food or you're not a vegetarian I suggest you scroll up and look at what you have typed. Again, I did not make those statements without thinking long and hard about them and even overcoming some inner turmoil. The ends justify the means if even a small percentage of people are given a higher standard of living or a greater awareness of the world around them that they would not have had otherwise. The operating system, in this case, is unimportant. I don't CARE what brand of drug saves my life. I care if it works. This works.
I made those statements knowing I'd get piles of mods saying I was trolling. I made them with every bit of information I had (I've followed this and carefully thought about the benefits and the negatives for the entire time and, before you ask, I'm a double dipper in the BOGO so that each of my kids could have one) and I stand by them. As much as I love and sometimes even advocate the premise that open is better the reality is that this is better than nothing and that they made the choice to use Windows. I am fine with that, I make the choice to use Windows every day. Click my homepage link and you'll see that I actually make my living from Linux, for example, so don't think that this isn't something I haven't thought about.
Am I defending the use of Microsoft products on the OLPC units? Yes. Yes I am. Not because it is Microsoft but because of the potential benefits for those who receive the units. They can accomplish all that they want to on the laptop regardless of the OS that came initially installed.
The ONLY reason I can see that is justified is the cost. The price does increase I'd assume. (I don't have the numbers and I'm not an econ/biz major/grad.) Those are small enough even at 1:10 that it is still justifiable to me. If only one child got a laptop that would be better than nothing regardless of the OS it ran.
Re:The Goal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I wasn't thinking in terms of getting into the OS code...
How about having a huge repository of great software at their disposal for $0?
Assuming they want to do something more than MS Office, their choices will often be to rely on warez (hello malware), or download shareware from iffy sources (hello more malware), and ending up with a slower, less efficient machine.
Wouldn't it be great if they could just learn from any programming, mathematical, enginnering, astonomy apps that they could grab from a repository and just start using?
Re:So... the OLPC... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with your previous points, but not this one: netbooks have a fan (so are more fragile), consume as much power as regular laptops (which they are with a smaller screen), their screen cannot be read easily in daylight on a sunny day, they don't have mesh networking, etc: there are many reasons why the OLPC XO-1 is better suited for the third world schools than netbooks (even running Linux).
Isn't mesh networking simply a software function? or does it require explicit hardware support?
The fan and screen are relatively easy things that could be changed... Most netbooks are considerably more powerful than the OLPC, and would happily run fanless if clocked down to similar performance levels.
Not really, hence their push for Windows-XP for netbooks. Chinese users have always pirated Windows, why wouldn't they pirate Windows XP for their netbooks. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft make a Vista-light or keep making an XP version for those netbooks to ensure that Linux's usage stay marginal.
Because in order to further reduce cost, some of these manufacturers forego the more expensive x86 compatible processors that can run windows, in favor of cheaper and lower power chinese produced ARM or MIPS based cores, which cannot run windows, but will run linux perfectly well while being cheaper and more power efficient. ARM processors pretty much dominate the cellphone market, are manufactured by the millions, and are cheap and low power while being more than powerful enough to run linux.
Maybe, have you noticed that the price of netbooks since the first EEE 701 have only gone up?
Hardware makers don't like too cheap hardware because they're afraid of loosing sells of higher priced laptops..
Yes, hardware makers like HP, Dell, Asus etc who have existing product lines of laptops to protect...
But what about chinese companies who don't already produce laptops, and thus have no existing market to protect?
Re:The Goal? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll play. But, I'll play dirty 'cause that's your attempted response.
ActiveX. Outlook Express. Internet Explorer. Flash. Probably Silverlight.
Oh they can also likely run Thunderbird, Firefox, GIMP, FileZilla, and more.
For better or worse, they can do that.
You can cite alternatives but that wasn't your question now was it?
The kid down the street? Heh! My kids actually HAVE one each of the OLPC and they, sadly, don't bother with it to the point where I want to go take it from them and use it myself or just get my own. The kids down the street would get ACCESS to the internet. They would get ACCESS to information. The operating system doesn't even fucking matter in those cases. In the few cases where it does they also have ACCESS to the information to change their OS.
Re:It's a shame, really (Score:5, Insightful)
What learning tools are being shipped with WinXP on these laptops?
Re:The Goal? (Score:4, Insightful)
I will respond because I didn't make my initial statement without thinking. Greater than what they had - meaning more than. Before this they had nothing available probably. This is not less than nothing.
No, before this they had an OLPC with Linux available. It's kind of like saying I'll give you a Ferrari, then later on saying I'm actually going to give you a Yugo. Sure, a Yugo is more than nothing, but it is less that what you were initially going to get.
This computer can still be a learning tool for children. This tool can still teach critical thinking.
How? What is shipping with WinXP on this laptop that will teach critical thinking?
One does NOT need to be using an open source platform to engage in critical thinking.
True, they could have chosen something like Solaris, or forked and closed a BSD like Apple did, and still had most of the benefit they got from Linux. But WinXP is a different beast. You get no compiler. The interface is compiled and you don't have the source. The apps are compiled and you don't have the source. Is there a single program (besides BAT files) on the WinXP that will be shipped with the OLPC that can be changed?
You can do just fine in getting from Point A to Point B in a beat to shit old Honda.
Which would be fine, if the goal of OLPC was just to give kids a computer, and if Windows were cheaper than Linux. Neither is true. You're passing up a brand new free Ferrari and instead paying $50 for a beat to shit old Honda.
What about CHOICE? These people OPTED to use Windows. We can argue that their children didn't opt to but do you really think that they care? No. I don't.
The point of OLPC was to give them what they need, not what they want. Peru might prefer money going to it's elected officials instead of laptops for kids, that doesn't mean that's what OLPC should be giving them. Again, OLPC wasn't supposed to be giving away a computer that people requested, they were supposed to be providing a tool that these kids could use to improve their situation. Will WinXP do that? Yes. Would Linux do it better? Yes.
The few that will care, later on down the road, will make those choices as well. Until then they have email, browsers that go to wikipedia, search engines to learn more about the world around them, and so much more.
They have that on the Linux install too. Again, the problem isn't that they're getting an "okay" OS, the problem is that they were supposed to get a great OS and aren't.
Re:Controversy? What controversy? (Score:3, Insightful)
The goal was to deliver an educational platform.
Same as if we decided a program to teach kids in country x to improve their mechanical knowledge and allow them to explore new fuels. We come up with an easy to understand vehicle design and engine that is efficient and runs on fuels of tomorrow. More importantly they can look under the hood and easily experiment with / modify parts at will.
Here comes big oil and subverts the platform by swapping out the (hydrogen/electric/whatever) engines with gas burning engines, welding shut the hood. Governement X praises it because "The rest of the world burns oil, why shouldn't we".
People pop out of the woodworks to state how these cars are better at getting people around, they "conform". The argument now moves from "Let's deliver educational tools" to "let's deliver transportation". The kids/adolescents no longer learn about the inner workings of engines, instead they learn to conform.
Big oil gets a few 100,000 more customers.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a shame, really (Score:2, Insightful)
There are more problems with OLPC than Linux / Windows Holy wars.
Yes on one side there is Microsoft, who uses cash and influence to make sure that the OLPC can not become the "killer Linux appliance". While on the other side there are folks who love free software. Those who are caught up in the vision of giving kids a learning tool. Those who just plain HATE microsoft and saw it as a way of striking at the heart of the beast.
Beyond that, OLPC has no clue how to distribute laptops. Pretty much they are dropped off by the pallet full with a "here you go". They don't know where they are going. When a country buys them that is fine. The ones that are "donated"...that is another story. Do they end up on ebay or as netbooks for the warehouse persons family? Or do they actually get out to the villiages? There are not really going to be any sort of decent record keeping or accounting to tell us.
The kids and teachers are not properly trained. The goals of the program are scattered and unfocused. Is it a book reader? Where are the free books coming from? Is it a tool to teach programming and logical thinking? Where is the software for that on an XP system? Is it a tool to enable these kids to discover the Internet? Who has provided a net connection out in the villages for them?
I think the problem is that the way this project is turning out and is being administered it is a turd. It does not matter if you put ketchup (Linux) or mustard (Windows) on the turd. It is still a turd
Hopefully in 5 or 10 years someone will be able to dissect this mess and learn something from it. How to get laptops into the hands children in 3rd world nations and make them real learning tools.
Exactly -- what *is* the goal here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. KGill appears to be (hopefully unwittingly?) setting up a strawman argument here. The choice is *not* XP+OLPC (expensive) or nothing (cheapest), it's at least XP+OLPC (expensive) or Linux+OLPC (cheaper) or nothing (cheapest), with more possibilities conceivable. And if we're going by the Think Of The Children (TM) argument, it sure looks like Door #2 here with Linux on the machines would have allowed for more OLPCs going to more kids.
I'm not about evangelizing. I'm a pragmatist -- I'm interested in getting things done. And if the end goal is to get OLPCs into the hands of more kids, then Linux (or some other FOSS OS) is the way to go, simply in terms of cost.
Cheers,
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a shame, really (Score:1, Insightful)
Excellent point. Microsoft has two big selling points for their XO implementation:
What they quietly ignore is that:
Of course, Microsoft hasn't shipped anything yet (and won't for months), so we have no idea what learning tools will be on the laptops. We can expect at least a paint program, a word processor, a calculator, a web browser, and video/sound editing software -- which is not all that different from what OLPC is providing on Linux.
I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft also scores a few token deals with software publishers for old, well-known titles... Getting something like Carmen Sandiego or Mavis Beacon shipped on the laptops would be great publicity for them, much like SimCity was for OLPC. (And MS could ship a port of OLPC's Micropolis version of SimCity, if they wanted, since it's now open source -- although they probably won't, because of their apparent aversion to touching anything GPLed.)
The most significant educational advantage of the XP distributions may end up being a working version of Flash, which OLPC has apparently left to the individual countries to install on Linux, due to licensing concerns.
Not true (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that Microsoft's mechanism is software based.
Microsoft is not the market leader in the desktop because of that silly little IE bundling nonsense nor are they the leader because the have the best O/S.
Microsoft is the market leader, because for nearly 20 years every single PC that came out of the factory had a Windows sticker on it (I'll knock Bill Gates for a lot of things - but respect for one of the greatest business strategies since Jesus). Most people do not know the difference between a PC (or a computer full stop for that matter) and Microsoft Windows. In fact, a large proportion think that 'PC' and 'Word' are synonyms.
Getting Schools to teach children that 'Microsoft = Computer' is the cheapest and most effective marketing tool they have. And once that mindset is in place, Microsoft has a much more powerful mechanism to stop you running non-Microsoft software on your PC.
Re:It's a shame, really (Score:5, Insightful)
Negroponte and his type will never learn that you can not put anything out which can be interpreted as a threat to Microsoft AND tell them who you are selling or giving the products to.
They don't even know that this Windows-on-the-XO is all a plan to terminate the project. To run them out of funds and essentially render them insignificant. Do you really think Microsoft wanted to help the project and spread Windows while at the same time taking them over a year to get Windows XP running on the XO? It reminds me of how the developer and business community kept asking Microsoft for JDBC drivers for MS SQL Server. 3rd party options were available but you know how adverse many businesses are non-Microsoft software. Well Microsoft finally conceeded and said they'd provide a JDBC driver but it was going to take them 18 months to fully test it and release it. That's right, a JDBC driver taking 1.5 years for Microsoft to ship. This is what Microsoft is doing to the OLPC. Playing their game of killing them in slow motion.
Can you imagine if the Speak-N-Spell had Linux running on it how that product would end up once Microsoft used their influence to get the impression Windows was required for it to be acceptable? The OLPC was originally designed as a special purpose teaching tool with custom software to make it as easy to use as an appliance for these tasks. Now, it has turned into a tool to teach the way Microsoft experts decided Microsoft software should be launched and found on a computer over 15 years ago. And a very slow one at that.
Microsoft gets a point for fooling some highly educated people. The OLPC gets -1 point for being suckered into this track of putting Windows on the XO. Bender and others get 5 points for seeing this and trying to save what real work can be saved(Sugar) and 10 points go to anyone who takes the hardware design of the XO, ports it to ARM and comes out with what I would consider a better product.
LoB