Why Microsoft Must Control One Laptop Per Child (Technocrat.net) [LWN.net]

Why Microsoft Must Control One Laptop Per Child (Technocrat.net)

Posted Jan 10, 2008 19:39 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (guest, #216) [Link] (4 responses)

Bruce seems to speak as if Nicholas Negroponte has done a 180 and completely abandoned free
software in favor of Windows.  I haven't heard anything about this happening anywhere but in
this article.  Anyone know how accurate this is?  It's depressing even to think that might
happen, but is it a fait accompli or just what Microsoft is wishing would happen?

Why Microsoft Must Control One Laptop Per Child (Technocrat.net)

Posted Jan 10, 2008 21:21 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm not just telling you what has happened, but what I think will happen.

Thanks

Bruce

This glass is half-full

Posted Jan 10, 2008 22:41 UTC (Thu) by dhess (guest, #7827) [Link] (1 responses)

I think you're a good prognosticator, Bruce, but I hope you're wrong on this one.

Don't get too down on OLPC just yet! The amount of negative press it's received in the last 12 months has been really disappointing. Unfortunately, few journalists are writing about the incredible job the OLPC team has done getting this far. OK, so the XO-1 costs more than the initial projection, the project has been delayed and the software hasn't quite caught up with the hardware yet... but if you've ever worked on a pioneering computer system project of this scale before, or read about one, anyway, you know that these problems are par for the course. In an era where only one of many multi-billion dollar personal computer companies still specs, designs and builds end-user systems, all the way from motherboard to GUI, I think it's incredible that a non- profit organization has managed to deliver a system at all, let alone one that blazes a trail with as many innovations as the XO-1.

It was easy to predict that if OLPC got to the point of shipping production systems, Microsoft was going to get their nose in it. I'd be more worried about OLPC's future if they weren't interested at all. But with all due respect to Dr. Negroponte, who cares what side deals he's making with Microsoft? We've got better things to do now with our attention and our efforts. The OLPC program is the best chance the free software community has had to change the world; not in some personal, "GiantCorp can't tell me what to do with my own hardware" sense, but in a far-reaching, life-altering way.

We have real hardware now and at least a few thousand eager children with machines in their hands, and thousands more to come. Let's stop complaining about all the things that OLPC has done wrong, stop worrying about Microsoft's insidious plans and concentrate on giving kids all over the planet a reason not to boot into Windows: by writing some great free software that will fundamentally change their education and introduce them to the unbelievably fascinating world of computers that we all love so much!

This glass is half-full

Posted Jan 11, 2008 9:16 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Only responding to the last paragraph:  I think these "Stop worrying about politics and get
back to coding!" calls are what get us into these messes.

If money is going to a charity, and a corrupt company is redirecting that money into its own
pockets, the solution is not "Quick! Increase the money!".  The solution is that someone has
to care about that money helping the people it is intended to help.

The years of anti-software-patent campaigning taught us that programming doesn't solve all
problems.  Companies like Microsoft have realised that politics and advertising are two of the
free software community's weak spots.  They can't tackle us in terms of producing good
software, so they're tackling us where we are weak.  We have to beef up our work on public
policy and awareness.

Why Microsoft Must Control One Laptop Per Child (Technocrat.net)

Posted Jan 17, 2008 13:08 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

It's easy to get bummed out about Redmond, but only if you get sucked down into the tactical
weeds.
In the broader strategic perspective, the fact that OLPC could happen at all and get as far as
it already has speaks volumes.
It will take a few more rocks to the forehead for Goliath to go down.
Focus, keep working, for he knows the time is short.

perhaps an overreaction?

Posted Jan 10, 2008 19:42 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] (2 responses)

Bruce wrote:

Consider how good it might have been for the third world to have a computer infrasturcture they could support on their own, without any capital and technological drain to the United States. That's what they'll be losing. But that was never the goal of the OLPC project. It's meant to bring free e-Books to students, at a lower cost than their national governments could sustain. With OLPC based on all Free Software, it was likely that those books would have themselves been under similar licensing like Creative Content. Now, it is likely that third world students will be running DRM-locked textbooks that are only acessable under Windows.

From the OLPC faq:

The laptop will run a Microsoft Windows operating system
True: Microsoft is working on a Windows based system that can be executed on the XO laptop with substantial extra storage.
False: There is no strategy change. The OLPC is continuing to develop a Linux-based software set for the laptop in conjunction with Red Hat. But since the OLPC project is open we cannot (and maybe even don't want to) stop other people from developing and supplying alternate software packages.

My guess is that Microsoft gave OLPC a heap of money, with no strings attached (Negroponte isn't an idiot) and for minimal effort on the part of the OLPC project, to participate in making a dual-boot prototype. Mainly, the onus seems to be on MS to get Windows to run with adequate performance on the OLPC hardware.

As they say, it's open hardware; they couldn't stop MS from porting Windows to it if they tried (except by making the specs too underpowered for Windows to be practical, which they've already done with the unmodified initial hardware...but in the long term the hardware was bound to get more powerful along with the rest of the computer industry).

There was always going to be competition from MS for OLPC; hopefully, the innovative software, the lower cost sans Windows, and the free/libre aspect of it will be sufficient to persuade countries to adopt it.

Not over-reacting

Posted Jan 10, 2008 21:26 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (1 responses)

But Negroponte doesn't have to change policy. All that is necessary is for MS to convince the countries that buy OLPC that they should be running a Microsoft load upon it. One good way to do this is for MS to cooperate with existing proprietary publishers to make free textbooks available to those countries, but with Microsoft DRM locks. This would also help to dissuade the production of open text, which those publishers see as a threat.

I've watched MS for a long time, and have had to be in the same room with them at political proceedings, standards committee meetings, etc. I thus have some idea how they work and their path with OLPC seems obvious to me.

Thanks

Bruce

Not over-reacting

Posted Jan 17, 2008 12:50 UTC (Thu) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link]

This is very much the Microsoft approach, as
experienced by us back in the days of 
wholly-proprietary email systems.  Make
sure yours can be used, then make
side deals to impose it.

--dave

Why Microsoft Must Control One Laptop Per Child (Technocrat.net)

Posted Jan 10, 2008 20:19 UTC (Thu) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link]

I wholly agree with Bruce on this one. My contributions are so tiny as to be completely
invisible. That said, I'm not very pleased that
what little I've done and what more friends have done, in the end, will
be to Microsoft's market advantage. 
I don't think anyone will be dual booting in 1G of flash, someone will 
have to go. 

Gee, I just wonder whom?

Why Microsoft Must Control One Laptop Per Child (Technocrat.net)

Posted Jan 10, 2008 21:09 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (18 responses)

Thank you, Bruce, for a concise, well-written article.

The actions of Microsoft in this context only reaffirm what I've observed all along: MS in only interested in control. That is, control over consumers, control over hardware manufacturers, control over PC retailers, and control over other software vendors. Heck, they even try to exert control over programming languages (C#, J#). Despite several setbacks (OOXML, Apple's, Sun's, and Real Network's lawsuits, and two US DOJ antitrust lawsuits), Microsoft still makes every attempt to perpetuate its domineering existence in the face of increasing threats.

In perspective, this may actually be a good thing, since (hopefully) MS will eventually tire of this predatory, litigious existence and change its ways. Maybe, but unlikely.

Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 10, 2008 23:29 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (17 responses)

Hmmm. Control? Sadly, what Microsoft does is what every basic Economy textbook teaches. In fact I have recently learned it on a basic Economy textbook: make a product people want, market it a lot, segment your market, and discount like crazy if pressed to. That is how they are fighting free software, even when the competition costs zero and is perfectly good in most situations. You will have to agree that they are doing a good job in this tough environment.

Microsoft will never change their ways. Eventually they will lose the war, as every monopoly has, but meanwhile they are going to be a tough opponent.

Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 10, 2008 23:48 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (1 responses)

I'd be happy if that's all they were doing. We've no problem if they fight fair. But the gaming of standards organizations is only the most recent example of their not doing so.

Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 0:25 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

You are of course right. But it is not even clear that they need those unfair practices. Cusumano argues in "The business of software" that this is what happened in the browser wars during the late nineties: Microsoft played dirty with Netscape and won, but they would have won regardless. Netscape just had a lousy strategy.

I just say: let us make it more interesting this time.

Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 9:19 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (9 responses)

That is how they are fighting free software, even when the competition costs zero and is perfectly good in most situations.

Which is good, in a way, since it demonstrates that FOSS is relatively immune to Microsoft's previous methods of fighting (extend, embrace, extinguish, acquire via buyout, or sue out of existence).

...they are doing a good job in this tough environment.

Well, even that's debatable. Microsoft never ceases to amaze me at how well they keep coming up with new ways to maintain their dominance in the market.

And, while I do agree with you about standard business economics, I just don't see how Microsoft has done that lately, especially the part about "make a product people want". When they first started out, yeah, sure, but nowadays it's more like "Make a product that people must have, eliminate all competition (or make people unaware that such competition exists), and then charge disproportionately high sums of money.".

Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 11:06 UTC (Fri) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (1 responses)

I just don't see how Microsoft has done that lately, especially the part about "make a product people want".

Maybe the Xbox? What I've seen in news, reports, etc. that it's winning over PlayStation by a big margin everywhere outside Japan.

Bye,NAR

Nope

Posted Jan 11, 2008 21:27 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Wii is what people want. XBox360 is just better pushed than PS3 - and has more games. It has nothing to do with the thing itself - it's just usual Microsoft's approach: eliminate competition by all means possible, TNEN it's time to raise price...

Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 11:49 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (6 responses)

I just don't see how Microsoft has done that lately, especially the part about "make a product people want".

You are right, but again we have to put the issue in perspective. Vista is not Microsoft's only product. You may not like Office or Outlook, but I have been forced at work to use several proprietary alternatives and they are even worse. Anyone using such monstrosities as Notes or SmartSuite will know what I'm speaking about; and these are only the big products. In short, Microsoft is good enough and the competition sucks more.

In this respect, look at what Linux has accomplished in this negative sense: for the general public it is a hacker system, only fit for extreme geeks. When my girlfriend learned that the N800 runs Linux she was afraid that she would not be able to use it. Now she is delighted, so it was only a perception. But it is a very common perception which makes many people actively not want anything related to Linux. This is a real pity and something we should change.

Microsoft's goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 15:26 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (5 responses)

Yes, you (and NAR above) are correct; Microsoft does indeed have a portfolio of products. My earlier reply was influenced by how, for consumer PCs (excluding Apple) there's pretty much only one operating system, and Microsoft has exploited marketing schemes beyond normally-accepted business economic practices (and legal ones, also) in their quest for market domination. Their latest ploy involving hacking Windows to run on the OLPC XO (or vice versa), a special-purpose, custom-designed laptop computer built for charitable distribution seems unusually suspicious of an ulterior motive.

Oh, wait. This is the same company who brow-beat HP, Compaq, Gateway, eMachines, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, and others to only sell PCs running Windows, and then gave consumers worldwide the impression that there simply wasn't any other OS available for their computer. Since the OLPC XO represents a completely new class of computer (open design and hardware), of homogeneous architecture, with production expected to be in the millions, well Microsoft can't just let that market slip by.

But I could make an argument about how Microsoft's other products are extensions of their control movement - oddly enough, a lot of MS's products entered the game late, yet they somehow managed to emasculate or eliminate all competition. Netscape's Web Browser predates Internet Explorer by several years; MS Office was released just as WordPerfect's market share peaked; the X-Box was first released in 2001, six years after Sony's PlayStation and sixteen years after Nintendo NES; and, just last year, their Zune hit the market, six years after Apple's original iPod and other media players entered the market¹. Microsoft is trying to take control over every aspect of consumers' digital lifestyles, but at least in the game console and portable media player markets, most consumers realize that they still have a choice. However, in the PC market, it's pretty much Microsoft Windows (and that's it) for x86 (non-Apple) PCs. But, I digress...

Bruce's article resonates with me because I'm a staunch believer in consumer choice, and Microsoft has done nothing in the past 15 years but remove all vestiges of any consumer choices. His line "Microsoft's version of choice is better stated as we'll give you choice and then make you choose Microsoft." sums it up beautifully. Until consumers are provided with, and made aware of, viable alternatives², it'll just keep being Microsoft Windows for PC operating systems, because it's, well, "good enough".

I've rambled on long enough; thanks for reading.

¹ One could argue that the original portable personal media player was Sony's Walkman, introduced in 1979.

² The only commercial, proprietary OS I can recall that attempted to break into the x86 PC market during Microsoft's domination was BeOS, but they folded (er, were sold to Palm) in 2001. Linux stands a good chance of becoming a significant commercial competitor to MS Windows (thanks partly to Dell and Ubuntu) - any success Linux has in this regard will surely be due to its FOSS nature and GPL license - and MS can't embrace, extend, extinguish, acquire via buyout, or sue out of existence Linux.

Microsoft's goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 22:56 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (4 responses)

It is interesting that you should mention portable media players, where there is a virtual monopoly by Apple's iPod, as one where there is consumer choice. The truth of the matter is, most people want an iPod even if other companies offer more features and more openness.

Indeed, if you want to look at a company which is really crazy to control your digital lifestyle, you don't have to look much further. Apple's computers are locked down, Apple's OS is proprietary and controlled and also locked down, Apple's players are remarkably closed. And Apple is crazy about controlling their market; their price-fixing strategies are legendary. (All products are sold at the recommended price point, never any lower.) And yet few people complain about their tactics, not even staunch believers in market choice.

My point is that, if Microsoft tried to reach the degree of control that Apple has, the screams would be heard in the stratosphere. The same is true for many other companies (Sony, TiVo, Nokia). So there is more to it than just control.

Apple is more evil than Microsoft

Posted Jan 12, 2008 2:43 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh, don't get me started!

Apple is easily twice as evil as Microsoft in regards to vendor lock-in and DRM. As this article by Mike Elgan at PCWorld suggests, Microsoft didn't deserve as big a firestorm of criticism for their predatory tactics over the years when one compares them to Apple. In fact, I was almost ready to feel a tiny amount of sympathy for Microsoft after reading that article (of course, my blood was starting to boil by then). But, Microsoft has its 93% market share to Apple's 5% (I'm totally guessing those numbers right now), so MS gets more anti-monopoly fingers pointed at them.

Deal is, Apple isn't trying to hack the OLPC XO into booting OS X Leopard.

Apple is more evil than Microsoft

Posted Jan 12, 2008 15:25 UTC (Sat) by jeff@uclinux.org (guest, #8024) [Link]

WSJ Article
From 2005, while this was still on the drawing board...
"Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.'s chief executive, offered to provide free copies of the company's operating system, OS X, for the machine, according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders. "We declined because it's not open source," says Dr. Papert, noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with. An Apple spokesman declined to comment."

Apple is vile, but Microsoft is dangerous

Posted Jan 12, 2008 19:24 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

Apple is the most vile company in IT. No competition. Microsoft is not even close. It's the only company I know which can demand your soul in exchange to single song - quite literally (read the 20th item of the license and think about implications). But thankfully it only controls small part of the market - and I've avoided it so far (I don't have iPod or iPhone and while Mac looks good I've avoided it like a plague - exactly because I want to control my own destiny, not have Apple or Microsoft as it's master). Apple's recent expansion is quite worrysome, but it just has no degree of control Microsoft enjoys today: music and movies are downloadable for free and iTunes will never be able to compete with that, but it's hard to avoid .DOC and .XLS file nowadays. So while Apple is the most vile and repulsive company Microsoft is still the most dangerous one...

Apple is vile, but Microsoft is dangerous

Posted Jan 13, 2008 1:02 UTC (Sun) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

One would think that such "omnipotence" clauses (as I call them) would be legally unenforceable with an unconscionability defense. Or, at least I personally hope such clauses get snuffed out by the courts!

=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=

IANAL, and I just learned that "unconscionability" is both (1) a legal term and (2) incorrectly reported as a misspelling by Firefox 2.0.0.11. :-)

Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 17:01 UTC (Fri) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] (4 responses)

> make a product people want, market it a lot, 

While not quite mutually contradictory, if you're really making a product that people want,
you don't have to market it a lot -- word of mouth will do that for you.  Conversely, if
you're making a product that people are only so-so about, you have to market the hell out of
it to make people _think_ they want it.

Microsoft does the latter.

Word of mouth

Posted Jan 11, 2008 22:35 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (3 responses)

This kind of mentality is perfect for free software development, but it does not work so well in the commercial world. Marketing is needed to reach out to customers even for an excellent product, and word of mouth helps to spread it further.

But beware: word of mouth has a life of its own and it is not always exact. Word of mouth for Microsoft products between non-geeks is, surprisingly for us geeks, quite good. Word of mouth for Linux is pretty bad: many people think it is not for a layman's desktop. (We have been saying that it is "oh so advanced" for so long and so smugly that now it is working against us.) To dispel this popular myth a good marketing campaign could actually do wonders.

Word of mouth

Posted Jan 14, 2008 20:58 UTC (Mon) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] (2 responses)

Marketing is needed to reach out to customers even for an excellent product, and word of mouth helps to spread it further.

Absolutely; this is why Google has, since its inception, so aggressively marketed its own services. Look at all the print, radio, television, and other ads for Google search and Google products you see elsewhere; can you even count the number of commercials Google has advertising its site? Google's marketing budget has to be astronomical. There's no way that Google got where it is solely by making a superior product and then letting word of mouth do the work for it...

Word of mouth

Posted Jan 15, 2008 0:45 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Good counter-example. There are some in other sectors, like Zara in clothes: they never do any marketing either. Unfortunately it is not so common.

If I tell my company that we should just rely on word of mouth they would find it very funny. I can assure you that we have some of the best products in their categories and we do most of our business over the internet; should we just wait for customers to come to us?

Word of mouth

Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:24 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Oh, and by the way: Linux has mostly got where it is just by word of mouth, so it is also a counterexample. Products like EEE confirm that people want it (or at least want what it provides) even on the desktop. Only problem is, people want Windows even more: they think Linux will be "too advanced" for them. Such rubbish keeps large portions of the general public away, which is a pity.

Corruption and ignorance

Posted Jan 11, 2008 6:52 UTC (Fri) by jordip (guest, #47356) [Link]

I'd say that the plan is this :

1.- Get Windows working in OX-1, give the project money, help, no string attached. OLPC people
are intelligent won't fall M$ traps and a trap against them will get very very bad press. 

2.- Ok, OX-1 is been sent to the country X. Go there and make contacts move some money, make
some promises on cheap or free software, etc. Country X will deliver a Windows version of OX-1

3.- Repeat step 2 till new countries choose Windows by default. 

Intelligent, inmoral, Microsoft-like plan.

Vista vs XP

Posted Jan 11, 2008 9:54 UTC (Fri) by ayeomans (guest, #1848) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm wondering how Microsoft plan to handle the marketing of only using XP on such devices.
Mainstream support ends in 2009. And not having a working version of Vista on them can't help
them promote the use of Vista elsewhere. Which could harm their actual main marketplace for
home and corporate PCs, and also give the impression to anyone buying a Windows XP OLPC that
they were being fobbed off with an out-of-date non-upgradeable version.

Vista vs XP

Posted Jan 11, 2008 11:33 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

Whatever OS Microsoft gets running on the XO will not be Vista nor XP. The requirements for
those are too high, the systems too complex to tweak for a machine so unique. 
No, it would be something more like CE, maybe brand new.

Quality of current OLPC Software

Posted Jan 11, 2008 12:51 UTC (Fri) by roblucid (guest, #48964) [Link]

There seem to be many conflicting "fact" opinions around this article,
which seems not constructive, and the personal comment about
Negroponte appears counter-productive. It is almost like BP has taken
lessons out of the old big bad IBM FUD book.

Previously, those writing about using the OLPC have seemed enthusiastic
and happy with it (eg BBC Nigeria coverage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7115348.stm ). Now following the BP
punditry link, some of the technical comments (mainly N Weaver) are very
negative about the Sugar & Linux implementation in contrast to previous
positive news coverage.

So are review articles really failing to notice, that you can't save files
or install applications? How would you keep the notes in class mentioned
by BBC? PJ's take
http://web.archive.org/web/20210309171241/http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071223132431291
http://web.archive.org/web/20210401220838/http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080107182525297
Michael Tiemann's Blog http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13507_1-9837995-18.html
surely someone who created GNU C++ is going to notice such defects.

With Asus EEE PC, Intel Classmate, Shuttle and other low cost PCs being
produced; is it really so surprising that M$ think
they better have an OS available on low cost hardware? Can a hardware
project realistically tell M$ "No you cannot port XP to the XO!". This
insider Blog points out it is M$ doing the port, not OLPC
http://blogs.technet.com/jamesu/archive/2007/12/05/olpc-i...

So there's some supporting evidence for Ivan Krstic's rebuttal of BP's
article "The paradox of choice"
http://radian.org/notebook/paradox-of-choice

OLPC http://laptop.org/en/laptop/ explains the project has a specific
commitment to FOSS software, so "cooperation to ensure linux image is
easily re-installable" rings true to me.

Is it right to presume, that innovative software shipped today has no
chance against something presently undeliverable (until 2nd half 2008
http://www.news.com/beyond-binary/8301-13860_3-9829735-56... ), which is
not designed to support the constructionist educational aims, and probably
needs extensive pirated software to keep the end users happy?

If the FOSS community reacts with fear and hysteria, and apparently
concedes defeat so easily; does it look like real confidence in it's
product to outsiders? And are we really suprised when commercial companies
distort the truth "wave of SCO-like problems"? Time may prove Bruce
Perens right, but the message appears too defeatist and likely to cause
dissension, rather than be a useful warning to non-Free dangers. If
attacks on Negroponte deter FOSS community support for OLPC then
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/software/ cannot succeed, and BP's prophecy
becomes self-fulfilling.

Why Microsoft Must Control One Laptop Per Child (Technocrat.net)

Posted Jan 12, 2008 16:06 UTC (Sat) by quickening (guest, #14807) [Link]

I have to agree with BP - the "dual boot option" is a slippery slope to ruin.  It reminds me
of the time I gave a computer to relatives with Linux pre-installed and configured for them,
hoping they would spend the time to experience and learn an OS they weren't used to.  At the
time, the easiest way to run Windows apps from Wine was off the Windows partion of a dual-boot
machine, so I added a dual-boot.  Call them lazy or addicted, it wasn't long before they
rebooted into Windows and stayed there!