Walter Bender's "goodbye OLPC" note [LWN.net]

Walter Bender's "goodbye OLPC" note

Posted Apr 22, 2008 0:42 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
Parent article: Walter Bender's "goodbye OLPC" note

From a month ago...  http://lwn.net/Articles/274036/
> This is terrible news.  The OLPC is really starting to smell like a dead end.

It's just bad news after bad.  The XO doesn't need much, just good software and a working
sales channel.  The demand is unarguable!  Get Fedora or Ubutnu to run well on it and sell it
worldwide.  How hard could that be?  A few months tops.

Instead, Negroponte is apparently positioning it for XP and a third-world-only sales.  I hope
the rumors are wrong.  True or not, his behavior lately has been incomprehensible.

I'm sorry little XO, your future looks rather bleak and Sugar is almost certainly a dead end.
We were all hoping for so much more.

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Walter Bender's "goodbye OLPC" note

Posted Apr 22, 2008 8:01 UTC (Tue) by skitching (subscriber, #36856) [Link]

The position on XP-on-OLPC has been clear: the OLPC is an *open* platform. And therefore
anyone has the right to port anything to it.

Nicholas Negroponte attempting to block XP on OLPC would be like Linus Torvalds trying to
prevent a specific political party using linux for their election campaign. It's just not an
option; open means open for everyone.

Of course, if you can show evidence that the OLPC staff have been spending their donations
working on an XP port, or that they are changing the design specifically to help Microsoft
then that would be different. Can you prove any such thing?

Walter Bender's "goodbye OLPC" note

Posted Apr 22, 2008 16:11 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Just what's on the tech/rumor sites.

http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/334/C15015/
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/21/olpc-head-of-software-...
Half the stories on http://olpcnews.com
etc.

A lot of people seem to be under this impression.  If they're not actually working on XP then
OLPC have a PR gaffe on their hands.  They might want to issue a press release or at least a
position statement.

Well, we'll see!  I still predict the slow demise of Sugar -- no big loss IMO -- but I love
the hardware and hope it has a bright future.

Walter Bender's "goodbye OLPC" note

Posted Apr 24, 2008 3:23 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

> Nicholas Negroponte attempting to block XP on OLPC would be like Linus Torvalds trying to
prevent a specific political party using linux for their election campaign.

Er, there are other options; it's not a binary choice between prevention and exclusive
endorsement... having said which, Negroponte seems to be sailing rather closer to the latter
these days, and that certainly does seem to be something of a volte-face.

Walter Bender's "goodbye OLPC" note

Posted Apr 22, 2008 8:08 UTC (Tue) by luya (subscriber, #50741) [Link]

It's just bad news after bad. The XO doesn't need much, just good software and a working sales channel. The demand is unarguable! Get Fedora or Ubutnu to run well on it and sell it worldwide. How hard could that be? A few months tops.

I personally think Windows XP for XO will not fly for the reason the software are not free and open source. XP is too limited for task like music, internet. Frankly, it won't fly other than being a demonstration. You forgot Sugar is just an GUI desktop interface built on top of Fedora. Current version is based from Fedora 7 but will switch to 8 soon once Fedora 7 reaches EOL. Overall Sugar is still alive. As for the strategy, you will be a very bad one since the XO is primarily targeted for developing countries.

Opportunity window

Posted Apr 22, 2008 13:26 UTC (Tue) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link]

Indeed.

What killed the "$100 laptop" was that it was closer to $200 on release. You can argue the
tech and the OS till the cows come home, but you better have a good reason to have such a poor
spec at a price that's quite close to other more-powerful machines.

And there is no compelling reason to get an XO over a Classmate/Eee/whatever other than a
small price difference. Even the XO's ruggedness is now open to question with the current
keyboard problems.

OLPC should have partnered with someone who knew what they were doing instead of going it
alone.

Opportunity window

Posted Apr 22, 2008 16:21 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

> And there is no compelling reason to get an XO over a Classmate/Eee/whatever other than a
small price difference.

Not actually true.  The screen is unequalled.  For reading black-on-white text, it's the
finest, most readable LCD I've ever seen -- indoors or out.

But, I agree, as soon as the EEE gets a halfway decent screen, there won't be a compelling
reason to struggle with the XO.  Here in the first world anyway.  :)

Opportunity window

Posted Apr 22, 2008 17:41 UTC (Tue) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

> But, I agree, as soon as the EEE gets a halfway decent screen, there 
won't be a compelling reason to struggle with the XO.  Here in the first 
world anyway.  :)

The latter part is important. XO uses much less power than any other 
laptops (there are mobile devices that much do better, but not laptops).  
It's actually possible to use it outside of powergrid (using hand pull 
etc) unlike the normal laptops.  Here in the first world, I wouldn't mind 
a laptop like that at my parent's summer cottage (which doesn't have 
electricity, but could have networking through GSM).

One shouldn't forget about the mesh networking either which works even 
when the device is turned off.  Again, that's not an advantage here in the 
western land of broadband, but things are different in countries where in 
addition to powergrid, you don't have any computer network available, or 
if there is, it's very unreliable.

Opportunity window

Posted Apr 22, 2008 20:19 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Hmmm... Mesh networking is cool, but I'm not sure it is the way to go for a reliable connection. Particularly if it is used in the rural areas of the third world.

Even if the reported 1.6 km range turns out to be true, that will hardly connect all inhabitants of a village. Connections to the rest of the world will be hard to come by.

Opportunity window

Posted Apr 25, 2008 11:22 UTC (Fri) by ralphw (guest, #50262) [Link]

Just don't confuse XO, the hardware platform, with
Sugar and Linux, the software platform.

Hardware comes and goes, but software can live forever.

The hardware 'business model' of selling the same capabilities, and
watching the cost go down over time, is an interesting idea, but I don't
know how it will stand up to other innovations over time.

As to software, Smalltalk/squeak are there, and other educational platforms could easily be
made available.  How about Boxer to complement LOGO?

If sugar proves to be good for collaborative learning, it will survive.
Because the students will want it to.  The only thing that will prevent
it from getting broad adoption would be an open-source 'product management' hiccup of some
kind.