Negroponte succumbs [LWN.net]

Negroponte succumbs

Posted Apr 24, 2008 12:41 UTC (Thu) by zooko (subscriber, #2589)
In reply to: Negroponte succumbs by dgm
Parent article: Negroponte on OLPC's commitment to Sugar

I suspect that to the majority of educated people in those countries (and especially the
majority of Ministers of Education and Ministers of Technology and suchlike), Linux and Free
Software for end users is understood as simply a cheap knock-off of Windows.  They probably
think of Free Software as being simply the "produced-as-cheaply-as-possible flimsy knock-off"
product, or perhaps as "the failed competitor product that is now slashing prices out of
desperation".  If they have ever heard a philosophical or strategic argument for Free Software
for end users being a better alternative than Windows, they probably thought so little of it
that they forgot about it a minute later.

So I strongly suspect that in trying to sell OLPCs to those people, the Linux factor was a
millstone.  "We don't want our children to learn how to use incompatible, failed technologies!
We want them to learn Windows like Western children do!"

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Negroponte succumbs

Posted Apr 24, 2008 17:30 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

That's funny--your enquoted descriptions pretty much match my opinion of *Windows*.
Especially the flimsy part.

Negroponte succumbs

Posted Apr 24, 2008 22:25 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

To me too. Sadly we are in the minority here. Most people think that Windows is the good OS and Linux is "the bad one", as a coworker put it when I showed her my Eee. Of the rest, most think that Linux is a do-it-yourself OS not really suitable for end users. A pity, but not something that cannot change.

Negroponte succumbs

Posted Apr 26, 2008 8:27 UTC (Sat) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]

"Most people" have no opinion about Linux because they've never heard of it...  If they have
heard of it, the opinion is more likely to be "too techie" than "bad" (what does "bad" mean
for an OS anyway?).

Negroponte succumbs

Posted Apr 26, 2008 9:38 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

"Bad" means in this context "cheap", "of poor quality". I suppose part of this reputation is due to companies giving it away. Its presence in low cost computers may also be a factor. Most people don't know e.g. that the vast majority of supercomputers run Linux (although they have most certainly heard of Linux).