OLPC and Microsoft [LWN.net]

OLPC and Microsoft

Posted May 16, 2008 11:11 UTC (Fri) by niner (subscriber, #26151)
In reply to: OLPC and Microsoft by gowen
Parent article: OLPC and Microsoft

The assumption is that children can learn more by using an open system, where the 
inner workings are not hidden.

It is not that children may learn reading, writing or basic math better on an open system. 
But once they did that, with an open system, they have much information about the 
workings of a computer, an operating system, and applications right there for them to 
discover. More information means more things one can learn. Also with an open system, 
they have the possibility to experiment and play around like children tend to do and like 
children tend to learn.

This is strictly about learning about computers, which is arguably not the main goal of 
the OLPC project. But this also could have the side effect of more development going on 
and thus more things to play around with for the children and thus more to learn. This is 
the part that's speculative.

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OLPC and Microsoft

Posted May 16, 2008 11:46 UTC (Fri) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link]

"This is strictly about learning about computers, which is arguably not the main goal of the
OLPC project."

I'm glad you mentioned that. This is what I meant earlier when I said that by taking your eye
off the ball and focussing on others' agendas, you actually prevent yourself from achieving
your goals.

I'd say be happy that the kids will be able to not just use the laptops for everyday learning,
but also there's enough open source on there to help them learn to edit programs and write
applications (very useful when it comes to building your own tools). 

Even if they couldn't hack the operating system there's still a massive scope for other things
they can write for themselves.

So, on the XP XOs provide all the tools they need to hack and compile Sugar, throw in the code
and binaries for OpenOffice, Firefox, whatever as well, and you'll still have a ton of new
open source programmers at the end of it.

Remember that one of the major advantages of open source software is that you can port and
maintain code across other platforms - we shouldn't be preventing others from porting to and
from Windows.

OLPC and Microsoft

Posted May 16, 2008 12:25 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]

>So, on the XP XOs provide all the tools they need to hack and compile Sugar, throw in the
code and binaries for OpenOffice, Firefox, whatever as well, and you'll still have a ton of
new open source programmers at the end of it.

So who will be providing all these tools and programs (most of which are in direct competition
with their microsoft counterparts) on an XO with XP shipped OEM ?

>but also there's enough open source on there to help them learn

I think it's safe to assume there will be no general purpose open-source software of any
significance shipped by default.

The chances of OLPC just becoming a vessel to subvert Free Software are real. 
I don't think Microsoft at the moment has any real monetary incentive to support OLPC, which
leaves the reason of simply trying to halt what might have become the largest OEM shipment of
the GNU/Linux os ever.

You may dislike Free Software and its agenda, but it is pretty obvious that it is the lesser
of two "evils" in this case.