Nicholas? [LWN.net]

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 7, 2009 23:04 UTC (Wed) by trasz (guest, #45786)
In reply to: Nicholas? by BrucePerens
Parent article: Changes at OLPC

And how exactly OLPC is/was/could be a threat to Microsoft?

to post comments

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 7, 2009 23:19 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (4 responses)

If you don't mind, I'll let someone else handle this question. I'm busy today, and introducing someone to this topic from zero is rarely a rewarding task.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 1:47 UTC (Thu) by matthew_parry@hotmail.com (guest, #55987) [Link] (3 responses)

http://olpcnews.com/sales_talk/microsoft/how_microsoft_go...

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 15:27 UTC (Thu) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link] (2 responses)

Since when exactly an attempt to port an operating system to a new hardware platform became a bad thing?

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 17:13 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (1 responses)

When it diverts resources from the project, adds hardware costs, and detracts from the original goal of a cheap, reliable product which can be modified by the users.

Now if your goal is to cripple a cheap product in order to make your expensive inferior product more viable, then by all means, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 17:50 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

the resources diverted were people answering questions and documenting things so that the microsoft engineers could figure out how to do things.

such documentation is good for opensource developers as well.

as far as adding hardware cost, the claim I've seen is that the SD card slot was added for this purpose, but from what I've heard the extent of that hardware change was altering the plastic and adding a socket that was wired to existing chips. hardly a make-or-break item.

and for now the SD card slot is necessary to run many linux distros as well (including Fedora), so it's existence is good for opensource as well.

the biggest hardware change from the initial specs was the change from 128M to 256M of ram, and that wasn't done for microsoft, it was done because firefox became too bloated to run acceptably with the smaller memory. that change cost a _lot_ more than the SD card slot.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 0:53 UTC (Thu) by leoc (guest, #39773) [Link]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119586754115002717.html

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 0:56 UTC (Thu) by tbrownaw (guest, #45457) [Link]

Windows is Crap, and people only use it because they are Locked In. If someone has experience with an OS other than Windows (especially their early, formative, experiences), then their eyes will be Opened and they will forever Repudiate the Lock-In.

As the Prophet has said, "the first hit is free".

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 0:57 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] (1 responses)

Hundreds of millions of laptops running Linux and not Windows? Hundreds of millions of children growing up learning Linux and not Windows? Come on. I feel like I'm explaining to someone about how water is wet.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 15:17 UTC (Thu) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]

And where exactly are these hundreds of millions, tenths of millions, or even just millions? ;->

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 3:47 UTC (Thu) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link] (1 responses)

Think of it this way... How could microsoft compete against an entire generation of children raised on Linux? Oh, they couldn't! I mean the thing has a "View Source" button for crying out loud. Think about how revolutionary it would be to have a generation of Linux trained computer programmers.

Perhaps not all of them, but a decent number of the smart ones would figure out how to edit or add features to their favorite activities. This is a real catalyst for open source in general. OLPC being extremely sucessful would be a huge thorn in Microsoft's side. Does that make sense?

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 7:40 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

'view source' is a great idea, but the software side of it hasn't been implemented yet (in just about every case)