Nicholas? [LWN.net]

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 2:15 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
In reply to: Nicholas? by BrucePerens
Parent article: Changes at OLPC

OLPC was entirely capable of killing itself without Microsoft, Intel or anyone else having anything to do with it. It's been mismanaged from the technical side from the beginning, from underestimating the difficulty of bringing a new hardware platform up from scratch through to repeatedly changing fundamental aspects of the software architecture through to straightforward inability to communicate clearly with outside contributors and contractors.

Maybe the interaction with Microsoft had something to do with it. But pinning the entirity of OLPC's failings on that is shockingly naive, and anyone who thinks that there was a realistic chance of the project being more successful without any of the Microsoft stuff happening is just ignoring reality.

Blaming Negroponte's interactions with Microsoft for the current situation just indicates a lack of awareness of how deeply rooted OLPC's problems were. Pretending they didn't exist just makes it easier for future organisations to make exactly the same mistakes.

to post comments

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 2:50 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (8 responses)

They did bring a new hardware platform up, and they did bring up a platform incorporating a new software paradigm, too. It seems that OpenMoko had much more trouble with this than OLPC did. These tasks can not have been that unsatisfying to donors, they got done, and on schedule as far as I can tell.

So, I think the problems were elsewhere. Counting on economies of scale that did not materialize, failure to recruit someone competent in selling such an idea to government and a sales staff to work for that person, personality conflicts, direction changes, intrigue. The stuff AMD reportedly did to them seems pretty raw. And they should have strategized what to do about Intel and MS better, because it was inevitable that there would be friction there.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 3:06 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (6 responses)

The brought up a new hardware platform, significantly later than expected and still buggy in fundamental ways (the mesh network still doesn't work properly, resulting in many of the advertised features being impossible - dcon has little quirks like not firing a vblank interrupt during the vblank) and they provided a software platform that's been rearchitected more times than I've shaved in the past 12 months. This isn't a criticism of the ability or dedication of the developers, just of the process that led to the failure to achieve the (admittedly aggressive) goals. From the outside, it looks awfully like better management would have made a big difference.

Don't get me wrong, I think OLPC has been a great achievement and the extent of its real world success has impressed me. But it's far too easy to just buy into the "Everyone who associates with Microsoft is doomed to failure as a result" story, and doing so doesn't actually help us avoid the real problem in future. A strong volunteer community can accomplish many things, but it won't improve the quality of your management.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 7:33 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

seperate out the software problems from the hardware problems, especially when you are accusing them of failing on the hardware side.

the mesh network issues are almost entirely software problems. this was made worse by the tunnel vision of kids working in the wilderness and forgetting that they also needed to work in a super-high-density school setting.

I'll admit I hadn't heard of the dcon problem, (the touchpad issues seem far more significant)

now that other distros are starting to be available to run on the XO I expect the software side to shape up quickly (nothing like competition to spur progress)

I agree that the microsoft dealings were not a major cause of problems (other than PR problems, which are noticable), NIH syndrome and lack of compatibility had far more to do with their problems.

but they aren't dead yet. they shipped a half million laptops last year (not counting the 2008 G1G1 program) and the factory will still be building more.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 12:40 UTC (Thu) by dcbw (guest, #50562) [Link] (4 responses)

From somebody who worked on it, a huge problem with management was moving goalposts and featuritis, because if they didn't have feature X right away they weren't going to be able to close the deal with country Y, thus every single one of our goal-directed monthly snapshots was blown by 2 weeks of work on a new hot-button feature that usually proved pointless or a lot less important.

Second, because management kept talking to a number of quite different countries with quite different requirements, they weren't able to distill the *actual* software goals down to something managable. Had they decided to only target kids without a roofed school in the bush (or only kids in higher-density schools with WiFi APs), it would have been a lot easier to nail. Instead, to sell the laptop, management had to have *both* of those. And that's only one example of this behavior and thinking.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 20:10 UTC (Thu) by branden (guest, #7029) [Link] (3 responses)

This sounds really familiar. Let me tell you a similar story.

I can think of a commercial Debian derivative that was hideously late in launching because of factors like this. "[A] huge problem with management was moving goalposts and featuritis, because if they didn't have feature X right away they weren't going to be able to close the deal with [hypothetical target market]*."

We went back and forth repeatedly, suffering identity crises over whether we were targeting "the enterprise" (because big, high-margin contracts are where the money is), or "grandma" (because high-volume, low-margin retail sales are where the money is). We slipped horrendously. I don't remember now but I'm pretty sure it was over 6 months.

Ultimately, while the product did finally ship and actually got good reviews, we captured neither market, laid off two-thirds of the staff, and fundamentally changed the business model of the company.

* While our founder was by no means an unknown figure, when one's brother formerly oversaw right-wing death squads in Honduras, one likely commands a degree of attention from, and shares a common language with, officials in third-world countries who can get things done.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 8, 2009 20:40 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (1 responses)

You didn't mention the part about investing a ton of money in distributed filesystem development which became meaningless as disks got bigger.

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 11, 2009 5:24 UTC (Sun) by branden (guest, #7029) [Link]

No, mainly because I wasn't on that team, but the distro one.

Oddly enough, something useful did come out of that work. The "nullfs" kernel module later became part of a customer's proprietary backup solution.

When I look back on my years there, the failures I see were primarily not technological in nature. I don't know if that's good fortune, or an experience most software developers have. I've seen some ugly, ugly code, more of it proprietary than free.

Even dpkg is better described as "self-consciously eccentric" than "ugly".

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 9, 2009 13:34 UTC (Fri) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link]

"... moving goalposts and featuritis...."

FWIW, in the business sector (and esp. IT) in the U.S., this frequently encountered problem is jokingly (and dyslexically :) referred to as:

"Feeping Creaturitis"

Nicholas?

Posted Jan 10, 2009 10:09 UTC (Sat) by Ze (guest, #54182) [Link]

>>The stuff AMD reportedly did to them seems pretty raw.
What did AMD reportedly do to them?