Re: [Fsfe-uk] Time to boycot OLPC?

[Kevin Donnelly]

On Wednesday 23 April 2008 18:32, Noah Slater wrote:
> Are OLPC really about to scrap "Linux" for Windows?

I think the OLPC has missed the boat.  They had an elitist approach to 
everything - the educational input it would offer was based on a very 
particular view of how children learn, people in the West couldn't buy it 
(which would have brought costs down, and gained a lot of mindset), there 
would be no "buy two and get one sent abroad as a donation" offers (except a 
half-hearted one in the US) to get buy-in from voluntary organisations or the 
wider FLOSS community, Negroponte flew around speaking to VIPs about huge 
orders (which never materialised) instead of trying to get limited grassroots 
pilot projects going, they would develop brand-new technology (very 
impressive stuff, of course) rather than use off-the-shelf stuff, they would 
have a new GUI that is significantly different from that on most other 
computers, and so on.

The project is in difficulty, and it's casting around for a lifeline.  They 
haven't managed to build up mindshare, their orders have been minimal, so the 
obvious thing is to play safe - put an OS on it that already has mindshare, 
and tell people this is just a new form-factor for the leading computer OS.  
If I were Microsoft, I would be extracting a large number of concessions 
(licenses?, patents?) for pulling Negroponte's chestnuts out of the fire.  
Rather ironic in view of the fact that a few months ago Microsoft was 
considered to be very worried about the OLPC, and trying frantically to get 
XP shoehorned on there.

OLPC had a good headstart and a great deal of goodwill, but they blew it.  You 
only have to look at the Asus eeePC to see how it should have been done.  But 
then the Asus is available for anyone to buy (you can even buy a single one 
of them!), and has no high-falutin' ideas about what it should be used for.  
It just works.  I'd have bought 2 OLPCs last year if anyone had been willing 
to sell them to me, but I wouldn't do it now.

On a totally irrelevant sidenote, I think OpenMoko is going to go the same way 
if it's not careful.

-- 
Pob hwyl / Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

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