Comments on: Open Source Initiative Responds to OLPC article. http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/ Truth happens Mon, 8 Sep 2008 08:28:26 +0000 http://lyceum.ibiblio.org/?v=1.0.2 by: ArtExpress http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-93277 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:02:42 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-93277 I think Robert Case is right about "the resistance of adults... to purchasing machines that seem not to come with their familiar Microsoft “tools”". One of the things that makes the OLPC (potentially) great is how it is designed for the education of children rather than for an industrial training program. It's underlying vision is so much more than that. Just about any child can easily learn Windows & Office if they need to and they don't need any of that to benefit from what the OLPC is, or at least was, intended to provide; i.e., a low-cost, flexible, resource light, network connected, one per child, computing tool. Requiring it to have Windows XP is like unto the old DOD requirement that any computer it purchased had to have a Cobol compiler (Yeah? The microprocessors in the cruise missiles, too?). It's not needed and it increases the cost. The world won't end if OLPC runs Windows, but it moves the OLPC away from its purpose to adapt it so. I think Robert Case is right about “the resistance of adults… to purchasing machines that seem not to come with their familiar Microsoft “tools””. One of the things that makes the OLPC (potentially) great is how it is designed for the education of children rather than for an industrial training program. It’s underlying vision is so much more than that. Just about any child can easily learn Windows & Office if they need to and they don’t need any of that to benefit from what the OLPC is, or at least was, intended to provide; i.e., a low-cost, flexible, resource light, network connected, one per child, computing tool. Requiring it to have Windows XP is like unto the old DOD requirement that any computer it purchased had to have a Cobol compiler (Yeah? The microprocessors in the cruise missiles, too?). It’s not needed and it increases the cost. The world won’t end if OLPC runs Windows, but it moves the OLPC away from its purpose to adapt it so.

]]> by: Robert Maxwell Case http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-88077 Wed, 21 May 2008 17:04:42 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-88077 The XO-1, as Mary Lou Jepson explained, transcended the "one miracle per product" paradigm. The problem with having so much "new" is that there is less connection with the current state-of-the-art. In my opinion, all there is to the Windows-OLPC connection is the resistance of adults (who control the purse strings) to purchasing machines that seem not to come with their familiar Microsoft "tools". It is simply the same resistance to Linux machines that also exists in the personal computer world at large. Red Hat is to be commended for the wonderful work it did and is doing with OLPC. Sugar may be adapted to run on top of Windows, but I'd sooner think that once the machine is in the hands of a child, Windows won't get much use. The XO-1, as Mary Lou Jepson explained, transcended the “one miracle per product” paradigm. The problem with having so much “new” is that there is less connection with the current state-of-the-art. In my opinion, all there is to the Windows-OLPC connection is the resistance of adults (who control the purse strings) to purchasing machines that seem not to come with their familiar Microsoft “tools”. It is simply the same resistance to Linux machines that also exists in the personal computer world at large. Red Hat is to be commended for the wonderful work it did and is doing with OLPC. Sugar may be adapted to run on top of Windows, but I’d sooner think that once the machine is in the hands of a child, Windows won’t get much use.

]]> by: Ruby http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-87134 Mon, 19 May 2008 01:27:30 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-87134 Feeling gladder and gladder that I bought an Eee PC (because I was too late to buy an XO). (Grumble) Feeling gladder and gladder that I bought an Eee PC (because I was too late to buy an XO). (Grumble)

]]> by: lxoliva http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-83135 Sun, 11 May 2008 01:10:44 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-83135 Victor, how can people be educated so as to seek and share knowledge using tools that give them exactly the opposite message: that knowledge has owners and they can and will control what you can see, do and learn using your computers? Victor, how can people be educated so as to seek and share knowledge using tools that give them exactly the opposite message: that knowledge has owners and they can and will control what you can see, do and learn using your computers?

]]> by: John http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-75156 Sat, 03 May 2008 18:45:16 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-75156 Well, this is happening with bad behaving monopolies. MS should have been dealt with accordingly to its monopoly abuses, according to antitrust laws (my opinion: make Windows and Office source code and licensing available to competitors, so as to create competing products). I think MS will keep doing whatever it wants, disturbing healthy competition and progress. I think MS has been halting the progress of software in inconceivable ways for some time now (since 2002 or so). I think computer software would have been far more progressed than it is now, if we hadn't Microsoft halting innovation all these years. Well, this is happening with bad behaving monopolies. MS should have been dealt with accordingly to its monopoly abuses, according to antitrust laws (my opinion: make Windows and Office source code and licensing available to competitors, so as to create competing products).

I think MS will keep doing whatever it wants, disturbing healthy competition and progress. I think MS has been halting the progress of software in inconceivable ways for some time now (since 2002 or so). I think computer software would have been far more progressed than it is now, if we hadn’t Microsoft halting innovation all these years.

]]> by: Victor http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-73349 Thu, 01 May 2008 18:18:23 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-73349 Wow! So just because Negroponte made a statement about OLPC running Windows he must be "under pressure". There's NO WAY he's making a true statement? And the comment above, "But if OLPC abandons its open source roots, then I do not see the project accomplishing any of its goals" is ABSURED. Come on! You're actually of the opinion that Open Source software is the only way out of world poverty? Can the poor children of the world NOT be educated if they are to use the Windows operating system? I'm all for OSS but come on now. Making statements like this can make us in the OSS community seem like cry babies who can't compete. Wow! So just because Negroponte made a statement about OLPC running Windows he must be “under pressure”. There’s NO WAY he’s making a true statement? And the comment above, “But if OLPC abandons its open source roots, then I do not see the project accomplishing any of its goals” is ABSURED. Come on! You’re actually of the opinion that Open Source software is the only way out of world poverty? Can the poor children of the world NOT be educated if they are to use the Windows operating system? I’m all for OSS but come on now. Making statements like this can make us in the OSS community seem like cry babies who can’t compete.

]]> by: Act1v8 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-71377 Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:39:46 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-71377 Very well said. If it really is true, then I'd be <em>humiliated</em> for going to events on promotion of OLPC. I once thought of this as pride. :) Very well said.

If it really is true, then I’d be humiliated for going to events on promotion of OLPC. I once thought of this as pride. :)

]]> by: Josh http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-71216 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:05:17 +0000 http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/23/open-source-initiative-responds-to-olpc-article/#comment-71216 I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy fanatic, but it makes you wonder how windows is getting in on this. I am going to go ahead and say Microsoft blackmailed the president, threated a few people, and won the battle. now about those Russian submarines in the Gulf of Mexico... I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy fanatic, but it makes you wonder how windows is getting in on this. I am going to go ahead and say Microsoft blackmailed the president, threated a few people, and won the battle.

now about those Russian submarines in the Gulf of Mexico…

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