4 ms·

so can someone explain why Windows on the OLPC is such a crime -- especially, as I said before, when some countries won't accept the OLPC without it? whether t

by wumi 18y ago

so can someone explain why Windows on the OLPC is such a crime -- especially, as I said before, when some countries won't accept the OLPC without it? whether the goal is learning or shipping laptops is immaterial -- if by shipping laptops the students are learning, then the end goal is accomplished. don't see how opening up the XO to Windows to get distributed to more kids who need it is a bad thing.

Create 18y ago
Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Its functioning is secret, so it is incompatible with the spirit of learning. Teaching children to use a proprietary (non-free) system such as Windows does not make the world a better place, because it puts them under the power of the system's developer -- perhaps permanently. You might as well introduce the children to an addictive drug. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows
- wumi 18y ago
  The opportunity cost of choosing Windows seems quite high: if countries won't buy the XO for lack of MSFT software, then it is ultimately the kids loss. I would say hordes of American children (and Chinese, Indian, et. al) grew up on Windows. Did that somehow take away the spirit of learning?
  - Create 18y ago
    if countries won't buy the XO for lack of MSFT software read the Negroponte NYT quote carefully. It is basic colonial behaviour (corruption etc.): "“The people who buy the machines are not the children who use them, but government officials in most cases,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the nonprofit group. “And those people are much more comfortable with Windows.”" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?ref=technology http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?r... "Did that somehow take away the spirit of learning?" The spirit of learning is inherently human (evolutional design), therefore not even MS can take hijack it: taking it away is even more nonsense[1]. But if you think of the real breakthroughs, they are independent of Windows (you cannot beat them by playing in accordance to the rules they dictate: this is what RMS might have meant in the quote above). Google could (have) never eclipse(d) MS, if it were built on it. Nor Facebook, or whatever "web2.00" you might think of. Nor OSX. Most "innovation" or development is as independent of Windows as it can be: though it has to leverage on the userbase. This is why it is "trendy" to consider it as a buggy device driver. Growing up with windows is a factual matter: try purchasing a PC without it: and this begs for even more questions... [1] though Adam Curtis' Century of the Self is worrying http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22century%20of%20the%20self%22 http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22century%20of%20th...
  - axod 18y ago
    That's a short term view. Microsoft still has a monopoly, but it's dying. Teaching children on windows isn't a good idea IMHO. It's unlikely to be relevent to them when they are older.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
    The rise of the closed and proprietary Microsoft Windows PC cut off a generation of budding hackers from easy access to programming and software independence in their formative years. It wasn't until I had access to the Internet and DJGPP (the GNU toolchain ported to DOS) that I truly was able to freely pursue my interest in programming.
andrewf 18y ago
I see two almost independent objections here, and I think the press has failed to convey this adequately: - One is the Linux argument; that these laptops should be open to tinkering and closed source is inappropriate. - One is the Sugar argument; that the desktop-and-windows GUI is not good enough, hence the building of the Sugar UI from the ground up. MS Windows is viewed as inappropriate for the same reasons that the laptop wasn't originally shipped with XFCE or GNOME. As an interested observer, it seemed to me that both these arguments were prominent design objectives for a long time. It's not surprising that if you drop these objectives, a lot of the people who drank your Original Flavor KoolAid will drop you faster than New Coke.
- wmf 18y ago
  Both of these arguments sound like "we're going to build what our customers should want, not what they actually want". That rarely works except in a monopoly situation. Maybe OLPC imagined themselves as some sort of benevolent monopoly, but that rarely works as well.
  - jcl 18y ago
    In the case of the second argument -- Sugar as a more appropriate interface -- it may be more a case of "we're going to build what our customers will want, not what they think they want". The XO has a screen that is not much larger than other ultra-compact notebooks, but with a resolution on par with full-size notebooks. If you run a standard Linux or Windows, any interface text or icons at the default size will be so small as to be illegible. If you crank up the interface DPI to an appropriate size, however, then you lose a lot of screen real estate to menus, toolbars, and statusbars -- something we take for granted now that we have 20-inch displays (just try using Word in a 640x480 window). What the XO really needs is an interface like a kiosk or mobile device: something easy-to-use that aggressively conserves screen real estate. Sugar fills this role pretty well... the default installs of Linux or XP do not. Windows CE would have been a better choice than XP in this respect (and others), but it would presumably have been more work for Microsoft with less payoff, since CE has relatively few educational activities and doesn't run the "real" version of Office.
rms 18y ago
Ivan Krstić's point isn't that Windows is bad at all, in fact, he is in favor of it. His point is that the original educational mission of the project has already mostly failed. Those people saying "why not build $100 of water infrastructure per child?" were right.

by wumi 18y ago

Create 18y ago

Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Its functioning is secret, so it is incompatible with the spirit of learning. Teaching children to use a proprietary (non-free) system such as Windows does not make the world a better place, because it puts them under the power of the system's developer -- perhaps permanently. You might as well introduce the children to an addictive drug. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows

wumi 18y ago
The opportunity cost of choosing Windows seems quite high: if countries won't buy the XO for lack of MSFT software, then it is ultimately the kids loss. I would say hordes of American children (and Chinese, Indian, et. al) grew up on Windows. Did that somehow take away the spirit of learning?
- Create 18y ago
  if countries won't buy the XO for lack of MSFT software read the Negroponte NYT quote carefully. It is basic colonial behaviour (corruption etc.): "“The people who buy the machines are not the children who use them, but government officials in most cases,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the nonprofit group. “And those people are much more comfortable with Windows.”" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?ref=technology http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?r... "Did that somehow take away the spirit of learning?" The spirit of learning is inherently human (evolutional design), therefore not even MS can take hijack it: taking it away is even more nonsense[1]. But if you think of the real breakthroughs, they are independent of Windows (you cannot beat them by playing in accordance to the rules they dictate: this is what RMS might have meant in the quote above). Google could (have) never eclipse(d) MS, if it were built on it. Nor Facebook, or whatever "web2.00" you might think of. Nor OSX. Most "innovation" or development is as independent of Windows as it can be: though it has to leverage on the userbase. This is why it is "trendy" to consider it as a buggy device driver. Growing up with windows is a factual matter: try purchasing a PC without it: and this begs for even more questions... [1] though Adam Curtis' Century of the Self is worrying http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22century%20of%20the%20self%22 http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22century%20of%20th...
- axod 18y ago
  That's a short term view. Microsoft still has a monopoly, but it's dying. Teaching children on windows isn't a good idea IMHO. It's unlikely to be relevent to them when they are older.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  The rise of the closed and proprietary Microsoft Windows PC cut off a generation of budding hackers from easy access to programming and software independence in their formative years. It wasn't until I had access to the Internet and DJGPP (the GNU toolchain ported to DOS) that I truly was able to freely pursue my interest in programming.

andrewf 18y ago

I see two almost independent objections here, and I think the press has failed to convey this adequately: - One is the Linux argument; that these laptops should be open to tinkering and closed source is inappropriate. - One is the Sugar argument; that the desktop-and-windows GUI is not good enough, hence the building of the Sugar UI from the ground up. MS Windows is viewed as inappropriate for the same reasons that the laptop wasn't originally shipped with XFCE or GNOME. As an interested observer, it seemed to me that both these arguments were prominent design objectives for a long time. It's not surprising that if you drop these objectives, a lot of the people who drank your Original Flavor KoolAid will drop you faster than New Coke.

wmf 18y ago
Both of these arguments sound like "we're going to build what our customers should want, not what they actually want". That rarely works except in a monopoly situation. Maybe OLPC imagined themselves as some sort of benevolent monopoly, but that rarely works as well.
- jcl 18y ago
  In the case of the second argument -- Sugar as a more appropriate interface -- it may be more a case of "we're going to build what our customers will want, not what they think they want". The XO has a screen that is not much larger than other ultra-compact notebooks, but with a resolution on par with full-size notebooks. If you run a standard Linux or Windows, any interface text or icons at the default size will be so small as to be illegible. If you crank up the interface DPI to an appropriate size, however, then you lose a lot of screen real estate to menus, toolbars, and statusbars -- something we take for granted now that we have 20-inch displays (just try using Word in a 640x480 window). What the XO really needs is an interface like a kiosk or mobile device: something easy-to-use that aggressively conserves screen real estate. Sugar fills this role pretty well... the default installs of Linux or XP do not. Windows CE would have been a better choice than XP in this respect (and others), but it would presumably have been more work for Microsoft with less payoff, since CE has relatively few educational activities and doesn't run the "real" version of Office.

rms 18y ago

Ivan Krstić's point isn't that Windows is bad at all, in fact, he is in favor of it. His point is that the original educational mission of the project has already mostly failed. Those people saying "why not build $100 of water infrastructure per child?" were right.