Back in November of 2006, I wrote a piece about the One Laptop Per Child Project. I was afraid that the project's focus on creating a whole new paradigm (the Sugar UI) would ultimately intervene with the actual goal of the project: teaching stuff to kids. Ivan Krstic, former director of security architecture at OLPC, wrote an essay in which he heavily criticises the OLPC project.
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Member since:2005-07-24
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Sugar seems to me the perfect UI for the type of physical device it was designed for.
Typing this from my 2.0lb, 7.1 inch screened Eee PC running Ubuntu... I've never quite understood why a "from scratch" interface was needed in the first place.
Member since:2006-08-09
Have you run a live cd with the sugar interface, or maybe even tried the XO machine yourself? It actually is interesting. It's intuitive in a different way, but some of the concepts are well thought out. Such as the graphical way of being in single user mode, in a group, or with everyone on the network.
Obviously, you and me are way too old and conservative to get used to this alternative interface. Hell, I still use Gnome without Compiz.
Member since:2005-07-06
1. You where educated in a system that invested minimum 50k in your education per year. With books that are worth 500$ per book per class that where loaned per individual.
2. They have to learn to use computer first , because that's the only tool they will use and have to learn primary level of education. There secondary level teachers need to learn it too.
3. Because the fact is there is no multi nationnal , multi language , education tool , that can be used for gratis. Sure there exist more performing educationnal tool in the proprietary world , that cost 10k more per unit , but hey are not gratis and copying them could run into lawsuit and stopping class in the future.
4. Red Hat is the solution provider , not Ubuntu.
5. Because GNU/Linux is used at secondary level elsewhere and test and research whas done and that's the solution the research came with for easier learning.
6. Sugar can be/is made to run on Windows , BSD , OS X , etc.
7. The fact that Mac OS X and Windows don't run , and aren't used on the OLPC as mroe to do with Apple and Microsoft failure to provide the base then anything else. The hardware used for base is to far below the basic requirement of both OS , there developer are unable to come up with a working solution. They also ar enot interested in offering a Free Software or Open Source offering.
Member since:2007-09-06
It may still be the initiall reaction. A lot of us (if I dare call myself a regular here), supported the OLPC and where very vocal about it. I've personally corrected many people on missconceptions about the program by pointing out that the hardware is designed well for harsh environments and that the ultimate goal was education not pissing contests over hardware specs.
For me, this clarifies a great deal of confusion. The media reports have considtantly been getting less optimistic. OLPC has been dropping staff like ice off the tail of a commit. Even so, getting open details on what kind of clusterfk has been going on behind closed doors is a rather sharp slap in the face for those who have supported to publicised goals and innovations.
I think that's really what many are responding too. We become attracted to a project. We supported and vocally volunteered in our limited ways. Ultimately, the project management turned that around and tossed off in everyone's face. We seek now to discuss and understand the reasons why this very vocally supported project is flying into the side of a mountain. It's failing for BS business reasons rather than any technical limitation that was unexpected and couldn't be addressed.
The originally publicized goals of the program and innovation that has been done should not be lost. I think they are still very valuable. It's still not the magic cure to educational cancer but it could be a very important tool where applicable.
I was watching OLPC closely as a first machine for my little one provided it was still the best choice when the time came. Currently, it's the eeePC but if that price point raises above what I can get the same form and resources for then it may just end up being my old CF27 again since that will take a good kicking as a child's first machine.
As mentioned in the article; all they had to do was not lie too the open source community they invited so much help from. We'll see how it all turns out being that we're all limited observers. Hopefully some children benefit and that shnazzy screen makes it's way into regular product use.
Member since:2005-07-24
In simpler language, some of us are wondering if Negrogponte isn't just a lying, deceitful c*nt. Please understand that I am going for concision and clarity in this post rather than for adherence to the tenets of social etiquette. ;-)
Edited 2008-05-14 18:37 UTC
Member since:2005-07-01
There's a build tree separate from Joyride called "faster" if you want to participate in the performance enhancing experiments. Guaranteed to be unstable.
Oh and the new UI stuff has been coming into recent Joyrides.
Oh and Tomeu kicked out a first prototype of a new DS and much disscusion of the forwards and backwards (and sideways) compatibility and uses has ensued.
Member since:
2006-02-07
I don't understand why is there such an opposition to sugar. And I don't understand why so many people perceive the project as a failure, especially in a technical site like this.
I'm not a kid, so I won't speak from theory, just from the adult end user experience (not the intended target, but I doubt anyone here has credentials on techno and education either).
Sugar seems to me the perfect UI for the type of physical device it was designed for. Very easy to point, very clean usability concepts. The last joyride builds are simply awesome. Performance lags, and the Journal needs a lot of love, but the concept and even present day usability is great. And the cute programming interface actually reminds me a lot of how I got fascinated with computers when I was a kid.
While I understand the strategic mistake of taking on so many fronts at the same time, I doubt that the goals of the project can be successful without a major rethinking of the interface. The project could benefit from collaboration with Ubuntu Mobile or something like that, but something along those lines would have been needed anyway. A regular desktop OS is not a good fit for this computer, you can install it (pretty easily, I've done that in a few minutes) but the window metaphor has a limit in this type of machine and needs more than just tweaking. The Sugar UI in all its imperfections is still my preferred interface.
And from a kid's perspective it's really easy to install whatever flavor of linux you want in it. In short, let's not forget how great these little machines are, and the technical prowess (both in hardware and software) they achieved, even creating the market for low-cost, tiny laptops. I thought that this is what people in this site would have been more interested about rather than discussing the pitfalls of management a project of this magnitude, and self congratulating for old pretentious prophecies cast with little real knowledge on the subject.