OSNews > Thread > "RE: Parents' usage?" by nxsty

Microsoft Demonstrates Windows XP on the XO

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 16th May 2008 09:29 UTC

Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child project have announced an agreement to work together on getting Windows XP available on the XO laptop, with trials starting in June 2008, and the RTM date set for August or September. Microsoft also demonstrated Windows XP Professional and Office 2003 running on the XO laptop - fully featured.

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RE: Parents' usage?

by nxsty on Fri 16th May 2008 13:33 UTC in reply to "Parents' usage?"

Member since:
2005-11-12

Another question: If GNU/Linux was not user-friendly enough, why is OS X (or one of its lighter derivates) not considered or offered as a serious option? Even more, because Apple seems to have offered to provide such version.

This all seems a bit of a strange change of mind, that throws away all the intentions of this project, primarily the emphasis on education rather than providing a laptop. In some way the OLPC project seems to have lost its innocence and is just another laptop project. As such, they are putting themselves in the same playing field as the classmate PC, etc. This all seems sour to people who have contributed to OLPC as an education project.

Microsoft will do a lot to keep their monopoly. It wouldn't suprise me if MS did not only give away windows for free, but actually donated a large sum to the project in return for them using it. Is it a coincidence that both EEE and OLPC, two projects with potential of bringing Linux to the masses, are moving towards Windows at the same time?

Although I must say that the OLPC devs did a poor job on their Linux distribution. 4 minutes just to boot the machine? How many services are they starting?

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RE[2]: Parents' usage?

by Cutterman on Fri 16th May 2008 18:07 in reply to "RE: Parents' usage?"

Member since:
2006-04-10

A billion dollars donated to OLPC (in exchange for dropping Linux for XP) would (from MS point of view) be money well spent.

And I've no doubt they dropped a ton of cash on them - it would have been very foolish of them not to.

Bastards.

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RE[3]: Parents' usage?

by Anonymous Penguin on Fri 16th May 2008 21:39 in reply to "RE[2]: Parents' usage?"

Member since:
2005-07-06

"A billion dollars donated to OLPC (in exchange for dropping Linux for XP) would (from MS point of view) be money well spent."

The OLPC was one of the most dangerous projects for Microsoft's monopoly ever, so they had to do something, from their point of view.

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