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Here's a tip: If you start answering before reading the whole post and then you realize your point is rendered moot in the next paragraph, you can always edit before submitting.



If the aim had been to train the children in the awfully ugly technologies that adults have to suffer because of inertia, backwards compatibility, business reasons and the like, the Sugar interface would never have been designed. No, the XO is a tool for learning some fundamental concepts by doing things, while having fun. Some of the the useful things that children can learn are related to how the XO itself works and how to make it behave as they like. For this purpose, ideally, the software (and, to some extent, hardware) design should be simple and fully open, not complicated and largely closed.




BS. Linux runs on top of Windows. And all of the GNU tools run on Windows.

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Run_Linux_Applications_in_Windows
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So ...? If the XO runs GNU/Linux, the underlying system is GNU/Linux, so they can learn about the underlying system; if the XO runs Windows, the underlying system is Windows, largely a black box. They can't learn how Windows works (not nearly as much as they can with GNU/Linux anyway) so they can't learn about the underlying system.

If they did something as crazy and pointless as having everything running on a GNU/Linux on top of Windows in the XO, children could learn about underlying GNU/Linux layer, but not about the Windows layer below, so the underlying system would still be hidden.

OTOH, there's the possibility of running GNU/Linux, in some way, alongside Windows (as in Colinux). In this case, maybe children could inspect the underlying system of the GNU/Linux apps, but not the underlying system of the Windows apps, which is, of course, Windows. It still falls short of having access to the full stack of every application.



What's immoral is giving these kids second-rate FOSS technology, and pretending that it isn't crap.
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What's immoral, if you ask me, is that many of these children depend on foreign help for their education (not to speak of starving children who are beyond the focus of the OLPC) while politicians in their countries live like gods. But this is beside your point, just like your point is beside my previous point.

Regarding your point, it can be countered on several accounts.

First, the software technologies employed (like Bitfrost and OLPC-Mesh, for instance) is first-class, innovative and way better than those typically available in either proprietary or other FOSS platforms. Most complaints have been about OOTB interoperability with proprietary standards, like Adobe Flash and MS Office.

Second, even if those technologies were too experimental for production, the fallback technology would be the underlying Fedora system, not Windows. Experience with netbooks, with somewhat similar specifications as the OLPC, suggests that for this kind of device the first-class option is FOSS (in the form of GNU/Linux), and Windows XP is a second-rate solution whose only advantage is compatibility with specific applications.

And third, even if proprietary options were better (which they aren't), even so much better that all the intrinsic advantages of FOSS were overshadowed, the insistence on using FOSS would have been a well-meaning mistake, not an immoral deed by any stretch of the imagination.


I lost much of the respect I had for Nicholas Negroponte when he betrayed the good will of so many volunteers with those words. He may be the founder, but the moment he accepted help from others he acquired a moral obligation to preserve the principles of the project ("XO is built from free and open-source software. Our commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms.").



Oh, puh-lease. Try your hippy Jedi mindfsck crap on someone else who's actually drunk the same FOSS Kool-Aid. "

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to flaming. Flaming leads to being modded down. Being modded down leads to suffering