Submitted by The One Laptop Per Child program reported today that after 303 builds, it finally has a satisfactory version of its Red Hat Linux-based Sugar operating system that is considered stable, according to OLPC president for software and content Walter Bender. “After a final few bugs that had hidden in corners were driven into the light, we issued Stable Build 303 along with Q2B76 firmware this week,” Bender said in his weekly email report.
You have to wonder why they’re not just going the cheaper, easier route and using the lastest version of Windows CE.
Windows CE runs well on supported hardware. It would have been a piece of cake. not to mention 6.0 is zippy fast when configured correctly
and it costs how much exactly ?
fscking astroturfing retards
have you checked the goal of OLPC?
apple gived free its system to OLPC, but it refused… they want free software with a free bios
they want to use free software…
it’s not a good idea to initiate some one to computing with proprietary system.
compagny and gouvernment try to go out of this problem…
Edited 2007-03-20 22:11
Yes, but if millions of children learn that whatever innovation or creation they make will be stolen by large foreign corporations without recognition or reimbursement (as the GPL provides and encourages), won’t that defeat the entire purpose of giving children in developing countries laptops? They won’t learn anything about computing, and an entire generation will grow up thinking computers are just another way that the First World exploits the Third World. They’ll reject the gifts, and be kept in the dark for another generation.
That’s a generation of technological advancement they can’t afford to lose, not with the rate computing is changing.
…whatever innovation or creation they make will be stolen by large foreign corporations without recognition or reimbursement (as the GPL provides and encourages)…
Wait, how is content on these machines going to automatically be GPL’d? (Never mind that the GPL is a software license) And how is a company going to steal their work anyway, without recognition? The GPL requires a copyright notice. And I doubt they allow just taking stuff. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCIWantCredit
While I agree with you on remarks about GPL, the goal of the project is to keep the computer price as low as possible. Many of them won’t be producing anything because they still need to be educated to do that.
It’s too early to worry about what they will do with their computers and it’s better to be able to provide computers first…
While I agree with you on remarks about GPL, the goal of the project is to keep the computer price as low as possible.
True, but then again, I still think Windows CE would have been the better choice here. Windows CE costs $3 per unit — and that’s before bulk discounts (which I think cap out at 16% for 50,000 units) and educational/nonprofit discounts (which can easily run 90% or more). 3% of OPLC’s target cost of $100 is an acceptable cost for the most important part of the computer — and compare that 3% of the unit’s final cost to the expense in time and money they have wasted in compiling Linux hundreds of times until they finally got one that both (a) works with their hardware, and (b) is stable.
Edited 2007-03-21 17:09
and compare that 3% of the unit’s final cost to the expense in time and money they have wasted in compiling Linux hundreds of times until they finally got one that both (a) works with their hardware, and (b) is stable.
And on what authority do you claim that the compile count was in the hundreds?
You really have to read up on the concept of economies of scale. The planned Gen1 launch will be 5-10 Million units (http://www.laptop.org/vision/progress/) You say that the minimum price of Windows CE is $2.5 per unit. If this is correct, then the planned Gen1 roll-out of OLPC will cost $25,000,000, directly chargeable to Microsoft. Even with a 90% discount, the licensing cost for WinCE would be $3,000,000, assuming that your figures are correct (a reference would be nice).
There is no way that you can legitimately claim that the development of a Linux-based OS for the OLPC cost more than $25,000,000. Therefore the OLCP guys made a smart economic decision to go with Linux.
Edited: spelling
So stop astroturfing.
Edited 2007-03-21 18:00
$3 for a license for Windows CE…. where ?
also, what about some apps to run on CE ?
How much do they cost ?
Considering the amount of custom hardware in this machine (some of it, like the screen, having been DESIGNED for this machine) I don’t think it would gain them all that much time to use Windows CE- in either case, someone would still have to develop drivers, debug, etc etc. I have no doubt that Microsoft could do it, and do it well… but the OLPC people want the entire project firmly under their control, so they can do things themselves rather than have to communicate requirements to Microsoft and wait for finished code.
Now, as for the OLPC project itself, given the places that have signed on to receive these laptops I’m less than enthusiastic about how useful this is going to be.
“Yes, but if millions of children learn that whatever innovation or creation they make will be stolen by large foreign corporations without recognition or reimbursement (as the GPL provides and encourages), won’t that defeat the entire purpose of giving children in developing countries laptops?”
Wow, that makes so little sense, you can’t even argue with it. Good job! FUD of the highest order.
this is a tiny tiny article that contains *nothing*. The only phrase I picked up that I found interesting was.
“Gnash, the FOSS Flash player (still somewhat unstable)”
I’d tried gnashes latest release and it was very poor. I’m genuinely interested whether gnash is getting close enough to a decent release, or whether its a chink in OLPC’s armour.
but again not a lot to see here.
Off topic but I liked the quote
“Bill Gates proposed an alternative idea to the OLPC at Davos this year; a cheap smartphone that could be used as a computer (if connected to a keyboard and television). Bill may be a little miffed that Negroponte spurned Windows CE in favour of Linux as the OS for the OLPC, but never mind, he also rejected Apple’s OS X. He may also be worried that the OLCP will spawn a genuine Linux desktop market. If 15 million OLPCs were manufactured and distributed in a year that would amount to 8% or so of the PC market on its own and if the initiative really got going, the Linux PC would be a de facto reality very quickly.”
Edited 2007-03-20 22:14
Bill Gates proposed an alternative idea to the OLPC at Davos this year; a cheap smartphone that could be used as a computer (if connected to a keyboard and television).
Or heck, just ditch the cellular elements and build in the computing elements to the keyboard. That sounds like something I’d be interested in seeing… and like something they tried to do with the Commodore 64.
swfdec is an alternative to Gnash, they can already play youtube videos.
http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/
http://advogato.org/person/company/diary.html
http://advogato.org/person/company/diary.html?start=35
http://advogato.org/person/company/diary.html?start=34
Because the third world is dying for YouTube.
Are you suggesting that the 3rd world won’t enjoy timesuck productivity sinkholes as much as the 1st world?
face plants are funny no matter where you are from…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X6v_q7l49I
The majority of bugs OLPC developers encountered must have to came from the desktop environment they built from scratch.
If they just used a standard, well-tested desktop environment to begin with they probably would have got away with a dozen builds or less.
Actually, Sugar is really intuitive and it has somethign which we haven’t seen in a long time on a desktop. Yes people the document or task based ui that was started with the Apple Lisa is making a comeback. The ui is the most interesting thing about the project and building something from scratch will always have its growing pains but they are making tons of progress and its getting to be very polished. It is based on a n existing DE though, Gnome or at least the libraries are being used in certain ways.
Well of course some of it is based on existing libraries. Those are needed for apps like Abiword to run, for example. If OLPC had to create all their libs too, we probably wouldn’t see any deployments this decade.
I personally dont like the Sugar desktop and think it falls far too short in functionality. But then again my needs are a substantially different from poor kids in developing countries.
If Bender is in charge I’m just scared to know where this is headed…
Happy to see someone knowing Bender:) Just hope everything is going to be fine and mr.Walter Bender has nothing to do with Ostap Bender
[quote]Bill Gates proposed an alternative idea to the OLPC at Davos this year; a cheap smartphone that could be used as a computer (if connected to a keyboard and television).[/quote]
Bill doesn’t get it. The whole idea of OLPC is that you ~don’t~ need anything at all other than a single piece of hardware. No keyboard, no television or monitor, and NO ELECTRICITY! And just try to buy a Smartphone, monitor, and keyboard for a hundred bucks… He’s full of crap.
[quote]$3 for a license for Windows CE…. where ?[/quote]
Here’s an article:
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS8969975443.html
-Bob