'$100 laptop' platform moves on (BBC) {OS/hardware fork}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

An independent effort to develop the software originally designed for the $100 laptop has been launched.

Sugar Labs will take the laptop's innovative interface, known as Sugar, to the "next level of usability and utility", according to its founders.

It is intended that the free software will be made available on other PCs, such as the popular Asus Eee.

The launch comes after the announcement that the group behind the $100 laptop has joined forces with Microsoft.

The deal means that One Laptop per Child (OLPC) will now offer the low cost laptops with Windows XP, as well as an open source alternative.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7405346.stm



One Laptop - hello Windows, goodbye Linux

Rory Cellan-Jones
16 May 08, 00:00 GMT

A revolutionary organisation sets out to change the world and empower millions by overturning the established order - but ends up abandoning its early aims and getting into bed with what used to be viewed by some of its supporters as the Great Satan. That is how some of the pioneers of the One Laptop Per Child project will view the deal that has been announced with Microsoft.

When we spoke on the phone to Nicholas Negroponte, the founding father of OLPC, it was clear he was expecting flak from past and present disciples for deciding that the little green laptop would now run Windows XP as well as Linux.

There has already been an ideological battle raging within the non-profit organisation, with former colleagues of Mr Negroponte decrying his tactics - some publicly in blogs, others more quietly. They have laid bare the schism in this laudable project to bring cheap computing to millions of children across the developing world. It's a battle between hardware and software, and between pragmatists and purists.

The purists seem to believe that open-source software - the Sugar user-interface and the Linux-based operating system - is at the heart of the project and its educational mission. But Nicholas Negroponte, dreamer turned realist, just wants to get as many laptops out as possible and now appears not to mind whether they run Linux or Windows. "OLPC is not in the open-source advocacy business," he told us, "we're in the education business."

While conceding that sales of the XO laptop had not taken off as fast as he had hoped, he denied that was the reason for the Microsoft deal. But it is clear that the very survival of the project was in question as country after country failed to translate warm words about the laptops into firm orders. Mr Negroponte admitted that certain countries had been insistent that they wanted Windows XP as an option before they would consider signing up.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/05/one_laptop_hello_windows_goodb.html

[newmajority]

1. While this certainly seems like a worthy project over all

It bugs the shit out of me that the guy in charge is John Death Squad Negroponte's brother. I hope there's not an evil Bush Crime Family agenda hiding behind all of this :evilfrown:

[SoCalDem]

2. I did the buy-one-get-one thing in November

Haven't opened the one I got for me yet..They look cute, but I will probably end up donating the one I got as well..or may save it for a future grandchild to play with :)

[Jack_DeLeon]

4. Do you have grandkids on the way?

If you wait too long this thing might look to them the way this old computer looks to us.

[SpiralHawk]

5. Trash 80

Model T

[Jack_DeLeon]

3. There are plenty of computers out there that you can buy for less than $100...

they are called used computers.

You can find them on craigslist and the like, and you can install whatever software you desire on them.

From what I've read about the OLPC program they have several problems and the biggest one is actually getting the hardware to the people they claim they are going to. Thier distribution sucks, lots of people stealing them and whatnot.