Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard of the One Laptop Per Child foundation.
Their goal was to develop a $100 laptop (Called the XO) and give it to children in developing countries . The project was highly heralded and many governments signed on to buy thousands of these laptops.
Part of the concept was to use Linux as the base operating system, partially to avoid having to pay licensing costs for Microsoft Windows, and also to develop a custom environment that children who were not familiar with computers would find easy to use.
The end result was a interface called "Sugar" that was unlike any known computer interface in the developed world. Written in Python, it was definitly unique, though some people find its UI strange and counterintuitive.
After all the fanfare, the foundation was not able to meet the $100 goal, and is now offering the laptop for close to $200.
At that price, it competes directly with the Intel Classmate. A similar laptop that is available with either Linux or Windows XP.
It is no surprise that countries are now backtracking on their promises to order large quantities of the XO. Many people are blaming the windows powered Classmate for the XO's demise. I believe it is the opposite, the XO's demise was the fact that it was a proprietary Linux machine with a unusual interface.
Children are the future of developing countries, and the leaders of these countries want to adopt modern first world ways.
Dumbing down a laptop does not teach these children any essential skills that they can use in the future.
A generic laptop running a widely used operating system does. The learning curve may be steeper, but my four year old daughter was able to teach herself how to navigate around a web browser to access her favorite kid sites. If my four year old can, than any kid could.
Government leaders don't want to hold their country back with a useless and limited device, they want the children to be ready to enter the first world prepared.
The XO is nothing but a limited and fancy toy. It was an excellent vision, but I believe the zeal of creating a radical new experience was its downfall.
17 comments:
You declare the OLPC dead, then postulate as to why. There is no doubt that Microsoft wants it dead but that is just wishful thinking. They need something concrete like, say, a patent suit for instance. Yeah, that's the ticket. No, the OLPC is not dead. And it's not going away any time soon. And when it does go away, something else that is not controlled or influenced by Microsoft will take its place.
The intent of the OLPC is to provide an enriched learning environment for children all over the world. The intent of the Windows powered Intel Classmate is to make money for stockholders. Microsoft was given every chance to develop an OS for the XO but they couldn't manage to squeeze and trim enough fat off their bloated code to make it fit. There may have been other issues with the EULA and DRM and such. Plus I hear blue screens of death are difficult to see in direct sunlight even with the XO's advanced LCD.
It's ok to declare the OLPC dead. Just give us some facts, not a bunch of opinions dressed up as facts.
You are wrong. How can using MS products make someone more knowledgeable. MS doesn't want people to know more about their system's internal workings. Moreover Windows is fully GUI system, which blocks you from knowing what's under the hood. Kids using MS OS will only end up learning how to use MS office and nothing more. Instead if they use Linux, they would know how a computer works and how to make things work better. Your argument that Linux is a wrong choice of the OLPC is hilarious.
Anonymous:
We are not trying to convert kids into programmers, or teach third world kids how to recompile a kernel.
Learning how to use MS Office is exactly what they need. Because that is what 99.9% of the world actually uses.
What is more beneficial to society as a whole? A bunch of kids who know how to hack some Linux stuff together, or some kids that will be prepared and ready for higher education because they now have computer experience on a platform that they will use in the future?
Ability to break open something opens up possibilities of learning. This not only applies to computing. Even in other disciplines be it, Business, Fashion designing or even Literature curiosity and freedom leads to innovation and excellence. MS OS blocks all that ability and wants people to be slaves their technology. The very nature of open source platform is that it opens vistas to knowledge and truth. So for a philanthropic laptop its better embrace open source platform than a money making OS that is based on lies (Business is 99% based on Lies). Even though kids learn the hard way, they will end up learning more.
OLPC is not dead. Now it's in the transition from vision to reality. The problems it has to achieve its goals are due to many factors.
1. The vision was maybe to glorious. But it is also the vision that has made this laptop famous.
2. The price is not as promised, and the pricing was an important part of the vision.
3. Words comes much easier then money from a political leader. And the leaders of the OLPC project didn't understand that.
The OLPC Linux based laptop is a very good product. Thinking that a Microsoft based product would be better is underestimating the children. My children have used Linux for the past five years. Now they use laptops with XP installed at school. The fact is that my children are much better trained for computer use then most of their classmates, even for handling Microsoft products. And yes, their classmates have mostly all Microsoft computers at their homes.
"A generic laptop running a widely used operating system does."
Im not trying to turn this into a my OS is better than yours but Linux IS a widely used operating system, it powers most of the net. Even OSX ( a strain of *nix)is a much better more advanced operating system: I think Apple has and is proving this when kids find a place just for them in the Apple store's across the world.
OLPC is not dead, in fact it sells quite good.
MS Office never had 99.9%. In fact now it has less than 80% market share and costs about 250$ (100 for non commercial use), but is still the best. This can't be said about Windows, which is much worse than linux. The children will have the opportunity to use the OS of the future, which, only this year, tripled its number of users. Because almost everyone used windows doesn't mean that this will be the case in the future.
"Dumbing down a laptop does not teach these children any essential skills that they can use in the future."
Please explain why the interface is "dumbing down". It is certainly simplified, but so is the iPhone. It might be helpful to cite some studies comparing the OLPC inteface to others, where the researchers found that the OLPC interface is, indeed, dumb.
Please explain why learning how to type and program are not "essential skills". You might consider citing some studies that showed how people who learned on non-Microsoft OSes (TRS-80, Apple II, Apple Mac, etc.) learned no "essential skills" and became mass murderers or something.
"If my four year old can, than any kid could."
The OLPC organization has just a bit more expertise in the education of children than does any single blogger. Again, it would be useful if you cite some studies demonstrating how "dumbed down" equipment has left children worse off. Your four-year-old child, while probably a nice kid, is statistically insignificant.
"We are not trying to convert kids into programmers"
You might not be. Others might be. If you somehow got appointed as planetary ruler, please provide some ID.
"Learning how to use MS Office is exactly what they need. Because that is what 99.9% of the world actually uses."
Because MS Office has been around for centuries!
Oh, no, wait. It's only been around for a bit more than a decade.
Focusing on any specific technology, such as MS Office, is short-sighted. For starters, while MS Office is dominant today, so was WordStar in its day. People who used WordStar or other older word processors migrated quite nicely to Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, and kin. When these children enter their countries' respective workforces, who knows what office suite will be the answer? Rather than focus on teaching them some presently-marketable skill, the OLPC project is apparently focusing on, y'know, actual learning, of which a specific word processor is a minor part.
"or some kids that will be prepared and ready for higher education because they now have computer experience on a platform that they will use in the future?"
Because Windows has been around since the time of ancient Rome!
Oh, no, wait. Windows has only been around for a bit more than a decade.
Who knows what operating system will be prevalent at the time these children enter their countries' respective workforces? It may be that it is, indeed, Windows. Or it may be something based on Linux. Or it may be something else. Or it may be that operating systems are not relevant because all the work is done using browser-style technology.
Again, the OLPC focus appears to be on education in general, not vocational tech training.
Good points
I'm such a linux fan that I wouldn't have figured out how it can work against the XO. Particularly your point about the price makes it compete against the Intel's classmate.
But they really had not choice, surely Intel's Classmate would not cost around $200 if they were paying a full OEM Windows liscence. Plus Linux is very likely to be around 10 years from now whereareas windows in it's current incarnation will probably not. In terms of education for the future Linux future-proofs the XO better than a Windows system could. Particularly since Sugar is written in Python it can be more easily tailored to the individuals student/class/country/etc.
So yeah in the short term Linux can be a handicap to the XO but on the long term it was the only way to go.
Sugar being unintuitive seems to be only because we are so familiar with Windows already. If you've never used a computer all OS are unintuitive.
Time will tell on this one but I hope that the XO does well since the idea of the project goes beyond merely commercial concerns.
-dark rabbit.
I did not expect to see many people agree with me.
One thing I did notice from anonymous 2 posts up is a few factual errors.
Windows has been around for 23 years, not a decade.
And its not going anywhere. Sure it may not own the server market, but it more than owns the workstation market, which is what we want these kids to be prepared for.
And that will not be changing any time soon.
The $230 pricetag for the Classmate includes Windows XP and MS Office, its a OEM deal, they are not paying full retail obviously.
I agree, Jonathan, that if you want a kid in a "developing nation" to be able to join the rat race right from the word "Go!" - use a Microsoft product.
I agree, creating a completely new or "intuitive" interface for these kids may have contributed to it getting the boot (pun unintended).
But I disagree with the claim that a Linux-based OS is not intuitive. That is so relative.
Your daughter might be more familiar with a Windows-based UI.
(are trying to suggest that a kid cannot find his/her way around a Linux-distro desktop?)
A few years ago, Thailand offered cheap PCs (and affordable loans) loaded with a Linux distro. They did this because MS refused to lower its licensing cost - even tho it knew that piracy there was rampant (a Windows XP CD was about $4 then).
The people who bought these PCs were new to computers. They adapted well with the Linux UI and hey, do I have tell you that OpenOffice is free? So OEM or no OEM...the offer in Thailand was a success - greater computer literacy.
A final thought - instead creating individuals who will join an already long line of "Microsoft know-it-alls" - how about creating a new brood that knows or is familiar with a different platform, which is capable of doing the same things a Windows-based computer?
"Learning how to use MS Office is exactly what they need. Because that is what 99.9% of the world actually uses."
You can't be more wrong!
They rather want to have a cheap computer with affordable software installed!
FYI: Windows does not comes with MS Office.
LinuxUser: The ClassMate does. Its a special version of XP and a special version of Office designed to fit into its 2 GB flash drive.
It's funny to see the typical Linux fanboy mentality of "It's not Linux therefore it sucks" so prevalent in these comments.
One thing I haven't seen anyone address so far is that the complaints are about the interface, not so much the underlying operating system. Why not use a Linux interface that is similar to Windows: for example, Gnome or KDE? This way you keep the Linux fanboys happy while providing a practical UI, that one day if the child needs to use a Windows box, they can figure it out quite readily.
hi dave,
now that's something i did not notice - fanboys hate anything Microsoft. :)
We just trying to say that it is incorrect to say Linux shot itself in the foot with the OLPC project.
The community does try to make a UI that is similar to the Windows OS. e.g. http://www.linux-xp.com/
That will be more acceptable, since it will be cheaper to buy also.
But then again, if the developer community is totally anti-MS (understandably), then you will not find a similarity to the Windows UI. And as of now, Vista's UI seems borrowed/inspired, rather than an original one.
Any ways, I still say, "Why should it have to look like Windows?"
Just because it has a greater market share?
Does Apple try to model its OS UI or tools/apps to MS's OS?
There are different kinds guitars. (Just because one guitar is more popular than the others, don't mean the rest are not good enough and have to mimic it.)
They decided to use Linux to lower the price and most are glad they did. Microsoft is a shit company that monopolozies everything that it can get it's hands on. Open source is our future and putting linux-based operating systems into there hands in not putting them one step behind but rather one step ahead. Know OLPC knows that your 4 year old kid like yours is much smarter then a 4 year old kid in africa who's never seen a computer so they planned accordingly and thanks to critics like you the world is stepping back in providing tech to the less fortunate when it should be stepping forward. So kindly back off at let OLPC do there job.
Microsoft crapped their pants at the thought of kids using Linux being the future computer users so Microsoft brought XP out of retirement and lowered it's price to undercut the Linux effect. I hope more kids get into Linux it can only be good for competition.
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