The news travels fast when it involves a company that everyone has an opinion about. This morning, more news about the OPLC XO laptop and the connection to Microsoft.

N. Negroponte - the other face was left at home for this picture

Nicholas Negroponte states that the laptop project can not be truly open if it is not open to Microsoft. It seems that more news of involvement from the very beginning was planned.

from ZDNet’s Jo Best

Will Poole, Microsoft corporate vice president, told Reuters last week that the software giant is working on a stripped-down version of Windows XP to run on the ruggedized laptops destined for schoolchildren in developing countries. Poole was initially quoted as saying it could be ready in a few months, though Microsoft said that Poole was misquoted and that while the company is hopeful to get Windows onto the machine, much work remains.

The educational XO laptop has been built using free and open-source software–part of the One Laptop Per Child project’s drive to allow XO’s young users to modify the laptop’s software as they see fit.

The OLPC’s philosophy of openness is behind its decision to allow Microsoft software on the machines, according to Negroponte.

“It would be hard for OLPC to say it was ‘open’ and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open,” Negroponte said.

According to Negroponte, the XP announcement is the latest development in a long-running collaboration between the project and Microsoft.

“Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO. We put the SD (secure digital) slot into our laptop over one year ago, for them,” Negroponte said, explaining that the SD slot allows the XO’s memory to be expanded, making it easier for users to run Windows.

Windows on XO “has not only been happening with our consent, but (also our) collaboration. Some of the first engineering models from any given build go to them,” Negroponte said.

Negroponte’s latest comments may anger some elements of the open-source community–an audience that he has courted extensively in his publicity drive for the XO. Speaking at Linux specialist Red Hat’s annual user event in 2006, Negroponte appeared almost triumphant to have excluded Microsoft and Intel from the OLPC project.

“AMD is our partner, which means Intel is pissing on me. Bill Gates is not pleased either, but if I am annoying Microsoft and Intel then I figure I am doing something right,” he said to an audience of open-source enthusiasts in Nashville.

Subsequently, Intel and OLPC teamed up and have started working together.

Negroponte added that the project required an extremely scaled-down OS to enable the eventual machines to run at a decent speed while using very little power. “About 25 percent of the cost of a laptop is there just to support XP, which is like a person that has gotten so fat that they use most of their muscle to move their fat,” he said.

Despite Microsoft’s involvement, OLPC remains principally an open-source project, according to Negroponte. The machines come with an operating system that uses elements of Red Hat’s Fedora Core 6 and includes a browser built on XULRunner, the runtime environment used by Firefox.

Orders for around 3 million of the machines are believed to have been received to date.

Ah, so Mr. Negroponte of the two faces seems to have spoken in the manner of the Roman god Janus, with a different story, changed  to be appropriate for the audience of the moment.

This is a problem of major proportion, and puts the whole project in a bad light. Although the BBC has confirmed that 10,000 of these laptops are on their way to Uruguay, and reports of countless others on their way to destinations in Africa, no one is reporting on the exact configuration of the machines, and everyone is keeping mum about the unit pricing.

Another thing that is amazing is that Microsoft would have anything resembling XP released as open source. I’ll wait to see that event.

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Tags: olpc, nicholas negroponte, janus - roman god, open source, amd, intel, microsoft

Yesterday, I was speaking about the possibility of Microsoft entering the OLPC project. I was worried about the price, and how it would affect the distribution of the laptop.

Now it seems the fix for Microsoft was in, almost from the start. They have been planning on Microsoft for the operating system, and have put in a special memory slot to enable the computer to run Windows.

This is really a betrayal of the project and open source, made worse because it comes from inside the effort.

included hence is an article from ITWire by Stan Beer

When I think of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project these days I’m reminded of George Orwell’s two most famous books - 1984, which coined the term Doublethink, and Animal Farm, which saw the Pigs betray their fellow animals and do business with humans.

Looking back over the past year, one could be excused for wondering whether OLPC studied Orwellian marketing methods. While laptop computers from mainstream vendors the world over have been dropping in price, the so-called US$100 XO laptop has jumped to $150, then $188 before finally going on sale for $200 - and you have to buy 10,000 of them to get that price!

Now of course there should be no objection to OLPC using Intel processors in the XO, even though OLPC chairman Nicholas Negroponte publicly made a song and dance about the organization’s partnership with AMD and earlier this year slammed Intel for competing with the XO by allegedly dumping its own $250 Windows XP laptop, the Classmate, on markets at below cost.

Today, however, all of that is behind us. Intel and and OLPC are the best of friends and, while we all know there are no friends in business, one wonders what AMD must be thinking of its formerly exclusive partner.

Last week we heard the news about how Microsoft is devoting non-trivial resources to developing of version of Windows for the XO. Today, on Cnet , we hear from Negroponte that OLPC not only endorses Microsoft’s efforts, it has been actively collaborating with Microsoft all along!

In fact, if I understand Negroponte correctly, OLPC even included a special memory expansion slot on the XO specifically to make it possible to add more memory so the XO would be capable of running Windows. Were we talking about keeping costs of the XO down or did I miss something?

According to the Cnet report, Negroponte’s reasoning is that OLPC project is supposed to be an open source project and therefore it can’t be closed to Microsoft. Well fine, does that mean whatever Microsoft contributes to the project will also be open? Will the version of Windows that runs on the XO be open source? I think we all know the answer to that one.

What we had when we started was $100 laptop for third world children using AMD chips running Linux and open source software. What we have now is a $200 laptop that uses Intel chips, can only be bought in minimum bundles of 10,000, and includes a memory expansion slot in order to run Windows.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” (Animal Farm, Orwell, 1945).

Very sad. A noble effort, sabotaged from the inside. The cost is rising by the hour. Soon, I’m sure we’ll hear of the hard drive modification, so as to not inconvenience Microsoft too much.

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Tags: olpc, negroponte, xo pc, classmate, amd, microsoft

The One Laptop Per Child initiative started out with a price projection of $100. Now, as told a couple of days ago, the price is hovering at $188. Talk about a cost overrun! No wonder it is so hard to do good work for the needy.

Now it seems that Microsoft wants to have its operating system included on the laptop. We hear anecdotes about how Bill Gates has said that the laptop needs a ‘real’ operating system, so Microsoft has to put its nose into the effort.

This seems radically stupid for a couple of reasons. (Now I’m not one to criticize the unintelligent, the infirm, or children aged less than 5, but when someone considers himself ‘high bandwidth,’ and then says this kind of thing, I’m more than ready to start poking fun whenever and wherever.)

The first reason this is silly is that Microsoft has never been a ‘giver’ to the community - any community. When Apple gave away IIes and the software to run them, it was with the idea that it would fuel purchases by those due to good will - but the educational stuff was at no cost. When Microsoft does educational material, there is always cost, well above the materials used, and usually with some ulterior motive, that has yet to be disclosed.

The second reason is that Microsoft would have to fabricate a completely new operating system, as even Windows 95 was too big to run on the OLPC. DOS and Linux are the operating systems that have been successfully ROM’ed, and DOS doesn’t multitask, or have a TCP-IP stack. (The OLPC has no hard drive, nor is one planned - there is the possibility of a USB hard drive, but its widespread use is doubtful)

The third reason is that any benefit to Microsoft from the ‘good will’  would be negated by the rantings of Steve Ballmer, pounding on his chest, throwing chairs about, and pronouncing Microsoft a ‘good neighbor’ while at the same point in time being involved in so much litigation that it could employ all the lawyers in any medium sized city for its own needs.

The fourth, and somewhat minor reason, is that if Microsoft were to fabricate an operating system for this project, it would undoubtedly be off-putting to all the children, distracted by all the updates and patches needed to make it run as it should. Most children would be in secondary school before the bugs get worked out - remember the business cycle of Microsoft, and the fact that this is not nearly as important as selling the full priced operating systems, and chasing after ghosts who pirate the software.

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Tags: olpc, microsoft, cost overruns, operating systems, rom, tcp-ip stack, apple, apple iie

As someone who uses PCs everyday, for a great part of the day, and who hasn’t used Macs for any serious computing since the change to OS X, I was amazed at all I did not know about the inner workings of OS X.

Oh, sure, I can help those who can’t help themselves, and I know how to do many things on a Mac, just as many people know how to use Linux in a peripheral way.

After reading the very long, very complete article on Ars Technica my question is, “Why wouldn’t any thinking person not want to have OS X running on his or her PC hardware?”  And no, I don’t mean in the sense of having a Hackintosh, where every update means that you quiver when applying the patches, hoping against hope all your efforts are not for naught. First, I wholeheartedly recommend you set aside some time, read the article, and then compare what you have read to what you know about either Vista or any flavor of Linux.

No wonder those Apple users are smug! They have seen the light, and had the money to pay for the experience. Now for many, Linux or Windows may suffice. Many people look on the PC as a simple appliance - they might still be happy with MS-DOS and Windows 3.11. Those of us who are fascinated by what technology can bring about, and who want to see some intelligence used in the design of the operating system are amazed at what Mr. Jobs and company have made.

The design of the system, being an offshoot of BSD, means that things found to be rock solid and usable over the years were implemented, and so many ideas used that seem logical to even the low-tech crowd, yet somehow escaped the Redmond school of OS design.

Further reading reveals the attention to the most minute detail of the user interface, and how things that have irked many through the iterations of OS X have been changed, looking always for that ideal which satisfies everyone. While some things are not yet perfect, and get the author’s scorn, the interface is by far, the most advanced of all extant.

The most fervent hope (and prayers) of us who have non-blessed Intel or AMD hardware is that Apple will bless us with our most wished for gift, OS X for all the rest of the non-Mac world. We could call the OS Darwin, and show that the fittest has truly survived, and thrived.

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Tags: apple, os x, operating system design, leopard, ars technica

While no one is happy about the problems with the strangulation of BitTorrent and all other P2P software, it seems that the problem just might have a silver lining. The problem has provoked many to complain, and in true political fashion, a few intelligent Congressional people have seen the way to help their upcoming runs for re-election. Oh, it also might help some people in the electorate.

New legislation is being sponsored to give specificity to the term ‘net neutrality’ and ensure it happens. The providers of service have tried to show this as a ’solution in search of a problem’ but now are failing miserably with the information about Comcast coming to light. How far behind can little tales of similar behavior by other large providers be?

The Senate seems to be more on top of this than the House, as Senators Inouye (Dem from Hawaii), Byron Dorgan (Dem from North Dakota), and Olympia Snowe (Rep from Maine) are the ones moving forward on this. (Just when you were sure that these people only wasted the space they take up)

A much larger number of elected officials are now jumping on this bandwagon, as it seems to be picking up speed as it rolls on. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Patrick Leahy have all gone on record as being for this neutrality focus and legislation. This is one of those things where a letter to your Congresspersons would be in order, as there is no downside to this, except that the representatives will not be able to line their pockets with big ‘tips’ from AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and the like.

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Tags: comcast, verizon, at&t, sprint, net neutrality, bittorrent, p2p