sigh
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Mar 12, 2008 9:13 AM EDT |
All those poor oppressed billionaires couldn't trash the OLPC loudly enough. Now they want a cut of the action. Didn't Mr. Negroponte state that Windows on the OLPC wasn't going to happen? Thieving scamming liars, every one. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 12, 2008 9:22 AM EDT |
While living in the Third-World we often times went before some "official"
with plans and $$$ for a development project. The rule was that any
project would be approved IF money was passed under the table.
The NGO's soon learned to say no! No thank you but we will go to whatever
country is on your border and do the project there. Here is the kicker, those huge corporations that that we all hate, they never say no. They just pay what is asked and add a little more to the bribe just to cover contingencies that may arise. Nothing personal, its just business. |
| dinotrac Mar 12, 2008 9:42 AM EDT |
NOG? |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 12, 2008 9:44 AM EDT |
It's all about corporate hegemony and preserving worldwide market share. If Negroponte had maybe pissed off a few less people and had a few more in his corner ... but I pretty much knew this would happen. You think MS isn't developing a strategy for the entire UMPC market? |
| number6x Mar 12, 2008 9:55 AM EDT |
Windows XP is almost at the end of its long run. Microsoft should not waste time trying to re-work a dead horse to run on the OLPC. Go back to your cubes. Work on Windows 7 or Singularity. Get them to actually work, be stable and be secure. Then, when you have a small secure stable speedy OS, come back and put it on the OLPC. That should only take MS about 5-7 years. They'll be able to pick up OLPC's at garage sales real cheap then. |
| tuxchick Mar 12, 2008 9:56 AM EDT |
Quoting: You think MS isn't developing a strategy for the entire UMPC market? A strategy, most definitely yes. Something useful, reliable, fairly-priced, and not rapacious, never. |
| vainrveenr Mar 12, 2008 10:12 AM EDT |
Not only all these, but additionally, something else of a distinct conundrum for Negroponte.
Sander_Marechal on Mar 10, 2008 posted on LXer the piece 'OLPC: Negroponte wants "zero dollar laptop" for children' found at http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/104800/from/rss0...
As this piece specifically states
Quoting:$100 for a laptop for a child in the poorest countries is still too much for Nicholas Negroponte. The founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, and founder and current chairman. of the One Laptop per Child project (OLPC) wants to give portable computers to all the children in developing countries. If possible, free of charge, he said to German Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. "$100 is prohibitive. Our computers should and will be zero dollar laptops. There are many ways of achieving this, and we will endeavour to do just that."Does anyone seriously believe that XP can go onto the XO _AND_ be given away free to children in developing countries, both within sixty days !!!??? At what predicted timeframe and (perhaps most importantly!) At what predicted level of XO corporate-sponsorship($$$) WILL those free XO laptops with XP be given to such children?? |
| Abe Mar 12, 2008 11:21 AM EDT |
I saw this coming when I posted about it when Negroponte raised the cost of OLPC. He claimed it was cost of material and manufacturing. Some said it was due to the Dollar falling in value. I said hog wash, it was due to the additional hardware resource to accommodate for XP. It is very clear now. I guess it still doesn't make a difference. Let them have XP, so what? Does XP have all the apps and utils necessary to have a fully functional computer? I don't think so. Students need apps to make XP useful. Is Microsoft willing to offer all these apps for free too to make it as useful as Linux and apps? They could, but it wont be of real benefit to them unless MS is only interested in subverting Linux on those XO. If they don't, students will install FOSS software and eventually will move to Linux. Linux is superior and better and for a lot less cost when you consider all the apps that have to be paid for to run on XP. Eventually MS will realize it wasn't such a good business decision on their part. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 12, 2008 11:43 AM EDT |
DinoT Thanks, I fixed that. NGO = Non Governmental Organization Its hard to type with 14 fingers. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 12, 2008 2:24 PM EDT |
Quoting:Does anyone seriously believe that XP can go onto the XO _AND_ be given away free to children in developing countries, both within sixty days !!!??? Yes. I find it entirely plausible that MS is willing to bankroll a big stream of OLPC's under the condition that they will be shipped out with XP instead of Linux. MS cannot afford to have the third world running on Linux. When everyone there is familliar with Linux, who needs MS? Bankrolling the OLPC is loose change compared to the future market there. Shame, shame on Nicholas Negroponte and the OLPC project. You would have thought they'd learned from the Intel debacle. I guess not. I feel sorry for all the FOSS developers who spend time making the OLPC become a reality, especially those who contributed freely, and I hope they revolt and make a big stink of all this. |
| Abe Mar 15, 2008 4:37 PM EDT |
Quoting:Shame, shame on Nicholas Negroponte and the OLPC project...Don't be too harsh on Negroponte, he is just looking for funds to take the project to the next level. MS is more than happy to furnish it. Other than Libyia, other Governments couldn't commit the funds they said they would. With Asus and others releasing their mini- laptops commercially with very competitive prices, I believe Negroponte has no choice. MS could give away XP to these outfits to sell their PCs to governments by making necessary and attractive deals with the officials. |
| thenixedreport Mar 15, 2008 5:32 PM EDT |
Let's just wait and see what happens with all of this. With software pirates out there able to strip XP down themselves, then Microsoft should be able to as well. With that said, the main argument that is made to allow XP to be installed onto the computers themselves is quite simple: by excluding an MS platform, they would be no better than MS itself. Quoting:saw this coming when I posted about it when Negroponte raised the cost of OLPC. He claimed it was cost of material and manufacturing. Some said it was due to the Dollar falling in value. I said hog wash, it was due to the additional hardware resource to accommodate for XP. It is very clear now. Not necessarily. Don't think for one second that the falling value of the dollar doesn't affect anything. I've seen it in retail stores with rising prices (especially with food). Such a thing would affect the cost of hardware manufacturing as well. Both were contributing factors. Either way, I hope that an interesting idea doesn't get ruined from cloudy input on the part of groups whose only mindset is profit, profit, profit. |
| gus3 Mar 15, 2008 7:25 PM EDT |
Quoting:With that said, the main argument that is made to allow XP to be installed onto the computers themselves is quite simple: by excluding an MS platform, they would be no better than MS itself.It isn't the total exclusion of XP; it's the pre-installation that stinks. Negroponte could easily have required vendors to sell the XO with either Linux, or nothing, without denying end-users the ability to install Windows themselves. |
| tuxchick Mar 15, 2008 7:33 PM EDT |
Why does microsoft need to be invited to this party at all? It's a great big world, and I'm quite happy to have a few corners of it not be touched by their dirty fingers. |
| Abe Mar 16, 2008 6:54 AM EDT |
Quoting:Don't think for one second that the falling value of the dollar doesn't affect anything.That wasn't what I said. You are generalizing. I was referring to the OLPC only, not every other product in the market. Prices fluctuate mainly depending on supply, demand and profits. the OLPC doesn't have the open demand and wasn't supposed to be a product for profits. As a matter of fact, the demand was very limited and shrank rather than increased from the original forecast due to some governments not coming thought their commitments. This decrease could have increased the cost but the capital investment was in fact recovered by couple of initial commitments that took delivery. The additional commitments were supposed to bring the price down. The Chinese currency is dependent on the Dollar and if you noticed, other products from China sold in the US didn't go up in price like OLPC did. One more thing, were the increase in hardware resource of the OLPC necessary to run Linux only? I don't think so. |
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