Skip to main content

OLPC project clarifies: no plans for Windows support



I'm a big OLPC fan, and an advocate of open source. When news surfaced over the last few weeks of a Windows-based version, I was concerned about the potential negative impact of commercial forces on the admittedly idealistic goals of OLPC.

It turns out that the way AP and other news sources reported the original story, attributing comments (but not directly quoting) Nicholas Negroponte, head of the nonprofit organization operating the OLPC project, mischaracterized the relationship between OLPC and Microsoft, drawing implications which may occur as a result of market forces but not due to any special relationship between OLPC and Microsoft.

The following quote from Walter Bender, president of Software and Content at OLPC, certainly clarified things for me:

"We are a free and open-source shop. We have no one from OLPC working with Microsoft on developing a Windows platform for the XO. MS doesn't get any special treatment from OLPC."


In re-reading several of the previous reports, it's unclear to me whether the writers intentionally obfuscated Negroponte's comments, or in their enthusiasm for the getting the story out were simply careless in their choice of words. Whatever the intention, the result was clearly a different story than the reality of the situation.

In any case, I'm happy to learn that OLPC will proceed on its mission focused on its own revolutionary software platform, and that XO owners will at least begin their experience of computers with something other than Microsoft Windows.

Mind you, I'm not against the use of Windows on OLPC, but would rather see market forces dictate the final added value (and accompanying cost) of any commercial software, including Microsoft Windows. I'm thinking that the company's recently announced $3 bundle gets pretty close to the mark.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

InfoWorld published this excellent brief overview video on cloud computing. Worth a look if you're in the dark about the cloud!
21 comments
Read more
On My Own - Doing It By The Numbers Over the weekend I got my first call on a consulting opportunity.  A few calls later I realized something - I hadn't figured out how to price my "product!" It's pretty hard for someone to buy something (or even determine whether they're interested) if they don't know the price. Of course, that realization came after I nailed down something even more important...my resume. I promised lots of friends, colleagues and former co-workers that I'd let them know how things are going, so I plan to catalog the steps in my process here on my blog in the unlikely event that someone else decides to pursue a similar path. I know this has probably all been written about before, but some of us are just too darned bull-headed to learn lessons from other people and need to make our own mistakes, carve our own paths. Step #1 - Define Your Product (aka Update Your Resume) I know most people probably keep their resumes current by looking at...
4 comments
Read more
GullFOSS - Sun Microsystems joins porting effort for OpenOffice.org for Mac We can only hope that there'll be some excellent cross-pollination between Sun's team and the folks at NeoOffice . NeoOffice has done a good job of delivering added value to OOo, and it would be a shame to see that good work fall by the wayside as the OOo core evolves to include its own Mac-native UX. I'm sure mine is not the only voice encouraging the teams to find ways to cooperate and bring the best of both to OpenOffice's Mac user community.
5 comments
Read more