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Operating Systems Software

Will OLPC's 'Sugar' Have an Effect on Other OSes? 59

Posted by Cliff from the a-paradigm-shift dept.
g8orade wonders: "As a recent article notes: for the OLPC, the software is more important than the hardware. A generation or more of children in developing countries will learn about computers using a computer that doesn't use a desktop from either Apple or Microsoft. Will the OLPC software finally be the license-less tool, the uncharged-for value add that raises the bar for other OS makers to compete, given the same hardware?"
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Will OLPC's 'Sugar' Have an Effect on Other OSes? More

Will OLPC's 'Sugar' Have an Effect on Other OSes?

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  • The OLPC will have influence (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MathFox ( 686808 ) on Saturday January 06, 2007 @11:17AM (#17487740)
    Firstly, all of the discussion about the machine influences the minds of hardware and software developers; I expect to see more low-power / long battery life laptops this year; some of the OLPC hardware innovations (LCD display) will be available in next years models.

    The software will cause a rethinking on how schoolkids could work with computers, but I don't see a quick adoption in PC operating systems. Applications for collaboration may pick up some of the sugar features; PDAs may pick up features quicker than PCs.
    Sugar is such a radical design that it is safe to predict that it won't be adopted for 100%... On the other hand it is safe to predict that some elements will be adopted. Without an in depth review it's hard to tell which features are "good" and likely to be picked up and which are bad and likely to be avoided.

  • software is more important than the hardware (Score:4, Funny)

    by Threni ( 635302 ) on Saturday January 06, 2007 @11:19AM (#17487748)
    > OLPC, the software is more important than the hardware.

    It always is. You don't buy hardware then try and find something to run on it. (Well, not perhaps unless you're an Apple user).
    • Some people might find this funny, but the comment is stupid and untrue. It's never been true. Using a Mac has always been more about the software than the hardware. For some reason, a lot of people don't get that. The vast majority of people who use Macs buy the hardware because of how the software works, not the other way around.

      David
      • GP was referring to the old chestnut about the difficulty in finding all the software you need to run on a Mac versus window. It's marked funny because people aren't taking it seriously. It's a joke. Laugh.
        • Maybe, but I find that many people DO take this objection quite seriously, in two different ways. Some people argue that people buy Macs because the like "pretty machines" and aren't interested in anything beyond that. Others still argue that there's no software for Macs. (I still hear that ALL the time.)

          David
    • Or a playstation fan.

  • look back in history! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ecalkin ( 468811 ) on Saturday January 06, 2007 @11:19AM (#17487752)
    many years ago apple made a *huge* push in k-12 to get apple stuff out there. why? when these kids graduated, a lot of them had experience with apples and some had experience with only apples. it was a long term investment.

        any software that gets uses on the olpc system will not make a difference *today* or *tomorrow*, but down the road it might.

        one observation: it will start with educational software. if there are millions of these units out there, there will need to be software for teaching stuff. getting in that market will probably get you into the educational market in developed countries. if you want to see this in action, watch what textbook publishers do to get into the california and texas schools. once in these states, they tend to push into other states from there.

        if the olpc project 'works', these children will grow up and this software is going to be what computers are all about.

        this could be very interesting for ms and apple.

    eric

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by k_187 ( 61692 )
      Yeah, because that's worked so well for Apple. I know that's the reasoning, but what gets used in business has a lot of inertia, and many school Mac labs were replaced with windows as that's what is out there.
      • It would have worked, but two things got in the way:

        1. Apple screwed the pooch with their product between the IIe and the Macintosh, effectively taking themselves out of the market. Anyone remember Lisa?

        2. The IBM-PC got genericized hardware, allowing a flood of relatively inexpensive clones and interchangability. Hardware Choice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by NekoXP ( 67564 )
      The interesting thing will be when some hardware arrives that does the job better than the OLPC and isn't shipped by an MIT charity project; since all of the OLPC software will be open source, there's no reason to ever really touch the OLPC - apart from today's unique use of the special LCD they have.

      You could run Sugar and the rest of the software on a standard PC, or a small embedded board (why does it HAVE to be a laptop?) of any architecture, price scale, power consumption you like, and use any chipsets

  • A couple of points (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06, 2007 @11:50AM (#17487956)
    One, this will be the first ever major large scale distributed computer that goes out the door with linux pre-installed, beating all the big vendors to the punch (nt counting embedded devices or game consoles or cellphones). It's a laptop, with working wireless and mesh networking out of the box, along with being self powered! A lot of serious coolness right there. Two, it will rapidly become the largest used linux distro. Within a few shipments, once you start talking millions at a time, it will surpass Ubuntu and the other "tops on distrowatch" distros.

    I think just those two facts indicate that it will have a profound impact on linux and computing in general. Turn it around, how can it not?

    OK, now, granted, this exact machine won't be offered for sale to joe average user, but... how it is being made and who is set-up to make the components etc, is either all known now or certainly will be soon. This thing is going to be torn apart, reverse engineered all over, and I expect to see clones hitting the market in various configs. Probably not as cheap as the original project, but pretty close, and they will sell, I know I'd go get one right now if it was there at a sub $300 price point, even with the limitations, it is still pretty neat. We have flash based memeory dropping in price quickly, this could probably be easily upgraded. Just the self powered part is enough of a consumer bump for me compared to the competition.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MyHair ( 589485 )
      I downloaded a recent version of the software image to run in VMWare. I clicked around on a few things. Sure it's Linux, but at first glance it doesn't seem to be designed to let you get to a command prompt or arbitrary Xwindows. When you say it's the first large scale computer with Linux preinstalled I think it's a bit misleading. Technically "Linux" is a kernel, but when people talk about a Linux OS I usually presume they mean an X desktop with one or more of the familiar environments (Gnome, KDE, various

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Eccles ( 932 )
      OK, now, granted, this exact machine won't be offered for sale to joe average user

      Except, of course, on eBay.

  • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by maxume ( 22995 )
      Yeah, nobody ever learned anything on a computer built before 1990, this thing clearly needs to be more powerful. The kids who end up using this thing will think that it is very real, and it will introduce them to computers just fine.

    • Re:The more I hear about this project... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Saturday January 06, 2007 @01:02PM (#17488694) Homepage Journal
      This is my opinion on the subject. Simply my humble predictions: this will be a *very* disruptive technology, changing the world in ways that we are not planning and we cannot for see. Children will use these laptops for their own purposes.

      As far as teaching plain ol' reading, writing, and 'rythmetic, a pencil and paper would do just as good a job for a lot less money. As a teaching device, they won't be a smashing success. However, what they will do is usher kids in third world poverty into the global communication revolution.

      Have you read about cell phones in rural Africa? These were places so poor that nobody, not business, not the corrupt government, not international aide programs, could justify the cost of wiring these places for phone service and electricity. However, once cell phone towers started going up, poor people started getting a hold of cell phones. Poor farmers were lining up buyers for fruit they were picking in the fields *as they were picking it*, instead of dragging it all the way to market and having it rot in the sun when there were no buyers. African societies have formalized rules of friendship and obligation, and having these fast communication tools allowed people to better utilize their social network and provide for the daily needs.

      These OLPC laptops will be used more like cell phones than desktop office computers. Yes, children are going to use these laptops to learn a little at school. But far and away, they will use them to talk to each other via the wireless capabilities. They will talk to people everyday that are more that a day's walk away. They will meet new people in neighboring villages electronically; people they have never met in real life.

      All people everywhere provide for their daily needs through their social networks. These rural third world kids will have a much expanded social network on account of these laptop. The tittering, giggling children passing gossip and songs back and forth on these laptops will one day grow up, start families, plant gardens, and conduct business, and uses these communication technologies to improve their lives.

      The paper and pencil model prepares kids for the office of the 1950s, where the only problem solving tools are pens and paper, in/out boxes on each person's desk, and vacuum tubes shuttling papers around. Kids of today will make their lives in a new world where we can organize flash mobs in a hour on a cell phone. They need to play with the tools to tomorrow, so they can creatively explore all the yet-unimagined possibilites they will use in the future.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by hughk ( 248126 )

        Good summaey. One of the characteristrics of lesser developed countries was that information = power. In one country that I was in, one of the greatest secrets was the world price of cotton which was a large multiple of that the statte was paying the farmers. Controlled information made it easy to rig markets as well as elections. Telephone lines tended to be limited and there was frequently an elaborate system of corruption around getting a line. The cell towers jumped over the corruption (mind you many o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tragek ( 772040 )
        Interesting case on Africa there. I remember reading an article, perhaps posted here at slashdot, about it.

        I think you're bang on when you say that the OLPC has similar possibilities to change the way people do things in these developing nations, however, I also think it's going to very strongly matter HOW they are used.

        If these computers are used how I suspect they will be, mostly in an institutionalized setting, sitting on desks in schools, I don't think they'll have the desired effect. If the children ar

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by lawpoop ( 604919 )
          "I think you're bang on when you say that the OLPC has similar possibilities to change the way people do things in these developing nations, however, I also think it's going to very strongly matter HOW they are used."

          Well, unless they are going to be total Nazis about it, teachers really won't be able to control how the kids use it. It's like hiding a comic inside the textbook you're pretending to read. The moment the teacher turns their back, the kids will be IMing each other. There will be some nerd in

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tragek ( 772040 )
            Black market is not something I ever thought of, though, it's an interesting question.

            You're completely right about instincts taking over, though, I think the revolution would perhaps happen despite any attempts to institutionalize and lock down the machines: However, also, I think that it's inarguable that the revolution would be _bigger_ if the machines were allowed to go home.
      • As far as teaching plain ol' reading, writing, and 'rythmetic, a pencil and paper would do just as good a job for a lot less money. As a teaching device, they won't be a smashing success. However, what they will do is usher kids in third world poverty into the global communication revolution.

        I agree with you up to a point, however given a search engine and some other online resources, e.g. wikipedia, science texts, programming texts, online graphing calculators, etc., some of the more self-starting kids wil

    • Re:The more I hear about this project... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mrfrostee ( 30198 ) on Saturday January 06, 2007 @01:07PM (#17488738) Homepage
      Let's say that kids want to learn how to write software for this platform. Will the tools available be even comparable to what they would expect with any "real environment?"

      It comes with Python and PyGTK, with Squeak eToys for younger kids. To me, that seems like a good way for kids to actually learn. What else would you suggest for kids to start with?

      It seems far better than the rows and rows of Dell/Windows computers at my kid's middle school where they learn "real world" skills like "typing" and "powerpoint". You are correct that the way US K-12 classrooms use their computers is a waste. That's why this is trying to do something different.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwzCsOFxT-U [youtube.com]

      It's not underpowered. The software will be optimized for the platform, making it possible to make efficient use of resources. Look at the video. Chat client, word processing, drawing, .. All that you have too. The applications are different though. They are supposed to be different.

      You misunderstood the meaning of OLPC. It's *not* for making kids C++ programmers. It's for assisting in the digital divide problem. The first step is a baby step. Teach kids how to read
    • You certainly haven't absorbed much of what you have supposedly heard about this project. The economics of it come into play by paying for this instead of buying obsolete textbooks in foreign languages. Now they will be able to have up to date textbooks, in their own language, and carry ALL of them around with them.

      The secondary goal is learning about the big wide world around them. Communication, it's called. Now the kids will be able to meet people who might not live within an hour's walk away.

      All thi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bloater ( 12932 )
      This laptop is for places which can only afford 1 teacher per year per fifty students. For the price of one more teacher for only three years they can provide the vast amount of knowledge of the internet to those fifty students for the lifetime of the laptop (probably about seven years - maybe more since it is small so more rugged and has solid state storage). That is a much cheaper way of increasing the level of education. Also textbooks can be provided much more cheaply as no paper is required.
    • "The hardware is severely under-powered; it cannot be reasonably used for most modern experimenting with computers"

      I am a professional developer. Lets look at what I use, and compare to the OLPC:

      OLPC 500Mhz geode, 128MB RAM, 512..1GB storage

      My main server (external email, httpd, user accounts, time keeping, external portal, ftp server):
      IBM PC365, 200Mhz x 2, 128MB RAM

      My "workstation" (dev, web browsing, email client, media playback (MythTV client): PII 400, 256MB

      Now, my storage is centralized: RAID 5, PII 2
    • The fact is that the way forward in this world is with the computer, so whilst pen an paper and text books are extremely important, they also need to be exposed to the concept of using a computer. And the fact that this can facilitate communication could possibly have beneficial political effects as it helps to promote free speech.

      As for the device not having an interface similar to the most common we see today in the Mac and Windows, bear in mind that just because many of these kids may be non-European, b

  • It doesn't matter (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DavidR1991 ( 1047748 )
    It doesn't matter what interface or OS-type is given to these children. Everything changes constantly anyway - even if you gave them an Apple or MS, 5 years from now, the next MS/Apple release will probably be completely different, and possibly unrecognisable. As long as the OLPC teaches the concepts of basic computer usage, above the actual manipulation of the UI, this PC will be valuable no matter what OS or UI is preloaded onto it. My two pence
    • the last really radical change to the windows gui was windows 95, sure there have been fairly large tweaks since (the biggest being "windows desktop update" from IE4 and the changes windows XP). but by and large i'd expect a user who learnt on windows 95 to have little trouble dealing with the user interface of XP.

      we still have drive letters for different drives/partitions, we still can edit the start menu by right clicking and selecting open on the start button, we still have windows selection through the

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