Will OLPC's 'Sugar' Have an Effect on Other OSes? 59
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?"
The OLPC will have influence (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Here at Brazil it is on the major press, but they call it the US$100 laptop, instead of OLPC. Maybe you didn't listen about it because it is not aimed to your area.
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software is more important than the hardware (Score:4, Funny)
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).
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David
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David
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_
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look back in history! (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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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.
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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)
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.
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Except, of course, on eBay.
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Is Wikipedia really that bad? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'll agree with you that Wikipedia has some problems that haven't yet been ironed out, mostly the ones that you outlined above. However, I have to disagree with you on the issue of bias - while I certainly would agree that many articles in
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A laptop with Internet access has thousands of textbooks available for free. Even without using BitTorrent. And there are decent libre textbooks available online.
So even if you take a quality hit (despite the available peer review) by using online textbooks, the greater availability will lead to a better, more thorough education for the students.
That assumes, of course, that each child has sufficient access to the lapt
Re:The more I hear about this project... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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)
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.
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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,
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
The OLPC is NOT for programming (Score:2)
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
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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
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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
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Re:Virtual Machine (Score:5, Informative)
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It's a VMware image and works just fine in VMware Player.
It doesn't matter (Score:2, Interesting)
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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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