There's been a lot of hype lately about the development of a $100 laptop for use in the developing world. I'm curious if anyone has ever heard of/seen the movie The First $20 Million is Always The Hardest. It's an absurdly anachronistic dot-com tale about some Stanford kids trying to build a $100 PC. It's really really terrible, but somehow I found myself amused by it.
Also, the Wall St. Journal, today, talks about the companies involved with this project. One passage really caught my eye:
Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.'s chief executive, offered to provide free copies of the company's operating system, OS X, for the machine, according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders. "We declined because it's not open source," says Dr. Papert, noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Open source advocates have a reputation for being overly dogmatic but this is pretty extreme. Here's a well-designed, very easy to use and well supported operating system that is being offered for free, but it's being rejected for not being open-source. Oh yeah, because the kids in the villages really need to tinker with the source code. God forbid they use computers that are easily compatible with most of the computers in the developed world. Way to place your priorities guys!
If you think the main thing that matters about software is the price, I have some free programs for you. In fact I'll pay you to install them. Just don't read the EULA too carefully.
Posted by: giafly | November 14, 2005 at 12:36 PM
Think about the poverty-stricken areas that the $100 PC is aimed at. Do you think there more concerned about the price or the EULA? Just curious.
Posted by: The Stalwart | November 14, 2005 at 01:00 PM
as the first commenter has said, it's not just the price. please remember that the $100 laptop is for *educating* kids. how are kids supposed to learn if they can't tinker with it?
Posted by: ren | November 14, 2005 at 10:27 PM
I've never owned a computer with an open-source operating system, but I think I've learned quite a lot through them.
It's becoming clear to me that this $100 PC is merely a trojan horse for the RedHat/Linux crowd to get a toehold in the developing world. That's fine if they want to sell a product, but trying to get government donations for their "philanthropy" is disinfenuous and will almost certainly fail.
Posted by: The Stalwart | November 14, 2005 at 10:59 PM
Hi Stalwart. As the Apple and Linux alternatives would both be "free", I don't think they need to worry about price. On the other hand I'm sure we've both seen Apple EULAs that remove user's rights.
Posted by: giafly | November 15, 2005 at 05:51 AM
Writing an exact man,i admire you.
Posted by: air jordans | November 11, 2010 at 01:48 AM