Comments on: Negroponte: Windows key to OLPC philosophy

OLPC chairman says laptop project could not promote openness if it was closed to Microsoft.

[rdupuy11]

Open

Actually a hardware design is open when the spec's are made public and the designs released into the public domain.

[fred dunn]

Excellent Point...

I have been to their website but have not seen any links to specs or specs published on the site other than it uses this chip and that chip. No where on their site are the schematics and embedded microcode for anyone to work with.

[alex65006900]

Why not re-introduce Windows ME

I used windows Me for years and liked it.Had no problems.I of course use Windows XP..Home.. because it came with my newer computer.I am serious in my opinion.

[Robbyonce]

Agree 100%

Agree completely Alex. Yes, Window 9x (ME) does have security issues. But how hard would it be to have a recovery setting that reset the laptop back to factory. Remembering that OLPC has usb ports for flash drives and memory slot for keeping your data on. The big benfit of using Win9x is the large number of programs avaiable!!! Think of all the learning programs! Plus you have a great developement environment in Visual studio 6. 1st class tools even if they are dated. It's for kids. They'll learning programming in VB or C++. Linux still isn't up to providing this level of usability. Now, if we could only convince MS. Probably not. Could you imagine some new Microsoft employee told they would be supporting Win9x and old apps on OLPC :) I can just hearing them screaming down the hallway.

[gggg sssss]

commander spock MIA

when will os/2 rear its ugly head?

[fred dunn]

Yeah they want to use a stripped WinXP...

Kind of makes you wonder doesn't it? They need efficiency so they definitely can't use Vista.
While they pawn Vista off to the rest of the world as the umpteen million lines of inefficiency that it is.

[Screenwriter40]

Why can't Apple strip down OS X for the XO as well?

I think Apple should compete with Microsoft by offering a
stripped down OS X for the XO laptop. This is the opportunity to
prove that even a non-Apple laptop COULD run OS X as well.
But I'm sure they will come up with an excuse NOT to do so. I
think it would be in their best interest to at least try to
accomplish this OR come up with an Apple-Branded XO-like
Laptop for Students around the world instead. (My latest blog
entry touches upon this further...)

Mark McLaughlin (linuxglobe.wordpress.com)

[Gringras]

Question:

Wouldn't using a proprietary OS be a bad thing? I mean, if M$
builds a stripped down OS, then would the OLPC be able to use
most contemporary programs? What about active X? Wouldn't
Linux be better suited to this task? I admit, this is over my head
but it troubles me that M$ is getting the opportunity to
dominate the third world PC market. We all know they have a
shady history. M$ isn't well known for it's altruism even though
it makes significant charitable donations. As for Apple, it
doesn't normally compete at the low end of the market. They
make really nice stuff which simply ain't cheap.