Comments on: The XO laptop gets a Windows makeover

CNET News' Ina Fried gets an exclusive, first-hand look at what it means to have Windows, rather than Linux, on One Laptop Per Child's signature device.

[db2not]

I think putting windows on the XO is nothing short of a bastardization of everything that device stands for. If MS's intended isn't to somehow use this device as a Trojan horse to get its software into other places (maybe third world govt' computers) then I don't understand why they would want their OS as a competitor in a contest for which Windows of any version is unsuitable. I am sick and tired of these "Apples and Oranges" comparison between windows and Linux*. XO was not designed to use Windows and any attempt to justify otherwise is nonsense.

[ducttape36]

It reminds me a little of when i was in elementary school and all we had were Macintosh computers that Apple sold as part of some deal they had. These companies just want to get them hooked young.

[sal-magnone]

The computers are for educating a future workforce in a Windows dominated world. If the interests of Microsoft and a set of governments converge in that context then so much the better. Any attempt to turn XO into a "Freedom Device" or a "capitalism-basher" is strictly direct from the peanuts and popcorn gallery. It's built for people who will one day work for or own businesses. It's not a flag, though if you want to buy a few and burn them for effect I'm sure someone will be willing to sell you a few, for a small markup.

[rjakobson]

There is a kind of "purism" which comes to the debate with Windows on the XO. But if you are aware of what has actually been requested (repeated) by those who actually are buying the XOs NGO's and Education ministries want Windows. If the XO's inherent design was not to have Windows that is a flaw in the design - and one that OLPC has corrected by having MS get involved and produce a version for the XO for them. That is not a bastardization. That's realising that to make the stated goal of the OLPC happen - which is to get technology into the hands of kids - the OS was a limiting factor.

[jimafrost]

sal-magnone wrote:

"The computers are for educating a future workforce in a Windows dominated world."

That's horribly short-sighted. Technology tends to have a lifespan of about 5 years, and is completely obsolescent within 10. If we're targeting 8-year-olds, then, the particular technology they learn with will be moot long before they hit the workforce. Windows would seem to be an exception but looking back on Windows ten years ago and Vista today ... they have roughly the same differentiation as Vista, the Mac, or Ubuntu Linux. People adapted to the changes in technology as necessary.

The XO was not intended to be a workforce training tool but rather a discovery tool. It's greatest possible benefit should be the vast amount of information that can be accessed with just a web connection. Books, reference material, etc. that would otherwise be very hard to come by in poor or isolated communities. The operating system on which it is built is largely moot except that Linux is royalty free and far easier to strip down than Windows. It was an excellent choice for a base.

I think the failure in the XO was tossing out literally all of the existing technology for UI and writing it again from scratch. A stripped-down X11 plus simple window manager with just about any widget toolkit would have given them a lot more maturity, and applications, right out the door. Above the OS they've had to build a complete ecosystem and in so doing have had all the usual growing pains. It has matured a lot in the last year, but it still has a long way to go.

This is particularly true when it comes to information access. With internet access and a terrific display system they should have been able to give immediate access to the web and tens of thousands of books. In practice, though, the web browser is painfully slow and there are no "standard" e-book readers so you can't take advantage of huge libraries like Project Gutenberg. The books that have been available were poorly formatted for the device and there just weren't many of them. I think if they had built a "library" tool capable of hitting several common book repositories and just ported Mobipocket they would have had a huge winner just as a reading device, never mind the other things it can do. More on this idea in a minute.

If you want an information access device with educational games and whatnot a rather cheap and very effective solution right now is an iPod touch. It's one hell of a lot more usable than an XO and not much more expensive. So, highly functional mainstream commercial offerings are already getting down to the same price-points. I think we can expect that progress to continue.

In the long run, though, I anticipate that the big learning tools are going to resemble the Kindle much more than a PC or handheld. The principal issue with learning is information access, and a PC is just overkill for that. Tries to do too much and is too expensive in terms of both capital and power costs. But a device that tries to be an especially capable book and basic web browser can be made very cheaply, can have superb battery life and durability. With e-ink displays coming in at as low as a few dollars now (see the October Esquire cover) I think we are no more than a few years away from mainstream devices that hold libraries of tens of thousands of books, access the web, and yet cost only a few dollars. And that, my friends, is going to change the face of education worldwide.

[blafkinm]

Interesting tactic in argumentation "any attempt to justify otherwise is nonsense"? Well, let me share some nonsense:

- The mission statement for the XO project is "To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning."

- There is nothing in that mission that says "dethroning Microsoft" or "killing proprietary software."

- The implosion of the XO project in the past year is the direct result of Free Software ideologues demanding that this device be imbued with an ideology that takes priority over its true mission.

- This project is about learning, collaboration, and children. It is NOT and SHOULD NOT be about ideological battles over software development. That sideshow is getting in the way of achieving the mission. If educators/politicians/etc. want a machine that runs Windows because its maps better with their view of economic and educational progress, let's not tell them "we know better than you..." If they want Ubuntu instead of Sugar...we should not tell them "No. We know what's best for you."

Ideologies are fine, but there is a time when you need practical solutions for serious issues. That is the time in which we need to stop preaching and just find flexible solutions. Mr. Negroponte realized this...it's too bad so many others have not.

[gggg sssss]

jimafrost -- on my xp computer it says it is 2008. My first windows computer was 3.0 in 1988 or 89 - so that makes it 20 years for this partucular piece of technology. It probbaly has 10 years to go. Linux has been around for , what - 5 years? so its time must be up according to you.

[Fil0403]

I think criticising the fact that countries now have an alternative option regarding the OS the XO comes with is nothing short of a ridiculization of everything Linux suporters stand for. If Microsoft's intent was never anything else other than providing countries what many of them were wisely asking for (i.e. the most advanced and widely-used OS today - the one that is used by 90+% of the market, not one that is used by 1-% of it), then I don't understand why they can't answer many countries' request and have their OS as an alternative in a computer for which the most complete version of Microsoft Windows XP (Microsoft Windows XP Professional) proves to be perfectly suitable (even more than Linux). I am sick and tired of you ignorant "Microsoft-haters". The world cannot live without Windows and any attempt to justify otherwise is nonsense.

[kbellve]

Did the windows version of virus/malware protection? What browser was on each version of XO?

Unless you install virus protection software on the Windows version of XO, it will become infected quickly, especially if you are running Explorer. And if you do install virus protection software, expect the XO to become a slow pig of a computer. You are damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

[fuzbears]

It is ironic to hear of governments such as Peru "demanding" windows on it. While it does make sense, they would rather have their children get nothing at all, than what they see as perfect tool.. They need to make up their minds if this is a tool designed to teach general subjects, or a tool just to teach computer literacy. Sugar ideal for the former, and windows really is needed for latter.

[gggg sssss]

but, they did get the best of all worlds - a cheap computer AND windows

[walterbender]

I'm in Peru at the moment, having spent much of the past week at the Ministry of Education. I only had one conversation about Windows and that was in regard to whether or not Sugar can or will run on Windows. The rest of the discussions were about pedagogy: how best to amplify the success they have had to date running Sugar on the OLPC XO. As I understand it, there will be a trial of XP on the XO beginning soon. Not sure there this rumor that Peru is demanding Windows XP is originating from, but it certainly isn't from the education community.

[Penguinisto]

Re: Peru... they got a trainload of charity money from Bill Gates suddenly (and probably more than a few bribes) after they decided to get the Windows religion... it helps explain why they suddenly love it so much. ;)

/P

[ca_pr1964]

Why is it that any gov official that doesn't buy into the FOSS/OLPC vision is termed a corrupt gov official....
penguinisto....you only demonstrate your ignorance.

[rjakobson]

Re: Re: Peru... got a link to support that claim or are you just blowing smoke? The money awarded to Peru was after their Quake and used for rebuilding after the quake that leveled a city over a year ago - before anyone even knew that Windows could be made available for the OLPC.

When you take good works - like the Gates Foundation - and you smear 'em so you can fit whatever cause you have -

[rapier1]

A *lot* of other countries also received substantial money from the Gates Foundation. Other countries that are also received the XO. Other countries that did not insist that the XO come with Windows. The amount of money Peru received, as a percentage of their budget, is actually relatively minor in comparison to how much has been given to other countries using the linux only version.

[Seaspray0]

Not before they decided? And they got money from the Gates charity and not microsoft itself? That's a strange way of doing a bribe but I'm not all that surprised. Bribes happen everywhere. Just about every local govt in the USA has offered tax incentives to businesses to locate nearby. And when was the last time the IT manager was offered tickets to the local game by another business.

As for the article, what I did not see was how much of a footprint was used by each OS... memory consumption, drive space usage, etc. How much is left for applications? And since this is for children, why don't we let them and the teachers choose rather than all the adults argue over which is best.

[Seaspray0]

Not before they decided? And they got money from the Gates charity and not microsoft itself? That's a strange way of doing a bribe. As for the article, what I did not see was how much of a footprint was used by each OS... memory consumption, drive space usage, etc. How much is left for applications? And why aren't you asking questions like these, penguin? And since this is for children, why don't we let them and the teachers choose rather than all the adults argue over which is best.

[Vegaman_Dan]

You've just accused Bill Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of committing illegal acts of *bribery* of the Peruvian government in order to get their product into that country.

Please present your facts and dcoumentation for review. I call you on your accusation.

Back up your claim or retract it.

When you accuse a person of a crime, you better have some evidence to back it up, Penguinisto.

[The_Decider]

It is not odd because Gates uses "charity" for very selfish and uncharitable reasons.

[AJ Pants]

well said db2not

[bridge solution]

amazing to see a msft vs linux argument that has some intelligence, largely thanx to the insight of the article author. these machines are tools to a purpose. the purpose is not the "thing on hand, ruler in the other" --but the direct output to reproducing a viable future potential.
Twenty-five years ago a study was done as to why various "reforms" "pedagogies" "new methods" etc worked or didn;t work in schools. The end report was that good schools got good use out of any tools. Schools where the culture was defeatist, exhausted, or lacking vision got no utility other than a fast bounce out of any new methodology.
this device either "stands for" a linked in, communicative, operative world....or an another attempt to play us/them..which strategy is working sooooo wellll everywhere else. children know better, and they will decide.

[danielbartolini]

I'm not a Windows lover. I stick mostly with Unix, Mac OS, and different brands of linux. And I own an original XO. I think the Sugar interface is one of the most interesting developments in (attempted) mass-user facing graphical interfaces in a long time. I love some of decisions they made in how you navigate the machine and the OS.

But don't blame MS for this. This has as much to do with OLPC failing to establish a serious foundation and framework for deployment and support of their system as it does with possible bribes. They put this thing out into the world and expected people to rejoice. But there is no technical support for buyers. And there's no real evidence that just putting a computer in a child's hands will fundamentally spark creativity and a desire to learn. If OLPC can't figure out a good way to manage their own ecosystem, then don't blame someone else for seeing an opportunity and jumping on it.

[gigo1000]

Well, I'm not a Microsoft fan but I have to compliment MS for doing this. The reality is that a huge number of computers in this world run Windows. Having early access to the OS is going to be invaluable for the kids who will use these computers and grow up to use big computers in the future. However, like little Ella Taggart in the article, as they get more sophisticated they will make their OS decisions based on other reasons. I give MS two thumbs up.

[The1egend]

@jimafrost. As for being 'shortsighted', I think you miss the point. The ability to run most of the available software is a huge deal. These children are supposedly learning on these machines, and not learning to program for them, although that may be part of the experience as well. The ubiquity of windows and knowledge of programming for windows makes the choice better in the long run. I have a few other comments as well; Firstly, the goal is not to necessarily get these children familiar with any particular OS, it's to get them familiar with technology, and the general use of computing. Secondly, the OS is just the interface for the child, so what does it matter which one it is on their end, if they aren't to program for it? If more and more companies, governments, and people can program for the system since they can use the windows languages easier, isn't it more prudent to use that particular OS? Also, lastly, you stated that the average technology lifespan is 5 years. Whether or not that is true, your point can be simplified to, who is going to be using windows xp from now on or in the future? Well, about as many people who use linux, if not more. Many companies do not see the need to upgrade their systems until they fail. My workplace uses 50 computers or so, and all of them are using '98. I understand that Microsoft has discontinued sales of this OS, but it will still have legs far beyond what we may think.

[jimafrost]

"The ubiquity of windows and knowledge of programming for windows makes the choice better in the long run."

You're presuming that Windows even exists in anything like the current form some ten-plus years in the future. Windows programming today, using C# et al, is vastly different than MFC programming was ten years ago. Learning to write code to the Windows API as a teaching tool is only marginally useful.

But I wasn't even thinking about writing code, I was thinking of using productivity tools -- the "workforce" tools you're implying make Windows more valuable as a teaching system.

MS Word has changed quite significantly in ten years, at least as much as the difference between, say, MS Word and Open Office right now. Similarly the Windows user interface has changed at least as much in the last ten years as differences between any of the modern UIs, possibly excepting Sugar. If teaching the specifics of those tools was important than most of the workforce wouldn't be able to use them. Similarly by the time those children enter the workforce the tools will be very different no matter what technology you pick today. They'll look different, they'll have different UI idioms, different underlying operating system, different applications.

This is not a problem. My eight-year-old daughter, for instance, has had no particular trouble learning to use the XO, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X, and the iPod/iPhone. (Some of the particulars of Sugar escaped her, like the neighborhood display since there are no other XOs around us, but that's not a fault of the XO interface -- it was intended to be used in group environments which I don't have.) Browsers in all of them act pretty much the same, wordprocessors work pretty much the same everywhere, etc. WordStar users managed to learn Word. Mosaic users still get along with Internet Explorer 7. Mac users managed to learn to use Windows, and vice versa. The concepts carry even though the specifics don't.

(continued next post due to size limitations)

[jimafrost]

You mention "the ability to run most of the available software" but you are missing the fact that these machines cannot run a lot of available software even when running Windows. They don't have the RAM, you can't use flash as swap to virtually extend RAM (it burns out too fast), and they don't have the disk space even to install many common applications. To even run Windows XP those machines require an external SD card and it's S-L-O-W. It makes Sugar not look so bad after all. (Don't believe me: TRY IT.)

Over time the devices will likely bulk up to the point where it's possible to run Windows comfortably, but not with a substantially reduced price point. Moreover, there is a huge reason NOT to pick Windows: cost! Windows is expensive!

To bring that point home, I had dinner with the head of Microsoft's HPC project back in I think 2003. We were discussing Microsoft's odds of doing well in the HPC market. I said I though it was unlikely given the licensing costs. To use Windows in that environment forces you to use the Server variant, which at the time was $800/license. If you had a 4000 CPU machine that was $3.2M in Windows licenses alone. If you used Linux instead you could buy a hell of a lot more CPUs. His response was "we'll cut you a deal" but even at a 90% discount that is still a lot of money you could otherwise spend on CPUs -- every four or five Windows licenses is another CPU. This explains quite well why Microsoft has done effectively zilch in the HPC market in the intervening four years. If the Microsoft isn't given them the OS for free then Linux is the overwhelming choice.

Now, I grant that we're not talking about $800 licenses for XO PCs but the point is the same: Even if Microsoft were selling Windows for $1 on the XO PC, approximately a 98% discount over bulk Vista Home bundles, across a million XO PC installation that's $1M in software licenses that could be used to buy more than 5,000 additional XO PCs running Linux. Windows really needs to provide a hell of a lot of added value for that to be sensible. It doesn't offer anywhere near that kind of value.

Your Win98 argument really doesn't hold water: Sure, there are a lot of those still out there in absolute terms but not in relative terms. In the US the number of Win98 installations has been shrinking by half every three years since 2001. It's slower elsewhere in the world, but not a lot slower; hardware failures force the obsolescence cycle. By 2011 Win98 will have a very small market indeed and the odds are very good that anyone trained on Win98 as a child will never see it when they hit the workforce. It doesn't really matter since the concepts they learned on Win98, or XP, or Vista, or MacOS, or Ubuntu, or even Sugar carry across to the others just fine.

So: Education necessarily revolves around some generalities since the specifics change on a much more rapid time-scale than the education process. Given that this is the case it makes little difference what the underlying OS is in terms of training. It makes a difference in terms of applications and it makes a difference in terms of software cost, but in both of those cases Windows fairs poorly on an XO PC given its limited hardware and its market's high price sensitivity.

Personally I think the XO PC is doomed to fail no matter what OS it runs; it is just not possible to make PCs cheap enough to compete with special-purpose devices we expect to see over the next few years, particularly web-enabled e-books. That isn't the case today since the technology is still ramping up and volumes are low, but even today it's possible to find devices at price points very similar to the XO PC that do all of the really interesting things an XO PC does without so many of the limitations. Cellphones and music players are already encroaching on the price and capabilities of these PCs, but are often more usable. E-ink tablet computers start at $300 today, should be $200 by 2010, $100 by 2012, $50 in 2014, and less than $20 by 2016.

I don't believe PCs in any form can match those prices. I notice that PC prices have flattened out a lot in recent years; economies that can be made have already been made. The XO and Classmate PCs really push the envelope of what is possible but still reasonably useful. They will never reach $20 price levels, and will instead get gobbled up by other technologies that can be so cheap that they can be given away.

(continued next post)

[jimafrost]

(Sorry for the duplicate. I really hate this posting system.)


Some twenty years ago I came up with what I call Jim's Law: The cheapest thing that gets the job done wins. I had noticed that the best technology in just about every domain wasn't the one that won in the market. Why did minicomputers beat out mainframes? Workstations beat out minicomputers? PCs beat out workstations? UNIX beat VMS? MS-DOS beat CP/M? Windows beat MacOS? Linux beat UNIX? Simple: Each was the least expensive one that did the job well enough. No matter that each successor was inferior in major respects to its predecessor. People put up with all kinds of hardships to save a few dollars. Over time those cheap technologies grew more capable and their prices grew with them, until the next cheap-but-good-enough technology came along to wipe them out.

This is how I know for sure that Windows is not the place to bet the farm right now. It stopped being cheap. It has lasted as long as it has on momentum and not a small amount of monopoly leveraging but it's easy to see it losing pace with every passing year.

The cheapest thing that gets the job done wins, and it's hard to beat zero. That in a nutshell is the problem with betting on Microsoft even if you're one of those people that believes education needs to focus on specifics rather than generalities.

jim frost
[e-mail]

[Zarland]

The OLPC is a horrible idea. I can?t help to feel this entire ordeal is just a MIT professor who has gone out of touch with reality. Yes, we can indulge our imagination with giving few laptops to countries who can?t even afford to provide enough teachers and textbooks would magically solve the world?s disparity in education.

Why not invest the already scares resources in things that would make real difference.

Mass produced textbook only cost as much as the ink and the paper it prints on. With less than few dollars we can cover the cost of an entire year worth of textbooks. With the money saved from not buying OLPC, we can provide much more needed school supplies such as textbooks for kids who might otherwise afford it.

Let not forget that almost all the K12 classes in the U.S. are still taught by teachers in front of students with textbooks.

[gigo1000]

"Mass produced textbook only cost as much as the ink and the paper it prints on."

That's not entirely true. You also have to pay printing costs, transportation costs, storage costs, and replacement cost when damaged to the point of un-usability or lost.

There is no way to upgrade a printed book when new information is available, you have to replace the whole book.

The future of education is electronic readers/computers. An entire year of schoolbooks can easily be stored on a hard drive or DVD. Updates to books will be a easy as a download, anywhere in the world. With electronic transfer, homework can simply be transferred to a teachers computer. No more unreadable reports!

Very soon printed school books will be an anachronism.

[tudza]

Let's not forget that almost all the K12 classes in the U.S. get are getting a bad reputation for not teaching those students well. Switching technologies from new to old doesn't necessarily get you any better results.

The true solution is to buy everyone Korean parents.


Korean parents for sale
You say you're not all
That you want to be
You say you got a bad environment
Your work at school's not going well

Korean parents for sale
You say you need a little discipline
Someone to whip you into shape
They'll be strict but they'll be fair

Look at the numbers
That's all I ask
Who's at the head of every class?
You really think
They're smarter than you are
They just work their ***** off
Their parents make them do it

[gggg sssss]

Curious. I dont see any Mac fanboyz tellihg us how great OSX is on the XO. Somebody explain to me why Apple isnt out their putting their OS on these machines? Isnt it teh absolute best?

[deckhardt]

OK this quote made me laugh

"This is Windows," he said. "People want to be able to pick up the phone and call us if they can't get something to work."

Everyone that has had any luck picking up a phone and calling "Microsoft" for help on Windows raise their hand.... anyone...? anyone...? The answer is doesn't happen lets move on... ;-P

[walwebster]

... on the other hand, anybody had the experience with Windows of not being able to "get something to work"? Show of hands? (Face it, it's part of the groundrules ... if it lasts another 10 ... 20 ... 30 years, it'll still be cr@p). (Sorry, OVERPRICED cr@p ...).

[unimauro]

Hi Ina

My name is Carlos Mauro Cardenas Fernandez. I'm studing systems engineering into deh National University of Engineering. Now working in my thesis about the
"Evaluation of the OLPC with the Usability Engineering", and i made some usability testing pilot and testing process with the Sugar into Classmate, OLPC, and Desktop. I would compare the usability of WindowsXP with Sugar by testing.

But... I could install windows into OLPC... I think make this with adding a memory SD but have problem with the boot and the install the windows into the SD.
Can you help me install the Windows in the OLPC. I have the original program or Where do I get one?... In the ministry from Perú is very hard.

My work:
[1]http://unimauro.blogspot.com/2008/06/usability-pruebas-piloto-con-las-olpc.html
[2]http://unimauro.blogspot.com/2008/07/usability-thesis-segunda-sustentacin-de.html
[3]http://unimauro.blogspot.com/2008/08/proyecto-presentado-en-intercom.html
[4]http://unimauro.blogspot.com/2008/06/usability-prueba-piloto-de-usabilidad.html

[Fil0403]

If you want usability, follow my advice and stay out of Linux.

[Fil0403]

The XO got interesting, usable, and useful at last.

[The_Decider]

Windows is the most user UNFRIENDLY OS in existence. It is buggy and insecure by default and takes a lot of work to make it somewhat reasonably stable and secure.

[The_Decider]

More malware, more headaches, reduced performance, instability.

That is what happens when you move from Linux to Windows.

[pauljweighell]

As the review said, Linux is slow to browse on the XO and that's a killer for modern kids. Windows is the world's standard opsys so not to allow the XO to use it would just be dumb. If Linux lovers want to push their personal preference then that's fine too, variation is how things evolve.