Comments on: OLPC to laptop makers: Use our design

Founder Nicholas Negroponte says the OLPC will open-source its hardware design and invite others to copy it, according to a report from the TED conference.

[teachtopia]

Many of us were so excited we first read about the one laptop per child. In fact, there was a time when I was excited to read anything about the topic. The Intel Classmate's PC topic added to the enthusiasm.
Unfortunately these factors led to the OLPC being a mute point at this time:

1. It never panned out to be that cheap for what you got
2. Devices were hard to connect
3. The goodwill of people tanked as the economy had a harder time
4. Netbooks, Netbooks, Netbooks, that worked quite well

Unlike software and code the open souce model for hardware is not something that anyone could just copy. and....given the lack of success of OLPC why would someone?

[Penguinisto]

The reason OLPC choked wasn't because of Open Source, but rather two factors:

1) Negroponte's ego, and
2) the fact that OLPC suddenly dumped OSS along with most of its development team, and started whoring for Windows XP.

[pithenumber]

1AMD geode sucked
2It was better than what Intel had so they went with it instead of waiting for Atom
3Netbooks are awesome

[Millerboy]

Penguinisto is wrong. The OLPC works better with Windows XP on it than OSS.

[Penguinisto]

Has nothing to do with what OS allegedly works "better" in your subjective opinion (which is wrong, BTW - for too many technical reasons to list here).

Basically, it has to do with costs and community support.

When OLPC first began, it had a huge wave of support from the Linux community, all the way up until Negroponte got a massive case of narcissism, dumped Sugar, laid off its crew, and started courting Microsoft. The community got disgusted and dropped their support of him, leaving OLPC high, dry, and dying.

When a guy thinks that only he can save the world and do it with laptops, then pisses off everyone who supported him, what other outcome did you expect?

Let Microsoft save his arse.

/P

[FutureGuy]

@Penguinisto are you a robot?
Someone: OMG there is a heat wave. Penguinisto: I bet its M$;s fault.

May be OLPC got off on the wrong with OSS, turned to MS but it was already too late?

[kieranmullen]

There were also some predatory practices performed by Intel as well on the project. The joined the team as a contributor, then came out with the classmate.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2C1895%2C2158614%2C00.asp

KieranMulleb
http://360oregon.com

[jeffsmith2007]

What specifically was predatory? Intel saw that OLPC's business model was flawed and went in another direction. Negroponte felt it was his right to be the sole producer and marketer, and it wasn't ethical for anyone to compete. Clearly his ego is still getting in the way.

[3rdalbum]

I don't think Bill Gates wants the XO to do well. It took a lot of time and hacking for Microsoft to get Windows XP running on that machine, and even today it's still a case of fitting a square peg into a round hole. And, of course, Microsoft would rather sell you Windows 7.

[BigGuns149]

Bill Gates has pretty well retired from Microsoft now so I am not too sure he cares much anymore, but I doubt that Steve Ballmer who does still take an active role in Microsoft cares much about the success of the XO since they have put Windows on the machine. As long as Microsoft has a hand in the machine they have no reason that they would be bothered by its' success.

In the developing world I think that Microsoft is more concerned about brand image than they are about making a lot of money. As long as people have a strong and positive association with Microsoft and software they will have a lot of long term potential growth in the developing world. Most of the developed world is pretty well saturated with computers. There isn't much growth potential for MS in the US, Western Europe, or the developed parts of Asia. Provided that they can keep Linux or any other competition out of the hands of developing world computer users they have plenty of growth potential in Africa, South America, parts of Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe.

[Vegaman_Dan]

It would seem to me that the XO project would do better to copy what the netbook market is doing instead. That market is proving that you can produce inexpensive hardware that isn't lacking the features that the OLPC systems offer.

[Penguinisto]

It would help if their leader wasn't a flaming egomaniac, and it would've further helped if they hadn't dumped Sugar for XP just as they had started to get somewhere.

BTW - which netbook out there allows one to seamlessly create an ad-hoc encrypted mesh network?

[Millerboy]

Penguinisto is wrong. The OLPC works better with Windows XP on it than Open Source Software.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Penguinisto:

"BTW - which netbook out there allows one to seamlessly create an ad-hoc encrypted mesh network?:"

Well considering an ad-hoc network is the easiest network to set up and that every wirleless device has this option on current netbooks, I would say "all of them". Pretty much any netbook that can run Windows or Linux is capable of it.

Millerboy wrote:

"Penguinisto is wrong. The OLPC works better with Windows XP on it than Open Source Software."

I would disagree with that statement. I would rephrase it to say that the OLPC with Windows XP is what the end users wanted instead of Linux. The fact that they had both out and the XP version outsold the Linux one demonstrates that alone. Make of that what you will, but the facts dion't change. None of the Linux only laptops have ever succeeded. Heck, even when we had the Linux only Sharp Zaurus, it wasn't able to compete with the Palm, Windows, and Apple Newton offerings at the time.

Linux is a great system for servers. Not so great for implentation at a consumer level. That's just the way things are currently.

[Nataku4ca]

@ Vegama_Dan

I agree with what you say, linux just isn't that easy to play around with for regular user, by that I mean the boys and girls that don't know what ie/browser means. Trust me there are plenty of them.

It takes too long to teach them how to look for software/installing them and honestly linux is still more for us geeks rather than those that just need something that works

[Penguinisto]

@Dan: You do not understand how Mesh worked. Please look it up before you go any further.

Also, you claim it is end-user-driven... if that were the case, then why did it fail so sharply and so suddenly once Negroponte started sucking up to Microsoft?

Oh, and ab't marketshare? Here's a hint for you: Guess what Symbian (who still has roughly 70% of the cell and smartphone market) is based on? ;)

The "OAMG it's too hard!" FUD is dead now. Even MSFT realizes that, as they've actively begun hiring folks to try and counter Linux specifically. May want to ask them why, eh?

[Xenophons_Gunny]

OLPC invented the Net-book? Er, yeah. As someone observed, boomers' ll maintain they invented fire too.

[esysoft]

The hardware should be open-sourced, too, so that many manufacturers would be enticed to create these netbooks and people should be able to put them together for cheap, install open-sourced software, etc.

[AkunWN]

The second I saw my first netbook I thought to myself.... those guys ripped off the OLCP.... :/ of course that was followed by... I so do not want to deal with customer's issues selling this crap on the market.

OLCP = Noble Idea, Netbook = Evil

Today, most customers who look at notebooks see the price and jump right on top of them, two seconds later, and telling them they have no DVD/CD drive, they are like.. god no! I want a real computer not something from fisher price!

[BigGuns149]

A lot of people understandable when told about the limitations of a netbook aren't going to buy one, but I think most people have properly marketed them as being devices mainly for basic computing tasks (eg. word processing, web browsing, etc.).

I don't realistically ever see the small notebook market eliminating the more traditional notebook market, but as the processing power one can support in a small chassis with a 3-6 cell battery improves I think that interest in more cutting edge processors will decline. I the near future I think that the lack of an optical drive is a real turnoff, but as optical media decline in importance I think people will be bothered by that less and less. Furthermore, as we see improvements in wireless networks in both bandwidth and in coverage I think that online storage will become more practical.

[Nataku4ca]

I wouldn't say that people jumped at the small netbooks, I was working at a computer store when they first came out and honestly it didn't fly off that quickly. It took awhile until people started realizing the use of them, be it surfing the net, typing articles/home work, look at pictures, etc...

alot of things can be used with it, and personally on-the-go I would prefer netbook, danm notebook too heavy for presentations and meetings. but thats just me.

o and you can keep kids off your primary comp with this thing lol

[jameskatt]

OLPC is being killed by cheap laptops and netbooks.

The OLPC was impossible to make at $100. It cost at least $200-400. And it is worse than a netbook in features.

With netbooks breaking the $300 barrier, OLPC becomes instantly a dead end idea.

It was good while it lasted.

[Millerboy]

Exactly. This is the real reason why the OLPC failed. In the end, OLPC needs to emulate Netbooks; not vice versa.

[BigGuns149]

While the OLPC never hit the $100 price point there still aren't virtually any netbooks selling for the ~$200 that the OLPC costs. I think a bigger problem is that a lot of the governments were reluctant to buy even cheap laptops. Some of the potential governments that they were looking to sell to didn't end up following through with their orders. The Intel Classmate PC has stolen some of the sales, but in a lot of cases the children that the OLPC was targeted didn't get any laptop be it the Classmate or the XO. I certainly haven't read about ANY country talking about buying slightly more expensive netbooks targeted towards the developed world. If anyone has a story to contrary I would be interested, but since I follow tech news fairly closely I have my skepticism that many of the netbooks most people are familiar with are selling much in the developing world. The developing world understandable is more concerned with improving infrastructure (ie. better roads, buildings, etc.) than they are with getting laptops in the hands of their kids.

The OLPC project isn't dead. There are several places in the world where they are in use, but I think that the project has underwhelmed Negroponte's initial expectations that there would be millions if not tens of millions of these machines across the developing worlds.

[DavidAnttony]

It is always great to see social inventions like this move ahead. They will have problems yet but we got to keep supporting these initiatives otherwise it makes it too hard for social entrepreneurs to do their thing.

Go OLPC GO !

David Anttony
http://www.buy1-give1free.com

[johnqh]

"Hey people, I have a loser hardware design which is underpowered and cost too much, I would like you to copy it so I have a chance to survive"