I have to agree with Mike Masnick's contention that Nicholas Negroponte is way off base in arguing that Intel and Microsoft are to blame for the One Laptop Per Child's problems. Whatever Microsoft's problems, a fervent desire to compete is not one of them. Ditto for Intel. According to Masnick:
While the idea behind creating a super cheap, super durable useful computer for children in developing nations is good, Negroponte has always approached the idea as one where only he should be allowed to see that vision through. When other companies decided it might be a good idea and wanted to target that market themselves, Negroponte flipped out and started attacking them for trying to undermine his project.
Absolutely. While I think there are great reasons for OLPC to stick it out with open source, if Negroponte can't see his way to do so competitively with open source, then neither he nor open source deserve to be at the bargaining table.
Negroponte has suggested that he's a visionary, not an operator. In OLPC, he has proved both. He should be grateful that the vision endures, even if his imprint on its execution does not. Perhaps Intel or someone else will pick up the open-source ball where Negroponte dropped it. I, for one, hope so.
But Microsoft and Intel (or the open-source community, another Negroponte scapegoat) aren't to blame for OLPC's problems. Negroponte is.
This is why U.S. copyright law doesn't allow authors to copyright ideas. An idea isn't a work of authorship. It's just the start of potential authorship, and in most cases it's by far the easiest part. Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.
Wow. Some things are better left unsaid, but since Nicholas Negroponte, embattled founder of the One Laptop Per Child project, said it, I'll quote it:
When I talk to people and tell them we can run Windows, they are very impressed. You pass a sort of virility test.
Until you're emasculated by ceding control of the project to Microsoft, which has a long practice of bullying the hardware vendors who carry its Windows operating system. As for being proud that he runs Windows, why? Since when has it been hard to do that? I guess if you set your sights low enough....
But then Negroponte really crams his foot in his mouth, arguing that he needed the open-source community to get started, but only to do the early heavy lifting to pave the way for Microsoft:
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