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:
... Read more
Is Nicholas Negroponte's capitulation to Windows last month due largely to a lack of open-source community involvement in the One Laptop Per Child project?
That's what Groklaw is suggesting--following a post by free software guru Richard Stallman.
According to Groklaw:
OLPC hoped for contribution from the community to its interface, Sugar, but this has not happened much. Partly that's because OLPC has not structured its development so as to reach out to the community for help--which means, when viewed in constructive terms, that OLPC can obtain more contribution by starting to do this.
Basically, Negroponte's decision to embrace Windows comes down to a belief that when community fails, default to whatever proprietary vendor makes the best interface. (If this is the case, Negroponte would have done well to choose the Mac's interface, but I digress...)
This is a weak-kneed, wrong-headed way for Negroponte--the founder and chairman of OLPC--to attempt to resolve the problem. It will only serve to perpetuate the very problem OLPC was designed to solve, as Groklaw writes:
... Read moreNicholas Negroponte had the best of intentions. Unfortunately, when those intentions clash with the profit motives of private vendors, private industry has become quite aggressive, as the Wall Street Journal reports. The One Laptop Per Child project has sold nowhere near its stated goal of 150 million laptops shipped by the end of 2008.
As is often the case, the person with the idea is not necessarily the right person to capitalize on it:
Mr. Negroponte's ambitious plan has been derailed, in part, by the power of his idea. For-profit companies threatened by the projected $100 price tag set off at a sprint to develop their own dirt-cheap machines, plunging Mr. Negroponte into unexpected competition against well-known brands such as Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.
... Read more
Techluver reports that T-Mobile USA is partnering with the One Laptop Per Child Project to give individuals a great reason to buy an OLPC laptop: free WiFi:
T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced it is partnering with One Laptop per Child for its Give One Get One initiative. T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot access to people who donate an XO laptop to a child in a developing country through the campaign.
Nice. Self-interest at its very best. This is a Very Good Idea.
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