http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi

I swear this whole project has turned into a monkey f*cking a football.

Linux is 'free-er'

This whole things smells of Micro$oft underhandedness. Next up will be the OLPC itself dying off to be replaced by a machine made by one of Microshaft's lackey lapdogs (Dell comes to mind). After that... oops, all of a sudden this new machine will cost these third world governments three times as much. Just watch.

The OLPC project is just a flat out failure. They should not have developed their own OS. They should have used an OS like Fedora and done nothing more. Or just have started out with MS windows. This project is such an idiotic idea. Combat starvation with laptops.... combat unsafe water with laptops... The reason they don't sell these laptops to the public is because they suck and they would be disgraced if they did. The EEEpc and cloudbook, classmate and soon to be msi wind destroy it in benchmarks and build quality

You can't eat a laptop. You can't drink a laptop. You can't innoculate with a laptop. There is just so much more that money can go for.

The OLPC wasn't designed for countries where starvation is a problem (eg, Sahel regions of Africa).
It's for countries that have got past the starvation level, but the economy is still held back by lack of education.

And regardless of the countries situation, education is still one of the most important things, and a computer is the most diverse educational tool we can offer them.

They didn't. The idea was to use a modified Fedora:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1#Software



See above



Great idea: teach poor children to use software they can't afford and/or repair/modify themselves.
It creates a new generation of pirates and hackers though, that can't be bad




Sure. And $3000 laptops are even better (by far).

What proof do you have of your first claim. Even if they didn't design it for countries that have hunger issues they are trying or have rolled out OLPCs in these countries.What would you rather be:1: Educated that the rest of the world doesn't starve, yet you are straving2: Not starvingFedora using "sugar" is not fedora using KDE or Gnome. Its a stupid operating system that hurts productivity and doesn't teach students a real operating system.

Microsoft offers windows for $3 for developing countries. That is a small price to pay for such a quality operating system, and the support infrastructure it has over sugar.

The OLPC's keyboard is terrible as are the AMD internals. Its a rip off for developing countries. Their money is better spent with the classmate

I have never paid 3 cents for Windows. Quality operating system? ROFLMAO, who are you, robotskip's twin brother?
In any case, if you use Windows, you must use (very expensive) commercial apps as well, no discount for developing countries, I am afraid.

Windows XP has the best commercial support of any OS. It is the easiest to learn about and repair. This is because it is the biggest. It is depressing they picked WindowsXP over the supposed free OSX though.

But come on, you "must" use expensive commericial apps? You are high.

Ever been here:
http://osswin.sourceforge.net/

That is everything a little kid would ever need.

I expected that one. And which sense does it make to use open source software in a proprietary OS?
I blame the OSS community for that. They shouldn't have ported OSS to Windows.
If you want to use open source software you must use an open source OS, that should be the rule.

Why? Not only is that wrong but having OSS on proprietary operating sytems like OSX and windows is good for linux and free bsd ect... because then users switching to free operating systems can be familiar with some of the software. Some buisnesses may NEED windows for certain applications but for some of their computers linux is sufficient... therefore it is beneficial for them to be able to use the same oss on windows on linux. Without it they may not be able to use linux at all.This helps spread adoption. It is good to have OSS on proprietary platforms.

The point of free software is that you should be able to do whatever you want with it. You are thinking like a spoiled brat eg microsoft saying all software must run on my platform... Talk about hypocritical

Now back to your flawed opinion:
It doesn't matter what you think should have happened. The fact is there is lots of freeware and OSS on windows. Therefore you cannot say you need to purchase expensive applications. You don't need commerical software. Some OSS aplications on windows are better then anything for GNU and OSX... eg notepad++

I use Windows, acquired legally, and I use no such apps. You do know they make Firefox and OpenOffice and GIMP for Windows, right? I mean I'm not sure if you got the memo, but there's plenty of open source stuff ported to Windows.

I'm sure if my first exposure to computing was with Linux I'd be a very bitter computer user today.

You see, we are getting somewhere. If for some business computers Linux can be enough, why not for school children from developing countries?



Yes, because I am fed up, having heard for years "Why use Linux when OSS runs on Windows as well?"
That is true hypocrisy: if you want to use OSS, run the extra mile and use open source software and an open source OS.
Why make Micro$oft, with all its malpractices and its rubbishy operating systems even richer?
Or do you enjoy being a slave?
And in any case we are very far from finding every piece of open source software available for Windows.



It does matter, because I am by far not the only one in the OSS community who feels that way.
Do some google search. The OSS community is totally split about this issue.




Trying to be sarcastic, or you didn't read the posts above yours?



I am sure of the opposite.

Alessandro17, you are being absolutely irrational. There are applications on windows that have no equivilant on windows. Many companies have hardware that cannot run or work with linux. You cannot expect a company bent on making $$$$ to do things just because it would be more noble. Would you rather have buisnesses not use linux at all rather then run some computers with windows/proprietary software...

Alessandro, for the OLPC project Linux might be sufficient but the idiotic programmers who made sugar messed up and they needed a quick fix. Enter windows. Some educational networks might need some support for windows. Whats better: A 3 dollar more windows laptop or none at all

I didn't say that, you did:



Also, see this post:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...39&start=39

It is quite an education.



There are many factors to be considered.
See for instance:

http://www.osnews.com/comments/19749