Free Software Linux

There can be few open source projects that offered so much promise, and yet which have so signally failed to deliver, as One Laptop Per Child. As I noted below, open source software seems made for education, and the idea of combining that with hardware specifically designed for children in developing countries, with all that implies in terms of ruggedness, power availability and access to infrastructure, seemed just inspired....On Open Enterprise blog.

Richard Stallman just switched to an OLPC XO, for the free bios, and at that same moment in time, Nicholas Negroponte made some odd statements about Windows and the OLPC.

"I read Negroponte's statement presenting the OLPC XO as a platform for Windows in the most ironic circumstances possible: during a week of preparing, under a deadline, to migrate personally to an XO. I made this decision for one specific reason: freedom..."

...and Matthew Aslett is dead-on: “One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source fundamentalist,” Negroponte told the AP, while lamenting that the focus on open source software had caused technical problems, such as limiting support for Flash. “Negroponte said he was mainly concerned with putting as many laptops as possible in children’s hands,” added the AP. The focus on laptop sales is laudable, but it is debatable whether it justifies abandoning open source software. This is a matter not of fundamentalism, but of principles. Sad, but the prospect of Sugar running on other low-cost GNU/Linux laptops almost makes up for it.