Looks like the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project may abandon one of its most important features: free, unfettered software.
(The photo on the right is by Mike Mcgregor licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.)
Computerworld, in “Report: OLPC may eventually switch from Linux to Windows XP” noted that:
One day after the resignation of the One Laptop Per Child project’s president was publicly revealed, the OLPC’s founder and chairman said that the group’s XO laptop may evolve to use only Windows XP as its operating system, with open-source educational applications such as the homegrown Sugar software running on top.
OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte also told The Associated Press on Tuesday that an insistence upon using only free, open-source software had hampered the XO’s usability and scared away potential adopters.
This turnaround — and it’s clearly compromising justification — drew immediate comment from Michael Tiemann, President of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). In his post “Damn disheartening news from OLPC“, Tiemann said:
I believe that without open source, the fundamental purpose of OLPC will fail, because it will create another generation of slaves to proprietary technologies and corporate largesse. In other words, it will perpetuate the status quo, rather than rearrange it.
He ended his post in this manner:
But if OLPC abandons its open source roots, then I do not see the project accomplishing any of its goals. And while I can afford to throw away the three XO laptops I bought, the world cannot afford to throw away the goal of ending poverty in favor of preserving monopoly control of technology.
Tiemann is spot-on right. Part of the idea of OLC was not just to get technology into the hands of the poor. It was also about empowering them, to make them realize that there are alternatives that they can make their own. Free/open source software makes that possible. With a Window-only OLPC laptop, howevers, the project only abandons that ideal. Worse, it also helps lock in another market that will benefit narrow corporate interests.
Sure, OLPC may get to sell more laptops by switching to Windows, but it will also end up pushing vendor lock-in on a new generation of even poorer users. And don’t forget the thousands of computer viruses that come with Windows!
If OLPC was a purely for-proift venture no one would be surprised. But it’s not; it’s an education project!
In which case perhaps Negroponte should also think about educating adopters about the advantages of open sourcer software as well as the dangers of proprietary software. That’s if he’s really serious about fighting poverty using technology anyways.
Too bad for OLPC. This may be the nail that seals its coffin. The project had its doubters. If Negroponte puhes through with this move, it will have more — and maybe it should.
Hmm… there’s still the EeePC. And you can now run Puppee Linux on it too. From a USB drive!
