[ale] OLPC was: bump

William Bagwell rb211 at tds.net
Wed Oct 10 16:24:29 EDT 2007


On Wednesday 10 October 2007, Daniel Howard wrote:
>snips
> I originally considered the OLPC XO, but it wouldn't be as useful for
> the adults (I want both the kids and adults to use the PCs) plus I am
> quite disappointed in Negroponte for increasing the cost so that he
> could put enough RAM in it to support Windows.  Initially, he promised
> that it would only run Open Source for both cost and philosophical
> reasons.  I believe he is having so much trouble marketing it,
> especially with Intel and a Taiwanese firm offering similar devices and
> undercutting his marketing efforts (Classmate PC is Intel's attempt to
> prevent Negroponte from selling too many AMD based XOs, e.g.) that he
> has caved into the dark side and now wants it to support Windows as
> well.  The Intel and other competing device both spec Linux as the OS.

Intersting. I was not aware of all the <cough> politics involved with OLPC. 
Does anyone know if either of the competing laptops are available yet? Or 
will be soon?

Reason I am curious, I have been toying with the idea of getting one for my 
grand niece. (My kids are grown.) Naturally yours truly would get to play 
with it for a few days first:) Being in the US means buying two to get 
one. Have no real problem with this concept, needy children and all... 
Would be nice if they were a lot closer to the originally promised $100 
than almost double this.
-- 
William



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