Controversies
A Wiki is not a good place to conduct an argument, but it can help greatly to reduce thrashing in arguments conducted elsewhere, by tracking who actually said what, and then by recording what the controversy is held to be by various participants. Anybodywho feels misrepresented here should provide a link to the original statement, and a brief explanation.
The key to resolving arguments is to find where people are talking past each other, and challenge each side to reply to the actual question with actual evidence. See, for example, the thread on Multilingual URIs at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/1997Apr/0003.html, right after I joined the discussion, up through http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/1997Apr/0131.html. One side said that ASCII-encoded Unicode URLs were an absolute necessity, right away, and the other side insisted that this would break the Web. I insisted that we could not settle this by ranting about our opinions, but that we needed working code and sysadmin procedures, and we had to answer the question, how one would type a multilingual URL in Japanese, in considerable detail. After we got all of that cleared up, everybody agreed that the proposed solution was workable, but did not belong in the standard under discussion. What to do next was easy to decide.
Code is not the answer to the question of Sugar on Windows. But let us see what might be.
Several of the controversies are too big for this page, so a short summary appears here, with a link to a more detailed page.
Porting Sugar to Windows
Nicholas Negroponte has had a stroke of genius. (This link goes to a cleaned-up version of the HTML e-mail that NN sent to a text-only mailing list.) If we get Sugar ported to Windows, then will become a Trojan Horse that Microsoft will promote to developing nations, and much of our work is done for us. This will be by far the fastest method of getting Sugar to as many children as possible. And once we've done it, everybody will convert to Sugar on Linux, because it is so obviously superior, thus destroying Microsoft, as the Greeks did to Troy in the Trojan Horse analogy. So let's go that route. It is not yet clear whether this is intended to mean OLPC putting time and money into the port, or just leaving it to Microsoft to do. Several of us have put that question to NN, but he has not answered it.
Or, alternatively, NN has had a [ stroke of madness]. If we get Sugar ported to Windows, then Windows will take over the world, locking the poor in forever, and it will be our fault. But it turns out that Sugar [ can't be ported effectively to Windows], and that it will take a year or more to get even a feeble version running. And in any case, one can run Sugar-on-Linux on Windows in emulation or in [ CoLinux] right now, because Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) includes Sugar packages. Or put a Sugar/Linux Live CD in a Windows PC, or even an x86 Mac, and not bother porting. Whether that works on the XO remains to be seen, because nobody outside Microsoft has access to [ MS WinXP prototypes] for the XO.
Or not. Sugar on Windows could be an irrelevance, because we aren't going to outsmart Microsoft, and Linux is growing steadily without such shenanigans. Don't forget, the 800 lb. gorilla doesn't have to outsmart you.
Others argue for a Linux/Windows dual-boot configuration of the XO, which Negroponte has discussed with Microsoft. Microsoft is against it.
NN: "We have been engaged in discussions with Microsoft for several months, to explore a dual boot version of the XO."
Microsoft denies dual-boot Linux/Windows XO laptops are on its agenda: "While we have investigated the possibility in the past, Microsoft is not developing dual-boot Windows XP support for One Laptop Per Child’s XO laptop."
Losing key people
The claim is made that Nicholas Negroponte's policies are driving out key people. Here is what some of them say about it.
- Where is Walter? Walter Bender
- Ivan Krstić's blog
- Mary Lou Jepsen left to start Pixel Qi on her own, as was always expected. She is going to have a billion-dollar company in short order. It will supply $75 laptops to OLPC, possibly starting in 2010.
Lack of communication
Nicholas Negroponte does not talk to the volunteers. Well, he started to, just recenty. We'll have to see where
XOs for the developed world
Kim Quirk and Robert Fadel have made it clear in e-mails and conversations with EdwardMokurai Cherlin of Earth Treasury that policy as they understand it is to maximize XO shipments to developing nations at the lowest possible cost. Shipments to developed countries, such as the US, don't count toward the mission. OLPC management doesn't have time to work with OLPC Chicago on Illinois HB5000, The Children's Low-Cost Laptop Act. We got the brushoff from Darah Tappitake <countries@laptop.org>.
Just as if there weren't any poor people in Chicago.
Minimum price at the expense of everything else
Robert Fadel has made it clear to EdwardMokurai Cherlin of Earth Treasury that policy is to keep costs for the XO to the absolute minimum possible, regardless of the effects of that policy on the program. This makes GiveMany impossible to deal with. The chain of causes is, lowest price-->cash in advance, OLC has no say in production schedules-->no way to quote a delivery time.
GiveMany is a bad joke
GiveMany has changed its story on terms without warning, so that Earth Treasury feels that Brightstar and OLPC management cannot be trusted. The most recent terms are
- Cash in advance
- Delivery date to be set within 60 days
- Delevery date may be as far away as nine or ten months
Schools that are required by law to buy on purchase order obviously cannot participate. Few NGOs can tie up their funds in interest-free loans to manufacturers.
Dissing Open Source
NN complained about Open Source fundamentalists interfering with the success of the project. The community objects, vehemently.