OLPC gets real...
…so Uruguay purchases Windows-based OLPCs
It was a good day yesterday on two fronts: 1) the ODF seemingly forked into (desired) multiplicity or imploded, and 2) this news about the OLPC.
My problem with the OLPC as initially sold was the operating system and applications suite.
Why?
For a lot of native (US-born Americans) it might not seem a problem, but for someone of African descent, the (genetic?) memories of colonization is still at the forefront.
What I saw from the incredibly simplistic Linux OS being developed for the OLPC was a tacit declaration by Nicky Negroponte that the targeted users of the device were of lesser intelligence than computer users the world over. This burned. With the flame of a thousand suns!
For goodness sakes, these people were poor, not brain dead. Except in the words of that exposed eugenicist and Nobel Prize winner James Watson, "somewhat lacking genetically in the smarts to be sapient". (I know, I know, his behavior rhymes with ‘Crick’, but replace the c with a p, and you know what I mean!) Too bad he is too old to reap the benefits of his bigotry!
Commensurately, I rallied against it. In every conversation with any member of the government of the countries Logikworx deals in. I asked all of them, “Why would you want to subject your citizens to sitting at the lower table for eons? Don’t you think they can do it? Don't you think they are intelligent enough?”
Thankfully, they listened.
I would like to think that my efforts derailed the purchase of the OLPC by the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria among others, since I was not only very vocal in my blogging, but I also tried to let elected officials know that they were being led down the proverbial primrose path.
On September 10, 2007, I asked the CEO of AMD, Dr Hector Ruiz, why the OLPC would go down that path (The Interlocutor, September 15, 2007, The AMD Barcelona Special Issue). While he couldn’t speak for them, he intimated that he did not see any reason why Microsoft products would not be acceptable.
Yesterday, while still basking in the glow of my accurate prediction of in-fighting within the ODF crowd, I came across the news that Uruguay had ordered the OLPC, albeit with Microsoft Windows XP.
How sweeeeeet it is!
I cannot but feel the love, and respect for the leader of that country, rejecting the siren call of the moronic and simplistic version of Linux created for their citizens, and deciding to go with what the rest of the world is using. In addition, not relegating the people of Uruguay to second-class status for the next generation.
Isn’t it ironic though, that Prof can speak about how Windows has been ‘part of OLPC from the start’ without lightning striking him?
Doc, when you told that congregation of open source tossers “if Microsoft and Intel are pissed at me, I must be doing something right”, where you lying? Eh, Prof? Because, since that seminal event, you have inked deals with both Microsoft and Intel.
UPDATE: As I blog this, I understand the government of Nigeria will purchase the OLPC, albeit with Mandriva Linux, not the brain-addled crap developed for the project.
UPDATE II: The 17,000 OLPCs ordered by the Federal Government of Nigeria will be delivered with Mandriva Linux, but will immediately be converted to systems running Microsoft Windows XP.
Can I get a whoop-whoop for the Nigerian government?
Whoop-whoop!
All my lobbying on behalf of Microsoft Windows (in any form as long as it is XP or Vista) worked.
I am a very happy man today.
Not so a certain cretin called François Bancilhon, a mouthpiece for Mandriva.
In one of those infamous poison pen ‘open letters’, this time to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, this drone weeps that his supposedly cemented deal to lock in the innocent citizens of Nigeria into his obscure Linux distro was scuttled at the last moment by some minion of Ballmer.
Well, punk, so it is in the real world. You fell short. Sorry. What is the big deal after all? Your distro is free, right? So, no harm, no foul, right?
What this 75 is crying about is the lost lock-in in the future, but, most importantly, the monies that he and his company would have charges for services for the supposedly free product.
Sing, “Bye-Bye Love” (The Everly Brothers, 1957) to that dosh, Frank. It is never coming back.
L.
Loser!
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