> We need to make the restoration of the XO image as > simple as possible during the beginning of the pilot. We want the > teachers and kids to get comfortable w/ computers in general before we > introduce them to flash u:\boot\q2D13.rom
An unlocked laptop can do everything that a locked laptop can do. (Except to do a "pretty boot", for obscure technical reasons that can eventually be fixed). Unlocked laptops do not require anyone to type FORTH commands. You can still stick a USB key into them and hold down four buttons to do an upgrade. Try it! I'm sorry that the Wiki is not more clear about this. The complexity of the security "crap" in the XO makes it very hard to explain things like software upgrades clearly and succinctly. E.g. at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Secure_Upgrade , the four-button upgrade is called a "Secure Upgrade", not because secure laptops are the only ones that can do it, but because it's the only kind of upgrade that secure laptops can do. See what I mean? To be accurate it's hard to make simple and clear statements. > It is quite critical that teachers and kids be able to reflash their > XO's by simply sticking in a USB key and holding down the game buttons. > I know some folks like John Gilmore feel that everyone has an > inalienable right to access the firmware, I'm sorry that you got that impression. Not everything translates well across international borders. Let me try again. Under the terms of the GNU licenses, everyone who gets a binary copy has a right to get the source and make modified copies of their GPL-licensed software. The Linux kernel and most of the user programs and activities are licensed under the GPL. In addition, under the latest GPL, version 3, they must receive any keys needed to install that modified software into a consumer device. (Only a few of the programs in the OLPC use GPLv3 yet, but many more will in future releases.) This right is not "inalienable". It is enforced by a license which is based on copyright law. If you do not want to provide this right, you are free to not distribute the software whose authors put that condition on it. Those authors intended to contribute their work only to a community that shares their ideas of freedom. They intended to NOT enable you to steal their software, which took them years of work, and then use it to restrict what others could learn or improve or share. The OLPC project made a conscious choice to join that community (which saved OLPC many years of work and many dollars in software costs; OLPC also believes in the ideas and enjoys contributing to that community). If you do not share those ideas, then under the copyright law, you may not copy their software. You'll have to write your own software to boot up the OLPC, or pay Microsoft for its software. OLPC went slightly off the track a year ago by building hardware that requires that kids get "developer keys" through a cumbersome process, to be able to exercise their rights under the GPL. They promised the Free Software Foundation (which owns the copyrights) that every kid would be told what rights they have, and that every school server would hold a copy of the matching source code. The FSF accepted their promise. But if you do not offer these rights to the kids, you are making OLPC's promise into a lie. > but we have two pilot schools > starting in one month where virtually none of the kids or teachers have > every used computers. You can teach a child that books are a terrible thing -- to be learned and used by rote, and to fear punishment for mistakes. Or you can teach a child that books are an enjoyable door to a million different viewpoints on the world. For people who have not used computers, it is important that they learn that computers are a tool for doing what *they* would like to do. Instead of a tool for letting others control what the child can do. I hope you do not prefer to teach young Nepalis that computer technology is a tool for social control. As a programmer since the age of 14, and an activist around computing since age 30 or so, I have spent many years teaching that computers can and should liberate people. I find it heartening when I read newspaper stories that kids in Cuba are trading government-banned pictures, news, and videos on USB flash sticks. The Cuban government refuses them Internet access, to keep them ignorant, so they won't find out what the rest of the world is like and then agitate for improvements in Cuban life. Instead, they have learned that through computers they can receive and share liberating ideas. What will *your* students learn (not by what you say, but by what you do)? John _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
