This is fine except for one thing. Running Sugar on top of proprietary software means that sugar developers who have to deal with problems in the interface between XP , let us say, and sugar will have to know alot more about the XP side of the interface than MS$ normally reveals.
Has MS$ agreed to cooperate in helping developers of sugar or revealing their trade secrets to OLPC? On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 12:06 -0400, Nicholas Negroponte wrote: > > People keep asking me: > > Yes, OLPCs commitment to Sugar has changed. It is now larger, not > smaller. Contrary to inferences drawn by Walters departure, the press > and venerable sources such as OLPC News, we are scaling Sugar up, not > down. Let me explain. > > Sugar is a very good idea, less than perfectly executed. I attribute > our weakness to unrealistic development goals and practices. Our > mission has never changed. It has been to bring connected laptops for > learning to children in the poorest and most remote locations of the > world. Our mission has never been to advocate the perfect learning > model or pure Open Source. I believe the best educational tool is > constructionism and the best software development method is Open > Source. In some cases those are best achieved like the Trojan Horse, > versus direct confrontation or isolating ourselves with perfection. > Remember the expression: perfection is the enemy of good. We need to > reach the most children possible and leverage them as the agents of > change. It makes no sense for us to search for the perfect learning > model. > > For this reason, Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux > platforms and to run under Windows. We have been engaged in > discussions with Microsoft for several months, to explore a dual boot > version of the XO. Some of you have seen what Microsoft developed on > their own for the XO. It works well and now needs Sugar on top of it > (so to speak). > > As a non-profit, humanitarian organization, OLPC has a unique > position, from which it can change the world for children and > learning. Laptop makers rushing into the low-end marketplace is a > perfect example of success of one kind. Another will be what kids do > outside school and with other kids around the world. A third is what > we do. > > We are not a business, but need to be more business-like: meet > schedules, manage expectations and fulfill promises. To do that, we > need to hire more developers, work more together and spend less time > arguing. Because of public attention, anything we say will be quoted > out of context. We can only speak with our actions and those are only > one: a reliable and ubiquitous Sugar. That includes being more > collaborative engineers ourselves and engaging the community better. > Our limitations are not financial, but identifying the required human > resources and resolve to do so. > > What is in front of us is an opportunity for big change. Sugar is at > the core of it. To pretend otherwise would be a joke. That said, Sugar > needs to be disentangled. I keep using the omelet analogy, claiming it > needs to be a fried egg, with distinct yoke and white, rather than > having the UI, collaborative tools, power management and radios merge > into one amorphous blob. Otherwise, it is impossible to debug and will > be limited to the small, albeit growing, world of the XO hardware > platform. > > As we reach out to engage a wider community, some purism has to morph > into pragmatism. To suggest that this forsakes Open Source or > redirects our mission is absurd. Kids will be the agents of change and > our job is to reach the most of them. That is not just selling > laptops, but making Sugar as robust and widely available as possible. > > Nicholas > > _______________________________________________ > Devel mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- ======================================================================= Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10! ======================================================================= Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
