May 15th, 2008
Sugar-free Windows, as predicted
As Ivan Krstić predicted in his May 13th blog post (see “Intense (and really thoughtful) ranting from the OLPC front”), the OLPC XO will start shipping with Windows XP, minus the Sugar interface and open source tools that allow full implementation of the XO hardware (e.g., mesh networking).
So much of what makes the XO innovative surrounds Sugar and easy, immediate collaboration between students via mesh. While Mary Jo Foley covered the details out of Redmond and OLPC quite thoroughly, I have to toss in my 2 cents from Ed Tech. This is pandering, plain and simple. Negroponte himself is quoted in the New York Times as saying, “The people who buy the machines are not the children who use them, but government officials in most cases…And those people are much more comfortable with Windows.”
Now the XO is shipping with standalone Windows only; since XP doesn’t support mesh and no one has ported Sugar to Windows, the XO is basically just another semi-rugged funny looking laptop. Any chance educators might get back to deciding the best way for kids to work together via technology rather than letting politicians decide?
And any chance OLPC might think about teaching kids in new ways rather than just being another Windows-based OEM?
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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