[Sigia-l] Salt in Sugar?

[James Melzer]

Is the intent to patch their way to a decent OS down the road? This
assumes all of these machines will be online with enough bandwidth to
accept new a significant new OS patch every few months, right? And
individual children's access to the internet aside, do any of the
countries in question have the bandwidth (at the national level) to
support this kind of activity?

~ James

On 1/3/07, Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Will Parker:
>
> > In very short order, the OLPC and the Sugar UI is likely to become
> > the only accessible computational option for the world's poor.
>
> Not to mention, after Windows, the second largest computing platform, larger
> than Mac and all *nix combined.
>
> What I find interesting is that a *commercial* entity would never take such
> risks on all hardware, software, integration and distribution fronts all at
> the same time. If OLPC is willing to experiment on 100 million kids without
> bothering to test, what does it say about them? Is it a matter of
> unprecedented genius unfolding? Or boneheaded hubris?
>
> Now, two people emailed off-list with interesting questions. One said, "Your
> favorite company Apple does this all the time, why not OLPC?" Well, I don't
> agree with the notion that Apple doesn't test. They don't test as publicly
> as say Microsoft, but they do test. More importantly, design has been baked
> into Apple's DNA from its birth. They *have* popularized the GUI and created
> a number of very successful OSes, hardware platforms and myriad apps. What
> has Red Hat done to warrant such confidence?
>
> Also, another person asked if, as a designer, I felt "threatened"? I am as
> threatened by it as I was of WebTV.
>
> Am I royally pissed off that a bunch of geeks think design is something you
> tack on *after* you ship the product to millions of captive users? You bet.
>
> Ziya
> Nullius in Verba
>
>
>
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-- 
James Melzer
http://www.jamesmelzer.com
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