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No love for Sugar?
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Just when you thought it was safe to take a look at what the OLPC project was doing putting Windows XP on their XO laptops for children, comes news that the OS originally developed for the XO, Sugar, is going to be developed as a spin-off company called Sugar Labs.
The great thing about the XO project was that it was so bold. It wasn't just going to be a cheap PC, it was going to be a PC with revolutionary energy and networking features paired with an OS with a new paradigm for user activity. In many ways, it was ditching old conventions born of another time and another environment in favor of features that were designed to make the laptop an optimal fit for its intended audience.
It seems that this was too much to ask for. Now, instead, kids will end up with an innovative laptop using an archaic and derivative OS or they'll get to use an innovative OS on some company's cheap hardware.
I guess playing nice wasn't on the curriculum.
Oh well, sometimes the best of intentions are simply too difficult to pull off. My guess is that the real problem was sales related. If too many people balk at buying a laptop with a unique OS on it, and they'll buy it with XP, you put XP on it and get it into people's hands. In doing so, maybe you compromise a little bit of your soul, but hey, your intentions are still good.
I've been a big fan of alternative operating systems, so I'll be following what happens over at Sugar Labs. I used to boot up NeXT before it became Mac OS X, and dabbled with OS/2 before and after it became OS/2 Warp. I played with Be OS too. I remember the dark days of the Mac platform when their former CEO Gil Amelio was looking into selling Macintoshes running Windows NT. That would have been the end of Apple, but that was a different time and a different place.
Of course, it's no big surprise that the XO won't run Windows Vista. Most companies won't run Vista on their computers either. Maybe this is an opportunity for Sugar Labs? That would be a really ruel joke to play on kids though, wouldn't it? They get XP while the corporate world migrates to Sugar? Not a very nice thing to do to the children.
The great thing about the XO project was that it was so bold. It wasn't just going to be a cheap PC, it was going to be a PC with revolutionary energy and networking features paired with an OS with a new paradigm for user activity. In many ways, it was ditching old conventions born of another time and another environment in favor of features that were designed to make the laptop an optimal fit for its intended audience.
It seems that this was too much to ask for. Now, instead, kids will end up with an innovative laptop using an archaic and derivative OS or they'll get to use an innovative OS on some company's cheap hardware.
I guess playing nice wasn't on the curriculum.
Oh well, sometimes the best of intentions are simply too difficult to pull off. My guess is that the real problem was sales related. If too many people balk at buying a laptop with a unique OS on it, and they'll buy it with XP, you put XP on it and get it into people's hands. In doing so, maybe you compromise a little bit of your soul, but hey, your intentions are still good.
I've been a big fan of alternative operating systems, so I'll be following what happens over at Sugar Labs. I used to boot up NeXT before it became Mac OS X, and dabbled with OS/2 before and after it became OS/2 Warp. I played with Be OS too. I remember the dark days of the Mac platform when their former CEO Gil Amelio was looking into selling Macintoshes running Windows NT. That would have been the end of Apple, but that was a different time and a different place.
Of course, it's no big surprise that the XO won't run Windows Vista. Most companies won't run Vista on their computers either. Maybe this is an opportunity for Sugar Labs? That would be a really ruel joke to play on kids though, wouldn't it? They get XP while the corporate world migrates to Sugar? Not a very nice thing to do to the children.
