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Children won't have a say on whether Windows goes on the OLPC but so what?

May 16

Written by: George Ou
5/16/2008 4:31 PM

My former colleagues Larry Dignan and Christopher Dawson have voiced their concerns about the OLPC foundation's decision to offer a choice between Windows XP or Linux plus Sugar interface on the XO laptop. Both of them point out that it will be Governments and purchasing agencies that will most likely make the decision to go with Windows XP and that children won't have a say in the decision when may instead pick the Linux plus Sugar interface.

Christopher Dawson says: 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.”

I'm assuming Christopher means that Negroponte is pandering to the people who write the checks (towards XO laptop purchases) and not factoring what the kids may want. Larry Dignan pointed out that his daughter seems to have taken a liking to the Sugar interface and voices similar concerns. As much as I respect both former colleagues, I'm going to have to disagree with them on this issue so I'm going to challenge them with the following questions.

To Christopher I would ask the following two questions:

Would you flip your classrooms to the Sugar interface today if I gave you absolute authority over this matter?
How do you think your High School students would vote if they have tested both operating systems?

To Larry and Christopher I would ask the following questions:

Do you or would you switch to running Linux plus Sugar on an XO as your primary computer?
Would you let your child decide bed time? Or would you at least meet them halfway between your choice and their choice?
Would you let your child decide what "educational" software, books, or websites they get to use? Even if that software or website involves mostly game play and not actual studying?
Would you let your teenage child decide how late they can stay out is or at least meet them halfway between their choice and your choice?

Here are my choices if I had to make them:

I would not switch classrooms to Linux plus Sugar. The XO Sugar interface might look fun to a first grader but it's essentially a toy. Negroponte had promised an instant boot and instant-load OS while criticizing the status quo but he produced one that was worse than the status quo. Linux plus Sugar was painfully slow and dysfunctional.
As soon as you get past the novelty factor of the Sugar interface and you figure out that Mesh networking doesn't work in theory or in practice, it doesn't look so appealing any more. Once you figure out that the applications that you want to run don't work, it doesn't look so appealing any more. The fact is that people pick and choose Windows for good reasons. This is why when Asus offers Windows XP on the Eee PC, consumers will either pick Windows XP or they will often put Windows XP on it.
It's one thing to ponder how wonderful Sugar is for someone else's kid in some third world country, it's something else entirely to drink the Kool-Aid yourself.
I won't let my kids pick their bed time or compromise with them a single minute. They don't like that, but too bad.
I won't let my kids decide what educational software, books, or websites they get to use. I might let them pick amongst a list of choices that I and other adults picked out for them, but they don't get to choose because I know what they'll tend to choose. My kids don't get a choice on whether they learn Mathematics or English or all the other essentials, they simply WILL learn them. If they choose to be starving artists later on in life, that's their choice but they have no choice on what they're going to learn now. That might sound cruel but it's parental love and not having a *choice* now gives them a *choice* on what they want to do with their lives in the future.
As with bed time, my kids don't get to choose how late they stay out and there will be no compromise. Not now, not when they're 14, and not when they're 17.9. I don't even ask them if they like my rules because you're just asking for trouble. My rules are nonnegotiable.

So to me, the whole child choice issue in the matter of what OS to run on a laptop is a non-issue.

Unfortunately, it was never about getting laptops to kids for many people on the original OLPC project and it was all about indoctrinating children with Linux. But Nicholas Negroponte initially attacked anything Microsoft or closed source and anything Intel so he had a big hand in attracting this group of people. Negroponte attracted this group of people to his movement and he used their services for years but now he wants to distance himself from them because the XO has so far been a market failure and he's trying to salvage his baby by putting a more workable operating system on it. The rubberized keyboard on the XO is still unworkable and known to have high failure rates but at least the OS is usable now.

Update 5/17/2008 - Here's what Windows XP looks like running on the OLPC XO

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10 comments so far...

Re: Children won't have a say on whether Windows goes on the OLPC but so what?

Simple common sense from a good parental logic position. Your kids will eventually be appreciative of your choices for them.

By rlbs56 on 5/18/2008 4:58 PM

Re: Children won't have a say on whether Windows goes on the OLPC but so what?

Thank you for making real-world analogies, George.

As someone from one of the countries (Nigeria) targeted by the OLPC, I have rallied against the product to everyone in the government there I have met to stop the madness, and blogged about it extensively.

While this move is pragmatic, you are very right in pointing out that it is the bed which Negroponte made.

John Obeto

By Word! on 5/19/2008 4:16 AM

You have a link to your blog John?

You have a link to your blog John? Let me know and I'll link to it whenever appropriate.

I do agree with you that this is madness for developing nations. It's funny that everyone in a developed nation loves the Sugar OS so long as it's someone else using it.

By host on 5/19/2008 4:18 AM

Not that I am a parental Expert, but....

Not that I am a parental expert, but do you always pick your child's flavor of ice cream? Do you pick whether they want the race car bed or the loft bed? I understand that some things are static for a child and a good bed time is proper and no deviance should be allowed on that matter. Then there is also the issue of whether a child should be allowed to play outside un-supervised.

Apparently you are thinking from a very locked down perspective of a childhood. While I do commend that, I do agree that there does need to a balance and your child needs to learn what they like and to pick for themselves when a choice is available. While I am in a business, I do feel the need to make sure that my child-like engineers choose to work a Windows PC because Linux simply doesn't support the CAD software. Macs are unacceptable at this point. However, if for another task, Linux could be used, some times that is allowed. This is from a business standpoint though, not from a parental standpoint, although sometimes a parental authority is needed to get various departments headed in the proper direction.

By nuCrash on 5/19/2008 4:36 AM

We're not talking about flavors of ice cream, we're talking about educational software

We're not talking about flavors of ice cream, we're talking educational software. Even Chris agreed that this should be up to the teachers so he sort of adjusted his stance. However, Chris had to admit that he wouldn’t use Sugar himself, he thinks it’s fine for the grades before the ones he teaches. But I’ll bet if you ask the middle school teachers, they’ll probably think it’s great for the schools before their grades. But if you asked the elementary schools, they might not be so eager to use something that’s appropriate for only K-2 grades. Even the K-2 grade teachers may have a problem with you forcing them on to Sugar OS because they have software that only runs on Windows or Macs.

I do let the kids pick their flavor of ice cream although I pick how much ice scream they get to eat and when they get to eat it because if I don't, they'd have ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

By host on 5/19/2008 4:45 AM

That's all I wanted to hear

Although I beat up my own argument in my post by talking about engineers and how they have to run the appropriate OS to run the appropriate software. The XO being a government project should probably have more of a push from those who are try to educate others through the use of the laptop. Because if we have to teach the teachers, we are lengthening our time to get the project done and get tomorrow's youth educated today.

Although I will say that as a youth, in elementary school, I was exposed to Macs and Commodore 64s. Did I think Mac was the end all be all? I don't think so. Commodore 64/128? Well we all know what happened there and if we don't, Wikipedia has a nice story about that world.

I think the majority of this uproar about this project is because many Linux fans saw this as an opportunity to get a foot hold in the third world. As this opportunity slipped away, they began to throw their childish tantrum. I think there is just a little irony in that action.

By nuCrash on 5/19/2008 5:06 AM

Re: Children won't have a say on whether Windows goes on the OLPC but so what?

Hello George,

Below is a link to my last posts on this subject with links to previous posts embeded.

http://absolutevista.com/blogs/absolutevista/archive/2007/11/01/olpc-gets-real.aspx

By John Obeto on 5/19/2008 1:10 PM

Re: Children won't have a say on whether Windows goes on the OLPC but so what?

Until junior high all the PCs I used at school were Macs and then in high school there was a mix of Windows PCs and some remaining Macs. I liked having both around because it gave you a choice of what to use and that's what I think needs to happen here. Have both OS in a dual boot setup that way it gives the user the choice. I know that the hard drive probably isn't big enough to support both right now but maybe a hard drive boost and a dual boot setup may be the best solution.

By Magikx21 on 5/19/2008 9:00 AM

They will offer dual-boot in a higher cost configuration

They will offer dual-boot in a higher cost configuration, so that probably won't get to far.

By host on 5/19/2008 1:11 PM

Re: Children won't have a say on whether Windows goes on the OLPC but so what?

Thank you for leaving zdnet, they're going downhill fast. Hopefully with the cbs acquisition it will mean the life support gets pulled.

By Kailie Quinn on 5/19/2008 3:06 PM

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