OLPC Laptop - an open source substandard ?

[thomasasta at gmx.net]

Ivan and list

we all want the best for the OLPC project. So we discuss things and do the best we can.
This includes as well citicism to the basic lines and not everyone needs to understand the difference between operations done in RAM or ROM or HD-Flash operations.

Besides the modification of the laptop equipment and the pricing,
the internet acess is the main point in areas, where there is no lan or wimax.

So the wireless mesh is the main issue. It would be nice, to have it 
- open source to guarantee free developement, 
- and it would be nice to have it self-organizing in assigning IP adresses, 
as access points, servers and IP-configuration needs hadware and personal resources and know-how as well, as then as well a philosophical question comes in the frame, because a new market of million users is prepared and we do not want them all at "Marvell-ISP-Acess".

So open hopping protocols and competition to marvell through atheros is as well a discussable thing.
Meshing for MANETS will develop in the next three years a lot, so we will see. Here we need a wider discussion, more projects, a comparision of what is possible and which experience we have in USA, or European Projects with Meshnode nets.

Back to the laptop equipment, which is indeed a question of education (and so adresses as well to the project managers). In my opinon we do not need a sub-standard for the requesting countries.
So it should be Open-Office-Word and not ABi-Word, which is no one using.
So we have a seperation between USA and Afrika, and then within Afrika we have a seperation of Laptop generation 1 and Laptop generation 2? Only because it was not discussed before and forseen, that the laptop software is sub-standard? Of course I see the rising price and that we do not want to have a broken laptop market for normal business machines as well.

This is why I suggested to have monochrome black white displays and for the pricing the wording has already changed from 100-Dollar-Laptop to childrens-Machine (as it costs already 150 Euro). So another overhead of 50 Euro for the option to run standard software instead of sub-standard software would be ok in my eyes.

Think from the investor side, in european countries no school ministry or government is offering *any* money to the childrens education with laptops. The parents have to buy them. And now a poor country like africa is forced to buy subs-standards (with money they do not have), as it is already clear today, that we will habe a second generation childrens machine? What about the return on invest? Be aware: *If* there is a second generation childrens machine, then the first generation is fully for the trashcan!

So it is not wrong to focus on quality management and to have a foucs on the invested money into the right equipment. My suggestion was to discuss the equipment of the software and then to define the needed hardware. There is even no wiki or bugs-thread or mailinglist definition-discussion done, which software is needed.

Example: Which Instant Messenger is used? Why an own protocol/client? why not the decentral serverless and enterprise-less linux messenger http://Cspace.in ? It would be perfect because it is open source, worldwide new and a serverless p2p communication, not related to any company. Why then a google talk´s jabber clone with teh efford to code it?

As said: I recommend as well Firefox Browser, Thunderbird Mailclient, Sonbirdnest.com Music Player, SF.Net-Classic Mediaplayer, and as well Open Office.org applications and sf.net-Monocalendar. xvid codec.

To run these, we need a linux operating system, hardware with one USB-Slot (not three), we do not need a webcam, microphone or a coloured display, so a black white monochrome display allows to have a better battery: lithium instead of nickel. And we need a 2 GB flash-HD and a 750 MH AMD processor.

I have an old PC with 500 MH and widows xp is very slow, so it has for linux to be at least 750 MHz roundabout, I guess, to play music with songbirdnest or mail with thunderbird.

I am aware, that all is always a compromise. So better a 180 Dollar Laptop with no substandard as a 100-150 Dollar Laptop with wrong equiped software. Whatfor do we have a open source development like Firefox and openoffice???? Not using this is as well a bashing of these projects.
 
so... 750 MHZ processor .... and Lithium battery... and 2 GB flash memory.
therefore no cam, no microphone and only a monochrome display.
And not a second generation laptop eliminating the mistakes of the first generation, deliver quality from the first laptop! Children in Europe would not buy a substandard.
That´s all I wanted to suggest to adjust or modify a little bit.

Kind Regards, happy christmas and hope, the next santa claus will bring these laptops!


PS: Don´t forget a 10 meters engergy cable. ;-) or: even better: a power solution over the usb/Ethernet-cable, which will be connected to the schools server.

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