What about Sugar? (Was: Mtg with Nicholas at 3pm on Thursday)

[John Watlington]

On Apr 18, 2008, at 2:27 PM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 5:48 PM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org>  
> wrote:
>>
>>  On Apr 18, 2008, at 6:24 AM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 8:04 AM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org>  
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  I'm personally pretty involved in Gen 2.  If Gen2 is going to  
>>>> run Windows,
>>>>  it seriously limits the choice of processors.  I can assure you  
>>>> that I have
>>>>  no such restrictions when making processor selections.
>>>
>>> Thank you for this (albeit small) piece of information about what  
>>> OLPC
>>> is working on these days. You are telling us that we need to infer
>>> OLPC's commitment to Sugar because you are choosing a processor
>>> without taking in account Windows support? Do you call this clarity?
>>
>>  I'm sorry you don't understand.  Yes, this is as clear as it  
>> gets.  If OLPC
>>  is giving up on Sugar, and moving to Windows (or even contemplating
>>  Windows as a viable replacement for Sugar) then I would have to
>>  select an x86 processor for Gen2.
>
> Please read again what I wrote. I think that this issue is worth much
> more than an indirect reference.
>
> And by the way, have you already selected a processor? Which are  
> the favorites?

Processor selection for Gen2 has been ongoing for six months, and is  
expected to
narrow down in the next few months.  Gen2 will probably be an SOC, so  
"processor"
is not the right term.

We are favoring ARM and x86 right now, although the power consumption  
of the
x86 solutions are not ideal.   Multiple vendors support each.
I personally wish PPC were more competitive, but IBM and Freescale  
are going
for different markets than ours.

Just to reiterate (this frequently gets written on whiteboards around  
1CC, but rarely
mailed), the goals of Gen2 (in order) are:

1 - Lower Power
2 - Lower Cost
3 - More Robust
4 - Better Performance

wad