[OVC-discuss] Latest and Greatest from OVC

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 8:58 AM, Alan Dechert <dechert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ed Cherlin wrote,
>
> >>
>  >>  We are releasing a new demo disk today.
>  >>
>  >> (http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/blog/2008-feb-26/ovc_demo_gaining_exposure
>  >>  )
>  >
>  > This version says that it needs 384 MB to run. I would like to see a
>  > version that can run on the One Laptop Per Child XO, which has 256 MB
>  > of RAM and no swap area. Is that possible?
>  >
>  I'm sure it's possible, but I doubt we are going to be able to produce a
>  boot disk any time soon that will work for that.

Since the XO doesn't have a CD drive, the boot disk isn't required. We
would need software source and binaries in .xo bundles or RPM
packages. I'm pretty sure that we can get volunteers from OLPC and the
Python community more generally to work on it, including localizing
into 60+ languages. For example, we could have a code sprint at next
month's PyCon Python Convention in Chicago.)

Students could use the OVC software for school elections, and the
community could use it at schools for local elections, knowing that
the students can verify the correctness of the code. It may be easier
to get our work accepted in other countries where governments are
taking up Free Software more rapidly than the US.

I wonder whether we could get, say, UNESCO
http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-URL_ID=6784&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
(From the outset, UNESCO has played a key role in the promotion of
democratic values and principles.)

or the Soros Foundation
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/information/focus/communication/about
(Civil Society Communication includes...software tools to meet the
special needs of these groups.)

to fund such work. Certainly the members of World Movement for Global
Democracy, http://www.wmgd.net/, should be interested. We can write up
something for their newsletter to ask them to get involved.

> I believe the OLPC comes
>  with Python installed.  If you can add Pygame, then our stuff should work.

Python and PyGame are standard on the XO. See
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Games,
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Game_development, and
http://www.olpcgames.org/.

>  Alan
>
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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay