OLPC: Open Organized Transparent

[Denver Gingerich]

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Garrett Goebel
<garrett.goebel at gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> The Cambridge Lab staff ought to do a little self-examination. Because
> they would never guess how much to us outsiders they resemble their
> upper management. I can't tell you how often these smart mostly male
> MIT types turn a deaf ear or return a derisive holier than thou email
> to the outsiders and developer community they will ultimately be
> dependent upon growing in order to succeed.

>From my experience, the people in the Cambridge Lab are more than
happy to help "us outsiders" and discuss their plans openly.  The
devel, sugar, and many other mailing lists are open to everyone.  They
seem open to giving people accounts on their systems when it will help
move the project forward.  I personally don't see any resemblance to
the upper management.

I've never seen one of these "holier than thou" e-mails you mention.
It certainly doesn't seem to be like any of the staff I've
communicated with to do such a thing.

I think any lack of communication on the mailing lists can be largely
attributed to how busy the staff are.  Not only are they working their
tails off to move the project forward (ie. by writing software), but
they are also participating in discussions about the state of OLPC and
answering questions about things they can't control.

I'm sorry to hear that your experiences with the Cambridge staff have
been less than ideal.  From an "outsider" who has followed the project
closely for the past several months, please know that these are the
exception, not the norm.  To the Cambridge staff: keep up the good
work.

Denver