[OLPC India] Richard Stallman - Why I switched to the OLPC—and why I dropped it .

[Walter Bender]

Q: Is this list more generally about enabling learning or is more
narrowly about enabling learning through the OLPC XO-1 hardware?

regards.

-walter

On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 5:18 AM, Satish Jha OLPC <satish at laptop.org> wrote:
> Richard Stallman has been trying to get his idea of "Free" accepted as he
> would like for quite some time. He is a leader in his own right and has
> energised a whole movement of "Free" software.
>
> However, XO is for children. Its for those who need to learn and are not
> already the leaders of a movement, though I hope they will all have access
> to the world that will make a potential leader out of everyone.
>
> My request is that these debates, important as they are, may not belong
> here.
>
> This forum may be far more useful as a way to get the XO reach all those who
> need it rather than have ideological debates, which must go on at the right
> places.
>
> Thanks mch.
>
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 3:33 PM, Saswat Praharaj <saswat_praharaj at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.bostonreview.net/BR33.6/stallman.php
>>
>> Snip >>>.
>>
>> The One Laptop Per Child project, launched by MIT professor Nicholas
>> Negroponte in 2003, was supposed to lead millions of children around the
>> world to information technology and freedom. The plans aimed for low cost,
>> enabling many children to use the machines, and free software, so they would
>> have freedom while using them. I thought it was a good idea; I even planned
>> to use one myself when I found in the OLPC's promise of free software a way
>> to escape the proprietary startup programs that all commercial laptops used.
>>
>> But just as I was switching to an OLPC, the project backed away from its
>> commitment to freedom and allowed the machine to become a platform for
>> running Windows, a non-free operating system.
>>
>> What makes this issue so important, and OLPC's retreat from free software
>> so unfortunate, is that the "free" in free software refers to freedom of
>> knowledge and action, not to price. A program (whatever job it does) is free
>> software if you, the user, have the four essential freedoms:
>>
>> >>>>>>...
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> Unlimited freedom, unlimited storage. Get it now
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>>
>
>
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>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org