<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:Courier New,courier,monaco,monospace,sans-serif;font-size:8pt;color:#000000;"><div>http://www.bostonreview.net/BR33.6/stallman.php<br><br><p>Snip >>>.</p><p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p><p>>>>>>>...<br></p><p><br></p><br></div></div><br>
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