[Olpc-open] Why is G1G1 program ending?

[Steve Holton]

On Dec 29, 2007 3:00 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb at cesmail.net> wrote:

>
>
> I'm not sure the "target educational users" have the same problems that
> G1G1 recipients have. After all, various models of the XO are already in
> use among the target users and what I'm seeing on the lists is a
> different set of problems.


I agree here.

One oft-cited problem relates to connecting to certain brands of WiFi access
points.
Since the XO was intended to connect to a) other XO through mesh, and b)
school servers through mesh, IMHO any XO which can't do that is DOA,
anything else is unsupported behavior. (However, the decision to support
802.11 access was has already been made.)

Another high runner is machines which, for a variety of reasons, the
recipient thinks amounts to a DOA machine.  In some cases it's just
misunderstanding, in some cases it's software fixable, in some cases it
really is dead hardware. All of these could be handled as non-events if the
XO's were being *handed to* the the recipient as part of an  XO arrival day
at a school. Instead, it become a very frustrating and labor intensive
process of remote diagnosis, remedial action over an email channel, or
shipping charges and significant down time.

There are the complications added by having to coordinate delivery with
T-Mobile which disappear.

There are cases were a software upgrade is in order, but insufficient
infrastructure in place to complete the task. (no connectivity, no USB key,
insufficient user skill, etc)

And the constant distraction of adults (not kids) trying to use the XO as a
laptop computer; wanting to load alternate operating systems, non-standard
applications, or connect to challenging web sites.

-- 
Steve Holton
sph0lt0n at gmail.com
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