[Olpc-open] XO laptops and video

[Steve Holton]

On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Clare Richardson <clare at girlstart.org>
wrote:

> I agree that it's important for kids to be able to do all they want to do
> on the laptop! :) YouTube is quickly becoming not just for fun, but a
> classroom tool as well.
>
> It's my understanding that while the XO laptop does not ship with the Adobe
> Flash plugin (which is required for playing YouTube videos) because it is
> proprietary software, you should be able to install it yourself:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Flash_Player
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Adobe_Flash#Installation
>
> I confess I've never tried it on ours though!


I have. As technical things go, this is a fairly easy task, and the
instructions are both clear and complete. (or at least they were.)

However, I (and my kids) found it less useful than we were expecting.

My kids already have other 'real' computers to use, and have become, I must
admit, a bit spoiled.
Flash is just the first layer of the dependency stack most Flash-using sites
demand. Yes, having Flash will make some more sites usable, but that just
means the set of unusable sites changed. Instead of being frustrated over
the sites that won't run without Flash, they become frustrated by the sites
that demand both Flash and a browser which supports multiple windows.
Install Opera to cover that and now we get complaints about something else.
And, (not meaning to start a software freedom discussion here) in the end a
web site using proprietary plugins will work correctly only on the equipment
that web site chooses to support, meaning I (my kids) will always be
unsupported beggars unless we upgrade to meet their demands. And upgrade
again when the next version of Flash is released.....
I'm interested in the XO because I want them to have to at least have
another choice.


Flash silently disappeared when I upgraded to 656. Nobody noticed but me.

-- 
Steve Holton
sph0lt0n at gmail.com
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