[OLPC-Philippines] Organization Formation

[James Shields]

Regarding relying completely on open source, I think that's a mistake.  We
should rely upon whatever is available that is practical and affordable.

Obviously, we want to avoid using expensive software on the client machines.
That would prevent us from completing our goals.  However, if we use paid
software to develop content, I see nothing wrong with this.

I'm completely against the notion that the kids might want to open up their
OS and take a peek inside.  Let's be honest with ourselves there.  I forget
who mentioned this ... but, it's some kind of open source fanatic fantasy.

Our goal is content.  Delivered as close to free as possible.  At least,
that's what I believe our goal should be.

James Shields


-----Original Message-----
From: olpc-philippines-bounces at lists.laptop.org
[mailto:olpc-philippines-bounces at lists.laptop.org]On Behalf Of Mel Chua
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:10 PM
To: OLPC Philippines/Pilipinas grassroots
Subject: Re: [OLPC-Philippines] Organization Formation


Another alternative would be something like
http://sugarlabs.org/go/Local_labs (note that multiple labs and chapters
can coexist in the same place - there's no reason there has to be one
and only one of these organizations for the entirety of the Philippines,
especially if we're trying to cultivate as many grassroots leaders as
possible!)

The Sugar Labs idea of Local Labs is still very much under construction,
but it seems like the Philippines would be a great group to try out some
of these ideas and be one of the pioneering groups that begin the
definition of what Local Labs are and can become, if people here really
want to be on the organizational bleeding-edge.

The big advantage I can see here is that it wouldn't give you the
bottleneck of "we rely only on this hardware," but you could totally
still begin by deploying XOs if that's your ideal situation. This would
basically decouple your choice of hardware from your choice of software
(Sugar also runs on multiple Linux distros) and give you more
flexibility. (It does assume, however, that you want to use Sugar at
least in part, which I realize might not be a given.)

I suppose one thing I'm trying to ask is what exactly is it that people
here would like to go for - is it XO machines running Sugar in specific?
1-to-1 open-source computing for k-12 education in general? Somewhere in
between?

--Mel

> The problem with 1) is that OLPC becomes the single point of failure.
> If OLPC fails in the long term, the organization will have nothing to
> distribute at all. As for 2) it is much saner as the OLPC XO machine
> becomes a means to fulfill the goal, that is promote technology to
> education perhaps in various forms, like build software that
> corresponds to curriculum, education matching, etc. This is similar to
> what Waveplace does in the Caribbean (see http://waveplace.com/).
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