hi, <br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Of course, I still haven't<br>
seen any videos of Sugar running on top of XP, and I seriously doubt if<br>
they (MSFT) have any intentions of doing so.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div>Microsoft also has no intention of nurturing OLPC. It is a non-starter for them. The margins are too low. They just are trying to kill the whole program. Extend. Embrace. Extinguish.<br>
<br>I think that the whole world is war weary, and I know that I certainly don't like war metaphors, but there is a fierce competition going on between Microsoft and the FOSS community, and it is a zero sum game. And it's all about one thing: the installbase. The greater the Microsoft installbase, the more money they will have to create mischief, and the greater the network effects among buyers and sellers. What is our number one problem in spreading FOSS? My answer: the chicken and egg problem. Not enough vendors building machines and software for GNU Linux because not enough buyers. Why are there not enough buyers? Because all the software they want is made for Microsoft, not Linux, and so all of their friends, colleagues, and family use Microsoft products.<br>
<br>We need to do more to support fledgling businesses like Zareason that sell FOSS solutions. We need to do more to get computers into the hands of students and other end users.<br><br>To that end, we still have about 50 machines at the school that could be donated to two different low income projects that have requested these boxes, but not enough hands to get it done. If we could make a commitment to get together every Saturday for the next three of four Saturdays (after this Saturday, for which I have another FOSS event), we could do it. <br>
<br>Installbase, installbase, installbase.<br><br>-- <br>Christian Einfeldt,<br>Producer, The Digital Tipping Point