Re: [Fsfe-uk] Time to boycot OLPC?

[Ian Lynch]

On Thu, 2008-04-24 at 09:57 +0100, Alex Hudson wrote:
> Noah Slater wrote:
> > Aside from the hilarious spelling mistakes, is this real?
> >
> > Are OLPC really about to scrap "Linux" for Windows?
> >   
> 
> Just to play Devil's Advocate...
> 
> ... we know that they've been trying to get Windows to run on this 
> device for ages (or, at least, Microsoft have been working on it). 
> Presumably this indicates no small demand for Windows running on the 
> OLPC. In a situation where customers want Windows, it makes some sense.
> 
> It might be a brazen assumption, but I would guess that they have two 
> types of customers: those who will only buy if it runs Windows, and 
> those who will buy it either way. I don't think they have a third type, 
> those who will only buy if it doesn't run Windows: that is to say, I 
> think those customers who care about the operating system only care 
> about it being Windows; the other customers don't care what it's running.

The devil is in the detail. Why do they care it runs Windows? Two
possibilities, simple brand strength and/or because they want to run (or
think they might need to run) software that only runs on Windows.
Question is how much they are prepared to pay for either of those two
requirements. Many people will pay a premium for "the brand" but then
why not just buy a conventional laptop? - Price. So no doubt if there is
demand "conventional" laptops with Windows will emerge with similar
design criteria to the OLPC. So we then have mass competition in this
space at £100 a machine. But wait, OEM Windows is about £70 a machine so
we either get a massive drop in MS OEM pricing or the Windows version is
getting on for twice the price of the GNU/Linux version. MS might win if
its sales volumes go up a few 100% to compensate for reduced unit
revenue but that doesn't seem very likely. How does WinCE revenue
compare to XP and Vista?

> It doesn't make much sense to dual-boot systems for space reasons, and 
> if you look at the current stuff that OLPC is shipping, it really 
> doesn't matter what the underlying operating system is.

That will be more so as more apps move to the web.

> Sugar is (as I understand it) almost wholly written in Python and 
> portable C, so there's no obvious problem with running the Windows OS on 
> the OLPC, but having two separate "modes" - a normal Windows mode, and 
> the Sugar UI. For all intents and purposes it's like having a dual-boot, 
> without the extra expense of the Linux-based OS.

The fact is that "education pedagogic software" like logo and squeak has
never made a big impact on volume sales. Even when Acorn had a clearly
better set of educational applications on a more advanced GUI people
migrated to DOS at the command line and Windows 3 as commodity hardware
prices fell and confidence from volume industrial sales took over. For
people that have never seen anything else Sugar might well be the best
thing since sliced but generally children are not phased by the OS or
changes to it, that is an adult issue. Therefore I think as the price of
these devices comes down and there is a stack of competition we'll see
Linux on them in various flavours and Windows GUIs dominate with some
people using Sugar as an educational app. I doubt Sugar will take over
in the Western World anytime soon.

> Granted that I doubt very much Windows will run as well on the hardware 
> as Linux does, 

But that will become a minor issue as hardware continues to fall in
price. Some time in the not too distant future you'll get 1 gig of RAM,
a 2 gig processor etc for £100 so even Vista would run. Ok, maybe you
can get a cut down machine then for £50 but that 50% fall in price will
be a lot less critical than between £300 and £150. A more significant
cost is whether MS Windows OEM licenses fall from £70 to say £5. What
about other costs like client access licenses, anti-virus software and
MS Office licenses? Once the hardware goes below £100 it's software
licensing that will be more likely to be a limiting factor or hassle
like viruses, spyware and security.

> but if they're not selling many units then they obviously 
> need to change the product.  I also think the innovative features in the 
> OLPC like the mesh networking and stuff are likely much less attractive 
> than might be expected.

I think that depends on how it is used. Personally, I think the whole
Sugar thing is less attractive to customers than people think. The sort
of innovation that is likely to make a big impact is being able to route
telephone calls through the internet at little or no cost obviating the
need for a cell phone contract.  In education, providing a service that
includes the computer for access, web based learning resources and
qualifications as an entire package is more likely to be revolutionary
than a GUI. History is littered with the evidence. 

Ian
-- 
New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications
www.theINGOTs.org

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