“The subtitle of this Computer World report quotes Nicholas
Negroponte as saying that insitence on Open Source scares people
away.“Boggle.
“I believe that without open source, the fundamental purpose of
OLPC will fail, because it will create another generation of slaves
to proprietary technologies and corporate largesse. In other words,
it will perpetuate the status quo, rather than rearrange it…”
“The failure of One Laptop Per Child (and it is a failure) to
mass market its $100 Linux laptops made me realize something
important about that market.“There is something cheaper than free. It’s called subsidized,
bundled, marketed and supported…”
“Quite frankly, though, I can’t help but think that all of this
is OK. After all, the entire movement towards low-cost, realistic
1:1 computing began with OLPC. They started it. Good for them.
Whether or not I agree with everything that Negroponte brings to
the table, he and OLPC deserve huge kudos for driving these efforts
and creating a market where competition is beginning to
flourish…”
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
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