[Its.an.education.project] Ivan's latest blog entry on OLPC

[Ivan Krstić]

Hi Pamela,

On May 15, 2008, at 4:16 AM, Pamela Jones wrote:
> You attack Stallman for being such a purist about openness and  
> freedom of the code. But at the end, you say essentially the same  
> thing, that Microsoft stuff isn't really appropriate as far as the  
> goals of OLPC are concerned.

Not in the least. Stallman is a black-and-whiteist; issues to him have  
no shades of grey. The issue of OLPC and open source is an issue of  
shades of grey: I claim OLPC has a responsibility to openness for  
computers it ships and software it writes, but this is by no means  
mutually exclusive with also working to make its software available on  
as wide a range of platforms as possible, including proprietary ones.  
Stallman thinks making Sugar available for a proprietary platform is  
morally reprehensible, and I in turn think calling it morally  
reprehensible is evil.

> So, I'm saying all this to say that falling in love with computers  
> is an unpredictable gift. We don't know which kids will do it, but  
> we know some will, if you let them. I don't think it can happen  
> unless you can look at the workings *and control them*.   I couldn't  
> do it until I could look at the workings behind the screen, which  
> Microsoft tries to mask from view, and Apple tries to control no  
> matter what you can see, and could change it to suit myself.  On  
> Linux, you are free to be yourself and to decide what you want to  
> do, how much you wish to learn, and nothing, nothing, nothing blocks  
> you but your own interest and time.

I really hope you didn't read my essay as saying I somehow think this  
is bad. The only point I was making about free software is that it's a  
means, not an end, and that if there are tens or hundreds of millions  
of children who can benefit from the Sugar vision of _learning_ with  
their Windows (non-XO!) computers, then we should be working to make  
it possible. I really didn't think this point was that controversial.

> I think if OLPC switches to XP lite or whatever, it will end up the  
> largest botnet in the world.  How could it not?

Nowhere in my essay do I suggest OLPC should ship Windows. It's  
neither what I think nor what I wrote. In fact, I wrote I'm absolutely  
opposed to it!

> Now, as to the strategy part:  I think it's a mistake to trash OLPC,  
> even now.  Yes, leave, yes, do something better, yes point out  
> issues, but trashing isn't helpful.

I've thought this through very carefully. Saddened and disappointed as  
I am about the self-destructive path I see OLPC taking, I have thus  
far been loath to discuss in detail the organization's implosion. But  
by naming itself One Laptop per Child, I fear it has just about made  
certain that its failure to accomplish its original mission will be  
discussed, written about, and remembered in history as a failure of  
the concept of one laptop per child, not the eponymous company.

Then I realized it's exactly the absence of transparency about the  
innards of OLPC that would lead the public to conclude that it was the  
concept that was failing. A clear account of the goings-on would, if  
anything, make the dichotomy between organization and idea more stark  
in the public eye. So I wrote one. Yes, it's angry. It's about as  
angry as if it was written by someone who worked 18-hour days for two  
years to make OLPC succeed against all odds, and then woke up one day  
to discover that the company's Chief Astronaut has landed and taken  
the company on a 180-degree turnaround about its mission, goals, and  
core values. And he's selling it to the press as if it were business  
as usual.

--
Ivan Krstić <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org