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

[Christoph Derndorfer]

Pamela Jones schrieb:
> Please let me give you an example, Javier.  I thought about saying 
> these things in an article. I also thought about saying them in a 
> comment on Ivan's blog, under the article, to try to undo some of what 
> I viewed as damage. But I decided not to, out of respect for Ivan. I 
> never put causes ahead of people.
>
> Here, I feel more comfortable to express my concerns.
>
> To me,  it's a matter of human empathy and figuring out what is useful 
> and what is not. I don't think that can ever be wrong.   I do the same 
> with Groklaw. Some things just don't need to be said, because they are 
> unkind. Or they can be expressed in a way that doesn't disrespect a 
> fellow human totally.  Some things have to be said, no matter what, of 
> course, but in truth, not many.  So what I am saying is that there is 
> a time and a place and a way.  If Ivan's purpose was to make sure no 
> one ever helps OLPC again, that is different. For sure he will have a 
> considerable impact in turning volunteers away. Was that the goal?
>
> --- snip ---
I don't think that Ivan's comments had any effect in terms of "no one 
ever helping OLPC again"...

Quite to the contrary, I think many people are actually happy to see 
someone finally comment on and confirm some of the issues (e.g. lack of 
deployment strategy and personal) that we all suspected for the longest 
time anyway. Now that we have a slightly better understanding of what 
happened and is happening it has actually become easier to define the 
challenges that we face.

The key moment when a lot of people could have turned their backs on 
OLPC and its mission was when Bender quit, Negroponte started calling 
everyone one thing or another and nobody was really quite sure what was 
happening.

However it's an impressive testament to people's dedication to the 
mission at hand that basically everyone stuck around. In fact I would go 
as far as saying that the overall community appears to emerge stronger, 
more dedicated and more focused than before.

What might have changed is the slogan, what used to be "it's an 
education project, not a laptop project" has been transformed to "it's 
an education project, not an OLPC project", at least for me that is. And 
I didn't need Ivan's blog post to realize that as I noted that change in 
my own thinking more than 2 months ago.

Just my 2 cents.

Good night,
Christoph