[Sugar-devel] [UKids] Re: The future of Sugar on XO-1s

[Dave Crossland]

Hi Adam

On 10 April 2016 at 22:05, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:

> On Apr 10, 2016 9:37 PM, "Dave Crossland" <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 10 April 2016 at 20:35, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Just imagine if OLPC had not chosen to run off with $40 Millon in
> community-driven revenue
> >
> > I don't understand this. What are you referring to? :)
>
> Give1Get1 revenues were approximately $40 Million. A listening
> organization could have (and would have) taken a portion of that
> surprisingly clairvoyant learning moment into its soul, divining its
> community purpise, rather than banking it.
>
Any amount of revenues can add up to less than zero being banked. How much
do you think was banked?

If a purchase was $400, then to see $40,000,000 in revenue they would have
had 100,000 orders. I've been diving into OLPC/SL history the last month or
so, and I seem to recall (but have no reference URL to hand) that the 1st
G1G1 round in 2007 sold 116,000 units and the 2nd round in 2008 only sold
12,000, a 10x drop. These figures are probably incorrect. I just found
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Foundation which has text for 990 forms, but
no links except for http://wiki.laptop.org/images/e/ed/OLPCFAud-2007.pdf
which shows they had $29M of net assets by 2008-01. Well, close enough.

But in what way did they "run off" with this revenue? As a G1G1 round 1
customer, I paid my $400 and I got my laptop. I don't think anyone who
bought one didn't get one. Are you saying that some corresponding laptops
were NOT given to poor kids as promised, and the foundation just netted the
cash? :)

I could find nothing in https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ for any other public
financial statements. Where are the statements for the foundation and the
association? Is the foundation still a going interest?

> Nobody's saying the road less traveled would have been cake (I hope) as
> many of the same Technocracy First / Human Education Later mistakes were
> bound to happen, as we can see today in Wikipedia's leadership power
> vacuum, some of us never learn naturally :)
> http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/
>
That's a fascinating link :) And this is great: "To suggest a change, email
me or submit a pull request on Github."

Wiki < Git

> But 8 years later, Tony Anderson is 100% correct: an entirely different
> road was right there in front of us, if we'd chosen to deliberate together,
> in a united voice...
>
See, for me $500 is a small amount and 8 years is a long time ;) Recently I
was gleefully amused to realise that one of the most proactive fontforge
developers (fontforge is the leading libre font editor application) is 20
years old now, can't remember what web publishing was like before Google
Fonts, because it launched when he was 14.

I'm fascinated with the history of OLPC and Sugar Labs, but I don't see any
benefit in evaluating it positively or negatively. What happened has
happened, and its important to hear what has happened, but only to inform
what happens next.

That different road is still here in front of us today! :)

I hear your frustration about the past. Would you be willing to check your
emails to public forums before sending them, to carry a positive tone and
perhaps even with fun and joy, and language suitable for kids to read? :)

Cheers
Dave
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