<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 2:57 AM, Simon Schampijer <<a href="mailto:simon@schampijer.de">simon@schampijer.de</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><a href="mailto:david@lang.hm">david@lang.hm</a> wrote: > On Thu, 15 May 2008, Steve Holton wrote: > >> On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 8:03 PM, Seth Woodworth <<a href="mailto:seth@isforinsects.com">seth@isforinsects.com</a>> >> wrote: >> >>> Let's look at this with a slightly different lens before we blow up >>> on NN >>> and Microsoft. >>> >>> What does this agreement equate to?  And what are the alternatives to >>> Microsoft? >>> >>> If the XO was running a completely closed source stack with no >>> documentation on hardware, how would the Linux community feel?  They >>> would >>> feel that they were being shut out and not allowed to run whatever >>> software >>> they wanted to or develop.  This is something the linux community has >>> speared hardware companies over for years. >> >> >> ...and to which the free software (linux) community would respond with a >> reverse engineering effort, at it's own (collective) expense, and rather >> quickly have a solution.  If turnabout is fair play, let Microsoft >> adopt the >> free software community response as well. >> >> (When Cisco modified their WRT54G hardware so that Linux could no longer >> run, the response was to strip-down the gnu/linux stack even more >> until it >> would run again.) >> >> It's doubtful the free software community would do what Microsoft is >> demanding: asking the manufacturer to add 5-10% to the cost of the >> hardware >> to facilitate their efforts, nor would the free software community >> charge a >> $3.00 license fee for the use thereafter. > > I missed where the hardware was being changed and the cost going up to > support this. what I read was that the boot firmware was being modified > so that it could dual-boot into windows. > > please point me at the additional cost involved. > > David Lang </div></div>from: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin</a> "Windows will add a bit to the price of the machines, about $3, the licensing fee Microsoft charges to some developing nations under a program called Unlimited Potential. For those nations that want dual-boot models, running both Windows and Linux, the extra hardware required will add another $7 or so to the cost of the machines, Mr. Negroponte said." </blockquote><div> I think the extra hardware is the 2gb SD card, as XP + Office won't fit into the NAND (especially if you're dual booting...) Correct me if I'm wrong -Bobby Powers  </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Simon _______________________________________________ Sugar mailing list <a href="mailto:Sugar@lists.laptop.org">Sugar@lists.laptop.org</a> <a href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar</a> </blockquote></div>