They need to exploit every possible way and technology available to make that dream come true. The organization is not about “Bringing FLOSS to Every Child”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong supporter of FLOSS, just that, for OLPC’s case, it is for helping the less fortunate to learn and know more about today’s technologies.

After all, FLOSS is about choice. Let’s give these children the choice, FLOSS-based OS or Proprietary-based OS?

OLPC just have to provide dual-booting and we’ll be fine.

Once I started out playing and working with the XO, which I did for about two weeks, I felt a little less in love with it. First of all was the keyboard. I was very happy when I found that a USB keyboard worked fine. Folks, get real. The tiny keyboard is an impediment to poor kids that grow up and still need their computer. Exploitive adults will just plug in a cheap keyboard and mouse. This is a really stupid “feature” that was not thought through. It just makes the computer less useful top the target market and less marketable to governments, NGOs etc. This has to be fixed.

Software evaulation: 1) It needs a file system. If kids write stuff etc. they need to file what they write in folders. The current version is simply incomplete. By the way, the Journal is not permanent. Items get deleted as new ones are created. It is OK that the storage needs to be a memory stick, but there has to be a non-Linux way to access the file structure. I think they just didn’t have time to get this done. This is critical.

2) Re didn’t get done: cut and paste don’t work yet! That makes a lot of things, especially Linux software installs really hard. This also MUST get fixed fast.

3) Browse is not a complete browser, no bookmarks etc. No cut and paste. Please finish it.

4) No Flash. Without Flash, Browse was really useless, no Youtube, no Flickr slide shows etc. If you insist on no Flash initially, at least make it possible to load Flash by clicking on a link (make the installation .xo). Without cut and paste it was really bad. I kept making command line typos. Why make this so ridiculously hard? What about the intended audience, who probably won’t have broadband Internet access? Get real.

5) Opera: This was ALMOST a solution, but there are font size problems etc. that are noted on the Wiki page. The worst was the tiny mouse arrow in Opera.

6) No email application: A VERY simple application is needed. Access to G-Mail does not meet the need. This needs to be developed.

And NOW to my CRIPPLING hardware problems. First, 10 days after the XO, arrived, it just stopped working. I took out the battery cleaned the contacts and reinstalled it a couple of times. It then started working again. Is there a problem here??

REALLY CRIPPLING: Shortly after I installed Opera (15 minutes or so later), input from the keyboard went crazy. At first I thought it was just in Opera, but then it turned out to be general. When I typed either the wrong characters were entered or later nothing happened. I could not even try to fix THAT, so I called for an RMA.

I was on the phone waiting for over an hour. There must be a lot of other machines being returned for repairs. Is it the same problem I had? I haven’t seen that mentioned by anyone else yet, but …

This is a computer that needs to be reliable under rough circumstance. if these computers are shoddily made, the project is doomed.

Final thoughts: despite all this it is hard not to like, even love, the XO, but really it is a project, not a product. The product needs to be finished, or it ill turn off its potential audience. (I hope a certain Prof. Negroponte is listening.)

After finishing the product, I would also make it available for first-world kids. The price of the product could be, say, $250, $200 for the computer plus a $50 donation to the project. It is really adorable and people will buy it and get hooked on the project. This is just a variant on G1G1, and it would work.

Despite my disappointments, I am still guardedly enthusiastic about the project, but there is a lot of work that is needed before it can succeed.

Is this going to be made available for the x86_64 machines at some point?

Thanks for any consideration or replies, its a very handy flying down the road utility.

Cheers, Gene