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Here's Microsoft's Press Release today...

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/pres ... LPCPR.mspx

REDMOND, Wash., and CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — May 15, 2008 — Today, Microsoft Corp. and One Laptop per Child (OLPC) announced an agreement that will make the Microsoft Windows operating system available on OLPC’s low-cost XO laptops for the world’s poorest children. Through this agreement, trials of the XO running Windows are planned to begin as soon as June in key emerging markets. Recognizing that the challenge of providing high-quality education for children in the developing world is too large to be solved by any single organization, Microsoft and OLPC are committed to working with governments and nongovernmental organizations to ensure the success of these pilot programs.

So how do these OLPC machines run once you have installed the obligatory anti-virus and anti-malware software?

diazamet wrote:So how do these OLPC machines run once you have installed the obligatory anti-virus and anti-malware software?

"Well, I think what we have to do rather than convince people they're wrong is we've got to convince people that the stuff that we do ship, that the partnership on top delivers real value. " - Steve Ballmer
Source: Microsoft's Ballmer On Windows Server, Yahoo, Linux.

diazamet wrote:So how do these OLPC machines run once you have installed the obligatory anti-virus and anti-malware software?

"The Power of Ballmer" runs these machines and "The Power of Ballmer" can make these laptops never get spyware or viruses. And that is accomplished by loading down the system soo much just trying to run XP on these laptops that the computer cannot connect on the internet and then never gets any malware or viruses. Ballmer is a genius.....

I guess in one way we can look at this as a win for FOSS is that FOSS was there first. Like the UMPC market, FOSS blazed the trial and now Windows is playing catchup. The problem is, they are not catching up but having to go backwards. They are stuck with a 6 year-old dinosaur and a huge number of people saying no-way to Vista.

The people who complain about the "bizarre" interface of sugar on the OLPC and the ignorotti behind wanting XP on these UMPC's are the same people who bitch about Vista and are not comfortable with anything that is the slitest bit different than they are used to; unless it comes with witty commercials, an over-hyped interface and equally over-hypped price tag propelled by some misbegotten "status symbol," hipster image. Go figure.

It's not apple or ms blazing trails anymore, it's FOSS. They see it, we see, but they don't want to admit it yet. We won. It's only a matter of time as our mind share grows and grows.

So I guess the remaining question is "was this supposed to happen all along?" I mean, is Negroponte a good guy who just got tired of defeat after defeat and tired of constantly hearding cats (while "on sabbatical"), or is he a lying sack of sh!t sellout motherfucker who planned to fsck the hard working people who really believed in the XO all along?

All my railing against Stallman's use of this fiasco to further his own agenda aside, this is almost certainly is the death knell for the entire project in one way or another.

I still don't like sugar much.

dann wrote:It's not apple or ms blazing trails anymore, it's FOSS. They see it, we see, but they don't want to admit it yet. We won. It's only a matter of time as our mind share grows and grows.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Gandhi