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[gruuk]

You can take any piece of news and view it from the appropriate angle so as to prove any doubt and fear.

Likewise, any piece of news can be discarded if it doesn't fit in with one's rosy optimism.

So the general idea is to read that news and discard the spin. In this case, the actual information is that Walter resigned. The speculative part is what it means for OLPC ("Oh no! OLPC is doomed!" / "Doesn't matter, things are still great!").

To me, as long as the mission stays the same, it doesn't matter if some people (even really good ones) decide to do something else. Walter did a lot for OLPC, let's hope it will inspire others to do the same.

[brisalta]

Well met.

Bottom line, it's out of my hands.  So I could get all frustrated and flustered, or take a wait and see approach.  I chose the latter.

Well said Directive0.

I say facts and only the facts please. Anything else is no more than superstition.

[Brian Basgen]

 Taken together, the events over the past months at OLPC seem to be indicative of a schism in the entire organization. Negroponte is openly criticizing current and former staff to the press. This is the leader of a very small group of people -- and he is attacking his own people.

 The attrition of key members and the bitterness we are seeing among existing staff is very problematic.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080424-negroponte-developers-at-odds-over-future-of-olpc-platform.html

[davewa]

And the sniping and doom-crying from EVERY media outlet -- from bloggers to mainstream press -- is sure not helping the situation.

[LaPaglia]

"For the record we never broke up. We just took a 14 year vacation"


I don't think we will see this for OLPC.

[uravanbob]

Maybe not, NN might really screw OLPC the foundation up.  However, this is a great dream, and there is something right now, in our hands and more importantly in the hands of children for which this dream began.  It isn't perfect - but its getting better everyday.  Just lurk on the devel lists to get a feel for how much energy is being put into this.  I'm working hard to come up to speed so I can help - the beauty of this being based on open source is that I can.  This dream will survive if we continue to dream and believe it.  My son loves his XO and I will do a lot to make sure his education is enhanced by its use.  The kids of this world face a huge mess and the better informed they are, the better problem solving skills they have and the better they communicate and collaborate with one another the better chance they have of seeing their kids grow up and dream.

[Directive0]

Just lurk on the devel lists to get a feel for how much energy is being put into this.

AGREED! I am really enjoying the continued discourse on the Dev mailing list, both on this topic and a variety of others.  There is so much passion and energy behind this project even if NN royally screws up OLPC the real movers and shakers will jump ship and form their own partisan sect and carry on (or so is the sentiment from the top devs).

Personally, I find all this stuff exciting.

[Brian Basgen]

 I agree. There is a silver lining here. The demise of OLPC, if it happens, doesn't worry me that much. The XO will live on -- this is the great thing about open source and community support. In some sense, the continued bungling by NN will only seek to encourage others to start in a new direction, and do a much better job.

[eden]

It seems like Ivan Krstic agrees with you, Brian:

http://radian.org/notebook/this-too-shall-pass

[sracer]

I know it is en vogue to bash on NN.  But I find it hard to believe that all of the faults with OLPC and the current state of the XO and Sugar are his and his alone.  I'd respect comments made by those who left the team if they owned up to the role that they had in those faults.   Unless NN micromanaged every single technical decision that was made, these others bear some of the responsibility as well.

[eden]

I know it is en vogue to bash on NN.  But I find it hard to believe that all of the faults with OLPC and the current state of the XO and Sugar are his and his alone.  I'd respect comments made by those who left the team if they owned up to the role that they had in those faults.   Unless NN micromanaged every single technical decision that was made, these others bear some of the responsibility as well.

Yes, I don't want to bash Mr Negroponte or anyone past or present with OLPC.  I like to see different points of view.  I am a little worried about OLPC becoming a Microsoft venture because I don't think the software would stay free.  I just like how Ivan Krstic stated this, "The company doesn’t matter, because the movement marches on. And learning will win. Freedom will win. Children will win."  It was encouraging to hear this from someone who left, is perhaps somewhat bitter, but still dedicated.

[davewa]

I just like how Ivan Krstic stated this, "The company doesn’t matter, because the movement marches on. And learning will win. Freedom will win. Children will win."

But us G1G1 owners may well lose.  While the OLPC personel squabble and call each other names, who's worrying about repair logistics for G1G1 which was promised for "early 2008".  And Update.1 is still "real soon now" -- if OLPC drinks the Microsoft cool-aide, are we ever going to actually get an improved shell and extended battery life?  Or will we all have to buy 8GB CF cards and load XP so we can watch the OS take fifteen minutes to boot and enjoy WordPad launching in ten?

Disclaimer:  I am *not* anti-Microsoft -- I use XP all the time and I make a living writing applications code for it.  But the XO platform is under-powered for XP as I'm used to it and I have no confidence than MS can create something that works WELL on the platform.  If we must have Microsoft on the XO, we should settle for MS-DOS, not Windows.  (Then launch Sugar over that, maybe.)

[Tortuga]

davewa wrote:

But us G1G1 owners may well lose.

From what I have read the power management and mesh will not work with XP, so those are out.

As as far a repair parts, it appears that Brightstar is handling this and they appear to want payment in full (up front), a 6-9 months lead time, and no penalty for delays. I don't know if Patriot is also involved, but many of us have already experienced this combination.

[GregYohn]

Hi!

If the OLPC XO was a business, I think it would have lost alot of its Stock's value.because of no repair parts and a 30 day warranty.

[anna]

I've already been thinking about what should happen if OLPC doesn't exist anymore.  Just worst case scenario - I don't want to opine too much.

Bottom line - there are 1,010 XOs in the library at Glen Iris here in Birmingham right now.  The kids and teachers are excited, the news media's all over this, and most of us want this to succeed (except for some locals, who just want to see eggs on faces). 

I brought this up today - we need the ability to sign our own builds and manage our security.  You'd think OLPC was DOD or NSA with how they handle it.  I d/l'ed and compiled bios-crypto, which is the tool they use to sign builds.  Sure, I can generate a worthless fs.zip file, but not much else.  They have the keys and I highly suggest if you have not gotten your dev key yet, do it soon.

So what happens if OLPC goes away and we have all this infrastructure in place for not only the 1,010 XOs at Glen Iris but the other 14,000 for the rest of the schools?  Well, unless we have dev keys for all those, we're SOL unless we can sign our own builds.  If they fold and don't produce signed builds anymore, well then, you're stuck with whatever the latest signed version of Sugar is.  It doesn't matter if there are developers out there still working on it - we wouldn't be able to load it.

That's what I've been thinking about during this whole thing.  How do we keep our project viable should OLPC be absent.  It's a huge investment for this city and the children and it would be extremely crappy if we couldn't fulfill user requirements.

And this is only Birmingham, which is a relatively small deployment.