One Laptop Per Child: Charity, Prosperity, & Capitalism In The Developing World
by Ryan Smith on August 8, 2007 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Software
At the end of the day, it's not the hardware that will make or break the XO-1, it's the software that the hardware will be running. Without good software, the device will simply be a cheap but ineffective laptop.
In an unusual twist, it's the software where much of the charity in the OLPC program is found. Every last bit of software is free and open source; no part of the cost of developing the software is being included in the price tag of the XO-1, and the OLPC organization has spent the last two years recruiting developers out of the open source community to design software for the unit. Most of the volunteer man-hours in the program have been spent creating the software.
At the center of the XO-1 software package is a customized version of Red Hat's Fedora Linux distribution. Besides fulfilling the open requirement, Linux is fairly simple to scale down to the tight storage, memory, and processing restrictions imposed by the hardware. Sitting on top of Linux is the custom Sugar GUI, a non-traditional uni-tasking GUI that is intentionally extremely simple, a fitting design for the target audience.
Moving to the applications that will come with the XO-1, we have to admit we're not sure what to think at this point, other than that we're worried about what we're seeing so far. The OLPC organization has floated dozens of ideas for software to include, but the current builds which we've used on the QEMU emulator have a fraction of these programs. With only a scant couple of months left before final production, we hope that there will be more software than what we're seeing today.
In keeping with the focus on education while minding the limited storage space on the XO-1, the centerpiece application of the device is a web browser for accessing internet educational resources. A stripped down version of the full Gecko rendering engine used in Firefox runs the browser, offering high compatibility with modern web pages; notably Flash support is not included because it does not meet the open requirements. As per the current plans the browser will also be the main vehicle for email, handled via webmail. As far as browsers go, they don't come much simpler than this, with only an address bar and buttons to go forwards and backwards.
For offline data manipulation, the XO-1 comes with separate programs for reading and writing documents. Writing is handled by the competent and compact Abiword word processor, one of the many programs on the device pared down and ported over from larger Unix distributions. The OLPC organization has said they're not concerned with teaching office productivity with the unit since it's a learning machine, so Abiword is not joined with any sort of spreadsheet or presentation software. For reading documents (mainly PDFs) an unnamed document reader built from the evince document reader is used.
The second pillar of software, designed to reinforce the "learning to learn" concept, is the suite of edutainment software included with the unit. In what is a very obvious reflection of the interests of the volunteers creating the software, the XO-1 includes several programming environments/languages, such as JavaScript support through the browser, Python support through the operating system, and variations on the LOGO and Smalltalk programming languages. Smalltalk is represented by the eToys application, and LOGO by the Turtle Art application, a variation of the traditional turtle project for LOGO.
Rounding out the edutainment category are the less "edu" and more "tainment" applications. A clone of Tetris is included, as is a painting application. A Connect Four clone is also included, this one utilizing the WiFi abilities of the device. Last but not least is the interesting TamTam application, a music sequencer we're not sure what to compare it to.
The final batch of software for the third pillar is the communication software. As the XO-1 features a camera and microphone, a couple of applications are included to utilize these. This includes recording applications, and a media player to play back recorded media. An instant messaging client is also included; we can't test it on our simulator but we're assuming that it's a local-only client utilizing Jabber.
As we stated earlier, much of the planned software is still missing from our test builds. Key to these is the entire reference library, especially the included version of the stripped down Wikipedia article database. We have heard that there are still technical issues with including Wikipedia due to size constraints, in spite of Wikipedia's own efforts to find ways to better compress the article database. We'd imagine the rest of the reference library, such as the Project Gutenberg and audio/visual libraries, is having similar difficulties with storage requirements.
Given how critical the software and libraries are for allowing use of the laptop away from an internet connection (something we'd imagine is common) it's premature to say much about the software side of the XO-1 at this point. If the software that ends up shipping is as planned we believe the OLPC program could do a lot in reaching its goals, but right now we can only sit and wait.
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Zan Lynx - Monday, August 13, 2007 - link
I have to wonder if any complainers have researched what regular school books and supplies cost these countries that are planning to purchase OLPC systems.I haven't either, but considering what my college text books cost, I imagine that over the projected life of the OLPC system it will be cheaper than providing actual printed textbooks and study guides.
I know people like to think of bureaucrats as venal and/or stupid, but I happen to know a few and they are not. So I think the burden of proof is on those claiming its a bad idea, rather than accepting that the people in charge of the project in these countries don't know what they're doing.
0roo0roo - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link
well its not very intelligent to assume poor countries have to buy text books at our college text prices. you do know our college texts are seriously over priced and its a racket right? they keep putting out new editions so the professors and companies can keep raking in the money and keep the used textbooks from taking over. even small governments can afford to write basic school texts, we aren't talking cutting edge science texts here. basic math and language, the texts will last for years, paper is cheap, books can be passed down from classroom to classroom.0roo0roo - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link
now imagine all the money that has been spent on this project were instead put towards writing decent textbooks for such countries and keeping it up to date. it would be a fraction of the cost of creating the infrastructure manufacturing and research for this gadget. open source textbooks how about that? no royalties. print them off in china, how much do you think one would cost? 1 dollar a book?
creathir - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
I find it surprising that your article does not mention the fact that 1 million units must be purchased by the purchasing government.That $75 difference would mean a $75 million price difference... quite a bit if you ask me.
This project is one of those "feel good" projects which I have not liked from the beginning. It was designed for areas without a stable power grid (hence the hand crank) but I would think they would need stable power before a computer to surf the Internet, not to mention the infrastructure and bandwidth needs to connect to the Internet.
This thing is such a joke.
- Creathir
jevans64 - Saturday, August 11, 2007 - link
A million of them are going to Nigeria and are going to be used for Phishing.Dfere - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
"Education still remains as one of the greatest factors in creating and ensuring prosperity, and expanding it is one of the best ways to improve a developing country"Yet look at the countries like Greece in the lineup? I didn't think they were third world. And third world countries need a stable government for economic growth first and education second. Perhaps the message of the market for the OLPC is just not clear enough. Perhaps I have not been able to figure this out on my own. But I wonder, is it possible that the backers do not have a clear idea of the market they make this "project" for? Time to market is terrible, especially given that it uses existing technology. How can there be success in this case, even if success is charitable cause as there have been no shipments....
This is not a venture I would back with my own money. And as a cause to end world illiteracy, it has currently done nothing. I am not sure where extra teachers would not be a better answer in second world countries.
I am cynical, this project certainly makes for great PR and I cannot help but think that the marketing and branding being exported to lower income areas of second world countries is the ultimate goal of the companies involved and is the return they seek. Much like companies in America that get involved with (and oweners of companies become board members with) the United Way.
Great Googly Moogly - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
This will be the biggest flop since IT/Ginger. What an awful waste of developing countries' funds (they will be the ones paying for these after all). Charity? Hardly.stmok - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
I got to try one of these when they were at the Linux Conference here in Sydney, (earlier this year).The screen has an additional benefit. You can still see whatever's on the screen in direct sunlight. NONE of OLPC's competitors has the same capability.
As for ASUS Eee PC, its not a direct competitor. They're (ASUS) are aiming for a slightly different market. OLPC is expressly for developing countries. Eee PC is for anyone else who can afford a low cost mobile solution. (Its far more powerful, but less ruggered). So anyone in a developed country can get one. (assuming they can make enough of them!)
Interesting to see that in both cases, they use Linux as their default OS.
Justin Case - Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - link
The summary on the main page says "One Child per Laptop Program". Unless it's some sort of breeding program, I think that's the other way around.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - link
Well we will have an article on that next week on our sister site BioTech...Anyhow, thanks for the notice. This is why working at night is not always the brightest idea.