For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate

[Evan Leibovitch]

Thanks for bringing the thread back on track, Colin.

> Seriously, I already have a ball rolling on this score, through what has become one of my favourite venues. Millions of Linux laptops being built, that is news, the sort of news magazine articles can be written around :-) .
>   
Big enough news that you're now competing for readers with the New York
Times and a good chunk of the blogsphere. This is very mainstream, made
even moreso when Gates publicly attacked the OLPC.

(Actually, I'm eagerly awaiting the first incident in which an
otherwise-eligible request for funding of an OLPC-related project is
rejected by the B&M Gates Foundation. Already the notion is getting
floated around --
http://www.techweb.com/blog/archives/2006/11/can_the_gates_f.html)

> Now, I am attempting to think of other ways money could be made off those laptops, creating texts (here is where being multi-lingual (which I am not) would be
> a big advantage), what else?
>   
There will be many opportunities, not only for software but also for
ideas that will create novel real-world applications. (Ie, the cellphone
didn't really realize its potential in the developing world until
coupled with the concept of microcredits.) There are many
non-educational possibilities, related to areas like healthcare and
security, that are barely even being imagined now. I can even see
instances where the OLPC could double as a (very weak) power generator,
leading to new innovations in items powered by a USB port that have
nothing to do with computing.

The problem in our context is that people aren't going to make much
money from this, especially people in the rich world. Because of the
nature of the project, most of the ancillary services will be provided
by local non-profits in the countries of deployment. They may be funded
by organizations such as Canada's IDRC, but most of that kind of aid
money must be spent directly in the recipient country.

Companies such as Red Hat and AMD are working either at-cost or below
cost to make this happen. As far as I can tell, the only entity earning
a real profit off OLPC is the Taiwanese factory that makes it. Others
are working at nominal salaries, and nominal salaries in the developing
world are far below those standards here.

- Evan

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists