XOXO XO-1

Introduction

I became enthusiastic and optimistic with One Laptop Per Child and the XO Laptop headed by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT ever since I first heard of the project back in 2005. How could I not be? It had a noble goal, it was tangible, and it had some very bright people behind it.

It also appealed to me in several very particular and important ways. First off, it was an education project. I have always felt strongly about education, and I believe it to be essential for ending poverty and social injustice and indeed, for freedom itself. In fact, this is as much a tool of emancipation as one of education. It also involved technology, a whole new platform in fact, with an original Graphical User Interface called Sugar.

Now I love technology, especially liberating ones, especially for kids (the next generation of humanity), and especially with new GUIs. I love the lost science-art called interface design, and this seems to progress (and sometimes seemingly regress) so slowly that it is wonderful when something new comes along-- not to mention it is based on Linux and wholesomely Open Source. It is not difficult to see why one would be so enthusiastic about this project from the get-go.

No-Distribution Models

However, even from the beginning I saw some potential pitfalls. I tried to see them as obstacles to be overcome, but they were troubling. First and foremost, the entire project relied on the wisdom and capital of the very governments which had failed their people.

To be fair, not all social and economical follies can be blamed on governments, but often the ways in which governments carry out (or neglect) their duties are directly or indirectly responsible for the current state of affairs in a nation. So going up to corrupt and/or broke governments and asking them to pay to change the status-quo always seemed foolhardy to me at best. OLPC needed to appeal directly to the people, not governments, in most cases.

Curiously, the countries where OLPC actually had a good chance of achieving their goal by appealing to governments directly, is where they did not even try. Negroponte had this idea that developed countries should not get first dibbs on XO laptops (or maybe even at all). I found this attitude very perplexing. It seems OLPC not only wanted to change the world (which is good), but simply rejected the processes by which the world works today (which is bad).

The idea seems to be that the XO should spread top-down on a nation-level (from the governments in developing nations to their people), but then down-top on a world-wide level (from developing nations to developed nations). This makes no sense at all, and it not how the world works (nor how it should), especially when it comes to technology.

It's as if there was some kind of bias against developed countries. The idea that the XO was not for the U.S.A. or any other developed country was one I never subscribed to. There are lots of poor areas in developed countries which would benefit from this project, and perhaps more importantly, there are lots of economically prosperous and rich areas in those countries which could both benefit from the XO and financially support the project as well.

That is what stimulated me to launch xoforall.com (now XOforall.info). I felt it needed to be said. I cannot absolutely say that it had nothing to do for my own personal want of an XO, however it was the overall success of the project which I was primarily concerned with. By having rich countries buying XO laptops, they would be both gaining from the project, and funding it for poorer countries.

Also, having rich nations adopt these machines would make make their adoption in poorer areas that much less difficult. Touting an unproven educational laptop in a poor country is a lot harder than selling a proven solution from a developed nation. One can be idealistic, and pragmatic, too. The XO should be for everybody and should not be limited to certain markets but be allowed to propagate everywhere-- especially where there is money to be had.

To be fair, OLPC has made XO laptops available in the U.S. and worldwide via the Give 1 Get 1 program, but it is very limited and certainly not the kind of regular availability needed.

On a side note, I never liked the "$100 laptop" moniker, not only because it seemed unlikely from the start, but because it emphasized the cost of the laptop instead of its educational value and noble purpose. I was not alone in this opinion, and apparently not far from the truth, as OLPC finally came around and dropped this unfortunate moniker.

XO Porn

Another issue which become increasingly apparent was the education factor. Although I loved the tech behind it, OLPC was always clear in that "It's an education project, not a laptop project", which I agree is essential. And yet, it became clear that the primary objective of Negroponte and friends was simply to get this laptop into kids' hands. And I vehemently disagree with that.
The XO cannot exist on its own. Without proper guidance from teachers well-versed in the applying and troubleshooting the technologies involved the project would fail, or become something else entirely. To allow such a situation would be contrary to any responsible educational goal. A technology is only as good as its user's wisdom.

Pornography was reportedly found on some children's XO laptops in Nigeria. Now these things happen, unfortunately. By no means will I judge OLPC by an isolated incident. However, it does illustrate the fact that use of the XO laptops needs to be supervised and guided by judicious adults, not simply "handed to the kids".

One of the most intriguing features of the XO laptop is the ability to create an instantaneous ad-hoc "mesh" network with all the other XO laptops within range. Now, an ordinary laptop can do this with the proper software settings. But the XO laptop was designed to do this by default and in a very intuitive way, with a very cool looking Sugar interface for it.

In this way, children can communicate and share information with others in range. If there are enough XO laptops in the area, the mesh network will use the XO laptops in between two distant and otherwise disconnected regions to patch all of them together, creating a huge, interactive network. I always thought this was a marvelous idea.

The XO laptops can also share an Internet connection in the same manner, using the same network, as long as at least one of the XO laptops is receiving an Internet connection. While the former means a regional community sharing together in new ways, the latter means unleashing the full force of the world onto the children.

Perhaps I am radical in my outlook, but I do not believe that children are benefitted nor prepared for unfiltered and unfettered access to the Internet.The XO laptops are normally fitted with very specific software, which would be capable of limiting the types of information accessible to the user. But an open web browser is as much a potential Pandora's box as a tool of enlightenment.

I do not believe children should not be permitted Internet access, but only that they be allowed it under the supervision and guidance of a judicious adult. Not everything is conducive to the goals of education and healthy development, and many things are counter them.

My entire point is that XO laptops should not be simply dropped into children's' hands for them to figure out, but that there needs to be some type of infrastructure around that, even if it's just one teacher with a few deputized adults in training, and limiting Internet access to the classroom.

To their credit, OLPC did promise to place filters on the XO laptops, which should restrict access to some of the more obvious sources of rubbish, but that is only a crude and partial solution to a problem that needs live people to take care of it.

Open & Not-So-Open Source

One of the shining lights of the project was the decision to use primarily Open Source software. This was very important, because I saw it as a protection against the XO becoming a "Trojan Horse" for Microsoft and software marketing. Instead of a learning tool, I feared the XO would become a marketing tool for Microsoft and other software venders peddling their wares. This would be truly insulting and diminishing to the project and its intended beneficiaries.

So when Steve Jobs offered Negroponte Mac OS X on every XO laptop for free in 2005, it made me merry to entertain the possibility, but I completely understood and agreed with Negroponte's reasons for refusing. Imagine my horror when Negroponte and Microsoft announced they would be shipping Windows XP as an option on the XO laptops in 2008. In fact Walter Bender, the guy in charge of software on the XO left OLPC apparently over a related issue and founded the independent Sugar Labs non-profit foundation, since it seems they no longer shared the same vision.

Negroponte has expressed doubt over the practicality of a wholly Open-Source-based machine, and I do indeed recognize it as a challenge, as merely the act of playing a DVD requires non-free software (the XO laptops don't have DVD drives, but you get the idea). However, a bit of a "dirty" system with some proprietary or non-free software is immensely preferable to a fundamentally non-free one with some Open-Source parts. In this case, Mac OS X would have been preferable.

Letting Go

I admit it was at this point that I finally started letting go of my emotional attachment and great hopes for OLPC. It had been too much. And throughout it all we had Negroponte saying and doing exactly the wrong things, and core people expressing doubt and dissatisfaction and leaving the project. I feel that OLPC is not the grand project it was sold to me as. Every project, especially one this ambitious has its growing pains. This is to be expected. But when it starts to violate its own founding principles, something is awry.

As such, I lost the fervent interest I once had in OLPC and the XO laptop. I never actually got to have one, believe it or not. Woz is a fan, even if he wasn't entirely successful in making it his primary PC. But that possibility is becoming more and more a reality for many people via netbooks. I plan on getting one sometime next year, if all goes well. I expect to run Sugar on it.

At least that's a sure contribution OLPC has made. I don't think we'd be seeing the kind of emerging netbook market out there if the XO hadn't sparked interest in this class of devices which Intel ridiculed as a "toy", but then went on to create it's own version and become the largest seller of netbook CPUs.

OLPC has certainly shaken things up, and I expect it will continue to do so. I just think it's lost focus of its mission, or maybe it never did figure out how exactly to do that. Maybe a new XO laptop or a change in OLPC administration will recapture my passion again. We'll see. For now, I wish them the best of luck, and I hope they really do manage to do good, in whatever form, wherever it may be. The world needs as much good as it can get right now. I just wish it had been more focused this time.

Not All Lost

As such, I experienced an unexpected excitement followed by some sadness when I spotted a huge billboard advertising the XO Give 1 Get 1 program while cruising through the city. It reminded me of all it could be, yet sadly, was not. But it also reminded me that in spite of OLPC's blunders, there are many bright, good people outside the project as well, working to do good with what has come of it.

There are now several groups bringing the XO laptops to U.S. classrooms, and Sugar Labs has put out an excellent portable version of "Sugar on a Stick- Strawberry". Moreover, Wayan Vota's OLPC News has become an excellent community resource for those who not only wish to follow the official project, but follow and organize innovative XO-related projects outside OLPC.

So while I stopped updating xoforall.info, it is in part because it's objectives have been met. And though I have frankly lost faith in Negroponte's ability to steer OLPC in the right direction, much good has already indirectly come from the project, and new people continue to do good things for education and technology thanks to the movement OLPC began.

Note: Many thanks to Wayan Vota, who has published this article with permission as a series of smaller ones on One Laptop Per Child News.