On "They have laid bare the schism in this laudable project to bring cheap computing to millions of children across the developing world." From BBC News

Surely the real question underlying the One Laptop Per Child project is not the nature of the operating system -but the nature of "computing" itself.

A laudable sounding aim .... but check out the specs of the machines being advertised in your local store -you are very unlikely to see any reference to "Computing". Who on earth "computes" with a computer nowadays? The scientific and educational potential of the computer has (for all practical purposes) been degraded by the commercial system to a simple "communication" device only suitable for commercially exploiting the ignorant user. Under these conditions, bridging the digital divide is more likely to increase digital feudalism than enfranchise people by developing computing skills.

"Windows is a requirement because enough people grew up with it, not the other way around. If OLPC made a billion people grow up with Linux, Linux would be just dandy for business." From BBC News.

This is most certainly true. Old habits die hard. Presumably, the Linux user base is itself the result of UNIX being distributed to US universities for 1 dollar in the idyllic pre-PC days when most (US) academic systems used UNIX -and users had to have some idea of how their machine actually functioned. How many BBC reporters have actually had any serious experience with Linux? How free and open was the BBC's choice of technology for its own use?

On the world service radio, I have heard a BBC business correspondent say that professionals were migrating to Linux and that only the amateur dummies were likely to use MS in the future. One wonders how often technology correspondents talk to their colleagues in other areas. Recently, I noticed that Ayala -a big corporation who run giant malls here in the Philippines were using Linux -so it is a seriously threat to MS. No wonder MS are getting antsy....

On the other hand, if you can find any Linux-based laptops in your local store -then try comparing the available system with a "real" (traditional) Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, Slackware, etc... Chances are the commercial versions look more like parodies than distributions.... Xandros only has icons and no command-line interface when I saw it -while the version of Linpus I saw in a Manila mall yesterday didn't have an X-windows system..... So it seems that commercial companies are presenting incomplete operating systems under the misleading title of "Linux". No wonder the public knows no better than to buy MS products. In some cases the shops remove the Linux and install MS because they themselves have no understanding of any alternative system.

Incidentally, in the mid 1980's the Commodore Amiga 2000 offered a duel system -with an IBM type motherboard as optional extra for those weird people who wanted MS compatible systems instead of the multitasking windows type system and the multi-processor desktop video and sound capabilities of the Amiga. This was back in the days before the dummies killed innovative technology. Actually, in those days, companies encouraged their employees to buy (cheap, cloned) IBM compatible PC's for private use -presumably so they didn't need to spend money training people. That's when IBM compatible machines stopped being business machines and they copied the capabilities of the more sophisticated Apple and Amiga machines -so the PC then also became a fun thing to play with at home. Presumably, the OLPC project is just a rehash of that promotional project -now updated to turn the 3rd world into a captive market too.

Perhaps you might check out the BBC's own story "US plans to 'fight the net' revealed" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm) and compare it with Death by ICT - A Critical Look at the Information Society (http://korakora.org/proyekto/death-by-ICT) and Leon Bagrit's 1964 BBC Reith Lectures (http://www.tebatt.net/SAT/COGITATIONS/UPcursorLecture/BagritAutomationAg...)

Then isn't it a bit difficult not to conclude that Bagritt foresaw the future very well -and that the potential for a truly liberating use of technology has been derailed by the US military and commercial systems acting in collaboration? The ARPA project MAC (mentioned by Bagritt) seems to provide the key to modern computing -and was also centered on MIT, the home of the OLPC project. Is it possible that the huge American (military) subsidies via ARPA made it impossible for the British (and other) computer industry to survive? How does this fit in with a world which discourages government subsidies to companies? Is there one rule for the US and another for the rest of the world?

Perhaps BBC journalists should do many more background information checks before writing technology stories that are likely to promote digital feudalism even more. So many "technology" stories seem to be uncritical "lifestyle" promotions for commercial systems. Why, for example, are there links to Delicious, Digg, reddit, Facebook and StumbleUpon on every BBC news page? This hardly encourages a belief in the neutrality of the BBC.

Personally, I can't help feeling that the OLPC project, if it wasn't a deliberate scam was doomed from the beginning. The road to Hell is always paved with good intentions....

Indeed, it seems that most current "ICT roadmaps" only lead to Hell -that's because ICT no longer has anything to do with "computing" for most users. This may well prove to be a global social disaster of untold proportions. If only people had listened to Bagritt and not ARPA. Now it is probably already too late.

Generations of users have grown up groomed to understand the computer no further than the user interface. In the meantime. the machine computes but the people can do little more than point and click..... Is that "emancipation" or is it actually "digital slavery"? Is that why we are now educating the 3rd world to use computers -without telling them how to compute?