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Jobs offers Mac OS X for $100 Laptop
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That is so unrealistic!
It seems that Jobs have been metting with Hugo Chavez
The same kind of populist ideas that never come true. Like Chavez offering cheap gas at the Bronx ¿where is the gas?
Or offering $600K to one samba school in Brasil and then taking it back.
More of the same.
It seems that Jobs have been metting with Hugo Chavez
The same kind of populist ideas that never come true. Like Chavez offering cheap gas at the Bronx ¿where is the gas?
Or offering $600K to one samba school in Brasil and then taking it back.
More of the same.
MacTruck said:
There will be no "kids" buying anything...it's gonna be a program subsidized by local governments and donor agencies, obviously...
But good luck anyway to my poor fellow Brazilians that will touch a Linux-driven machine, as "easy" to use as it is...laudable, but crappy OS-wise.
And to those that say that OS X cannot run on old machines, my iBook G3 500 with 384Mb RAM is doing perfectly fine on Tiger, thanks very much...
jared_kipe said:
Not Standard?? I suppose OS X is the standard then?. You are right that
there are many distros out there but all of them basically are either using
GNOME or KDE as their default DE.
Horrible GUI? I hope you are kidding right. GNOME and KDE are as easy to
use as MS Windows, specially if you don't do too much with your computer
(just mail,internet,IM.) It is true you need some time to adapt but there is
always a learning curve with anything new.
OS X is amazing and all but saying that everything else is crap is pure FUD.
Oh well...another Apple Fanboy.
mac-er said:Yea, we know where these laptops would end up with these type of governments buying them.....anywhere but in the hands of the people who would need them. Govt's of developing countries aren't typically concerned with the welfare of their citizens. Gov'ts in Africa are among the most corrupt in the world. Look at North Korea....you think he would supply the laptops he bought to his people? He doesn't even supply them with food.
Indians.{joke}
Gosh, bushisms really abound in the "land of the free"...are you the same guys that defend torture of "terrorists", deny hidden CIA torture centers in Europe or think Bush is a clean guy? Get a grip and spare us from such generic (and moronic) remarks, please...
mymemory said:
600 grand to samba schools in Brazil? What for? They've already got enough money, AFAIK...
I havn't read everything here
nor will I take the time to do so so I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned however don't 3rd world countries need electricity first? And what advantage would a computer give these people, that might have electricity, if they had a $100 laptop? They don't need a computer to type a resume nor do I see a need for a lot of C programmers or site coders.
Even with electricity and a laptop, they would still need at the minimum a phone line to take advantage of the worlds knowledge.
nor will I take the time to do so so I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned however don't 3rd world countries need electricity first? And what advantage would a computer give these people, that might have electricity, if they had a $100 laptop? They don't need a computer to type a resume nor do I see a need for a lot of C programmers or site coders.
Even with electricity and a laptop, they would still need at the minimum a phone line to take advantage of the worlds knowledge.
geese said:
I have to agree...
10 years back... hardly any one owned a cell phone here.. today even sweepers own cell phones! calling rates are like... 2 cents a min for long distance and a cent a minute for local calls. Also handsets are available within 30$ here.
The cell phone has tapped the 300-350 million poor Indian population. 500-600 million can be categorized in middle class and the rest are the elite. Tapping the poor market did the trick for the cell phone companies.
This $100 laptop will certainly help the rural population very much. Looks like Vision 2020 will come true finally
It's a tool
Why is everyone assuming that the main purpose of these laptops is to teach computer skills? I don't believe that it is. These are a means to an end, not the end in themselves ( a common mis-perception by computer hobbyists and industry insiders.) It's OK to revel in the design of a tool but remember that the design exists to fulfill a purpose. In this case, the tool will be used for communication and learning. Compare the $100 cost of this laptop to the cost of paper textbooks over several years and $100 doesn't seem so expensive anymore.
Why is everyone assuming that the main purpose of these laptops is to teach computer skills? I don't believe that it is. These are a means to an end, not the end in themselves ( a common mis-perception by computer hobbyists and industry insiders.) It's OK to revel in the design of a tool but remember that the design exists to fulfill a purpose. In this case, the tool will be used for communication and learning. Compare the $100 cost of this laptop to the cost of paper textbooks over several years and $100 doesn't seem so expensive anymore.
mac-er said:
Oh, really? So these dastardly depraved empires are going to stockpile on cheap technology and hold them above grabbing height of the children that need them? No corrupt government official would have any use for a cheap laptop when they could easily buy a real computer from real bribes. Step out of your cave once in a while.
And please stop saying that they should worry about food, medicine, etc. first. If food were an issue, the government would not be buying bulk orders of what to them would be $100 paperweights to replace their food stockpile.
mac-er said:
So we should just give them handouts and food so they could live another day, instead of trying to empower them to help themselves? These laptops could really boost their education, and it would enable them to do lots and lots of different things, which would be a significanty boost for them in the long run. Pumping food there would only enable them to live for another 24 hours, with zero possibility of them getting on their feet.
Linux might be difficult for those who have been brought up using Windows. But fact is that today Linux is very easy to use, and it has all the apps you could want. For the most part, Linux "just works", and it does that better than Windows does.
jared_kipe said:
What is a "standard" GUI and what is not? I assume you think OS X/Aqua is "standard" GUI. What makes Aqua "standard" whereas KDE (for example) is not? And there's only handful of GUI's for Linux. There might be several distros (for the reason that one OS can't satisfy every need), but there's only handful of GUI's that are widely used. GNOME and KDE are the two most popular, with XFCE propably being the third.
You mean, apart from spending one's free time to create a kick-ass software, giving it to others and saying "here, use this as you see fit"?
winmacguy said:
Microcrap is a HELL of a lot more closed sourced than OS X, it's the antichrist of open source. If they go with M$ they're basically being complete hypocrites. And haven't these people in the third world suffered enough to then saddle them with the nightmare that is the crap out of Redmond?
This is a really good thing.
Educating folks will lead to jobs, jobs will give them food. All the while strengthening their economies, so they can offer a future to their children.
I have doubts about a government buying a bunch of laptops and not giveing them out. They are not very desirable laptops, adn as technology marches on, they will be worth less and less.... just doesn't look profitable.
Finally- I bet we could speed this along.. I have four PCs in my garage right now...if we all grabbed old / obsolete machines and sent them to MIT,, it would be better than letting them rot in a landfill!
Educating folks will lead to jobs, jobs will give them food. All the while strengthening their economies, so they can offer a future to their children.
I have doubts about a government buying a bunch of laptops and not giveing them out. They are not very desirable laptops, adn as technology marches on, they will be worth less and less.... just doesn't look profitable.
Finally- I bet we could speed this along.. I have four PCs in my garage right now...if we all grabbed old / obsolete machines and sent them to MIT,, it would be better than letting them rot in a landfill!
katie ta achoo said:yeah, but throw in some RAM and put windows (ew) on it, and you have a pretty good all-purpose laptop for your grammaw or something. (you know, the one that can't program her VCR.
i will gladly let my grammaw know there's a laptop on the way.
OSX ina handheld, here we come!
I think the offer was legit, and a good thing. And I think the turndown was regrettable but understandable, fully open source software makes sense there.
But the thing is, OSX is big. The only way this would work is if OSX was stripped down fairly substantially. I think this could be done without too much pain. So. Steve was willing to put a LOT of work into a stripped down OSX that fits in a rather minimal machine. I think Steve has given this some thought. Some substantial thought.
Remember Newton? DANG, that was a good handheld. If it had kept being worked on we would have one heck of a device today. But it was dropped. The given reason? They didn't want to have to develop and maintain two major but very different operating systems.
Look at the size of some of the computers out there. Nokia's new terminal device, PDAs, even phones running decent Linux variants. These devices are getting to be pretty good computer hardware units.
Long story short: I see a handheld. A PHONE. Running OSX. In our future. Apple branded. I give it one year.
I think the offer was legit, and a good thing. And I think the turndown was regrettable but understandable, fully open source software makes sense there.
But the thing is, OSX is big. The only way this would work is if OSX was stripped down fairly substantially. I think this could be done without too much pain. So. Steve was willing to put a LOT of work into a stripped down OSX that fits in a rather minimal machine. I think Steve has given this some thought. Some substantial thought.
Remember Newton? DANG, that was a good handheld. If it had kept being worked on we would have one heck of a device today. But it was dropped. The given reason? They didn't want to have to develop and maintain two major but very different operating systems.
Look at the size of some of the computers out there. Nokia's new terminal device, PDAs, even phones running decent Linux variants. These devices are getting to be pretty good computer hardware units.
Long story short: I see a handheld. A PHONE. Running OSX. In our future. Apple branded. I give it one year.
Object-X said:I can't believe they declined it! So, you are going to force the less fortunate of the world to suffer with an overly complex and inferior OS? I thought the whole idea was to help people not push your stupid open source idealism.
Mind your language, man!
If you think that Linux is "overly complex" (it's not more or less complex than Win or OSX) or "inferior" (it'll definitely be on par to OS X on these wonderfully pre-configured Notebooks!) you're not in the position to call anyone an idiot.
greetz,
-lex
Object-X said:
What makes it "inferior"? It's actually better than OS X on many areas, like it or not.
I thought the whole idea was to help people not push your stupid open source idealism.
That "stupid open source idealism" has given you and Apple such things as the core of OS X, GCC (Xcode....), Samba (connectivity to Windows-world), Safari and lots of other goodies. Without "stupid open source idealism" you would still be running OS 9. So watch your language, buddy!
And the point of this laptop is to help them empower themselves. As nice as OS X is, how does it "empower" them, when they are reliant on Apple?
World does not revolve around OS X and Apple. I commend Jobs for his offer, but Linux is a perfect choice for a project like this.
snkTab said:
You can give all the money in the world to poor countries to feed them but they'll never get out of their situation - they need *education*. Computers will aid greatly to that. Education that fits the need to the world today.
If they demand open source then open source is what they'll get. I see no problem with Linux on these machines.
Linux is very scalable, you can run it quite happily on a computer with very little horse power, very little storage etc ( a very low spec'ed computer - something you cannot do with OSX )
Once you've learnt one OS ( GUI ), it isn't very hard learning another - Linux -> Windows -> OSX etc. Its basically all the same idea, same ideology
noreturn said:
Give me a break....they wouldn't keep the laptops. They would keep the money that would be used to buy them. Step out of your cave, and stop believing that 3rd world governments give a rat's ass about anything other than staying in power.
BRLawyer said:
What does this have to do with anything? I never said Bush was anything good.
I'm glad you think that the dictators of 3rd world countries are such saints and would do what they say with handouts.
Please spare us from the "generic (and moronic)" (your words) American bashing.