Negroponte Says Windows 'Runs Well' On XO Laptop

Stony Stevenson alerts us to comments from OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte indicating his approval of Windows' performance on the XO laptop. Negroponte said in an email, "Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux platforms and to run under Windows." The full email is available at OLPC News. He was also quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Sugar "didn't have a software architect who did it in a crisp way," and cited the lack of Flash as an example. Negroponte continued, "There are several examples like that, that we have to address without worrying about the fundamentalism in some of the open-source community. One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source fundamentalist."

Typical knee-jerk reaction

[geekboy642]

"One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source fundamentalist."

Nuh-uh!

Re:Lack of Flash?!?!?!

[oDDmON oUT]

How is hell is MS's bloatware supposed to fix that?

Mystically, with an infusion of Bill Gates $$$ up the orifice, like any other Kool-Aid©.

What version

[danbert8]

I don't doubt that Windows 3.1 runs fine under VirtualBox running in Linux... Of course that might have been mentioned in the article, but who reads that anyway?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Listening to Fox News and mimicking what you hear there does not make you insightful.

Typo

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what he said was "Windows, well... runs..."

It runs well on the XO?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great. Now all Microsoft have to do is fix for every other computer in the world.

In the Crossfire

[Enderandrew]

Now we turn to RMS for his response...

PLUG time for FanBoys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fundamentalist = Fanboy?

Well, we always did call the Windows/mac/*nix/os2warp battle a "holy war" so I suppose he has a point. What is he gonna do now? Protestant Linux User Groups (Or PLUG for short)?

Oh, and just one more thing... /me sings "Its springtime for fanboys, and openscource...."

HERESY!!

[conan1989]

"One can be an open-source advocate without being an open-source fundamentalist."

HERESY!! release him to the penguins, wildebeest and cute little devils wearing green shoes

This is what happens when you call it a "Laptop"

[QuantumG]

If they had called it "One E-book Per Child" and then all people would have is praise. "Wow, they were just trying to give an e-book to every child in the world, but look at all this other cool stuff it does!"

But no.

Win98?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume he's talking about Windows 98?

There's no way that Vista or XP "Runs Well" on that device. No way.

XO: Best Laptop for Windows

[Doc Ruby]

If Windows runs well on an XO laptop, then that makes the XO laptop the best PC in the world. Because I've never seen Windows run well on any other machine.

Maybe it "runs well" because it doesn't run at all. Probably the only way to get it to run in a "secure mode", anyway.

Re:Mac OSX

[Blackbrain]

Yes he did. Negroponte is very insightful.

Re:Lack of Flash?!?!?!

[Chris Burke]

Stop. Think about the meaning of the words you are using. Select correct words. Continue.

If I actually thought about the meaning of words I'm using, then I'd never be able to use the word "fartknocker". So I simply find your advice impractical.

Re:Lack of Flash?!?!?!

[TeacherOfHeroes]

What are you, some kind of language fundamentalist?

Fartknocker

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this guy up - great word - fartknocker! We just need an appropriate use case for it now.

Re:Poor software design???

[PPH]

I really have to wonder how many zeros were in the check that Ballmer wrote him.

Just the one in the "Pay to the order of" blank.

Re:Lack of Flash?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I fixed that for you.

Maybe they should have stopped, thought about the meaning of the words they used, selected the correct words and continued.

Re:Lack of Flash?!?!?!

[cHiphead]

Look, until we stop complaining by saying we are sick and tired of this or that, and actually start stabbing these motherfuckers, the entire discussion is moot.

Cheers.

Re:don't I know it

[powermacx]

Among the same lines:

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Apple boss Steve Jobs offered to equip each of the machines with a gratis copy of Mac OS X.
Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT and one of the project's founders, said the scheme had refused Jobs' offer on the grounds that Mac OS X is a proprietary system.
Papert told the WSJ: "We declined because it's not open source," adding the $100 laptop creators will only choose an operating system where the source code is open and can be altered.

This is what Steve Wozniac had to say a while ago:

I was on a panel with Nicholas in Seoul this year and admired the fact that he'd turned down an offer from Jobs for the Macintosh OS on the OLPC because it wasn't open sourced. I both donated to the program and also bought the give-one get-one and I do have it.

I wonder how he feels about the project now that they are going to use XP...

Re:XO: Best Laptop for Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

It is all in the punctuation. What Negroponte actually said: "Windows runs? Well ..."

Re:Fartknocker

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this guy up - great word - fartknocker! We just need an appropriate use case for it now.

It's a synonym for "Mac User" and "homosexual".

Ooooo... strong words from someone who likes getting fucked in the ass by Microsoft all the time.

Re:Power Power Power and infrastructure

[Fred_A]

There are no bushmen [wildways.iway.na] in Nairobi [kijabe.org].

Of course not, they're all in Washington.

Oh, wait... never mind.

Awesome!

[RevDigger]

One botnet node per child.